Opportunistic Routing (OR) is attracted much in the research field of multi-hop wireless networks because it is different from traditional routing protocols [such as: Distance Vector (DV) and Link State (LS)], that it needs a lightweight protocol which is strong source routing basis]. In this paper, the development of opportunistic routing (OR) is presented, starting from the Selection Diversity Forwarding (SDF), Extended Opportunistic (ExOR), Proactive Source Routing (PSR), Cooperative Opportunistic Routing Scheme in Mobile AD Hoc Networks(CORMAN), and the Zone-based Proactive Source Routing(ZPSR). The simulation tests using Network Simulator 2 (ns2) show the effectiveness of Opportunistic Routing protocols among various terms including control overhead, Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), throughput, and end-to-end delay.
