Performance evaluation for on-demand routing protocols based on OPNET modules in wireless mesh networks

In wireless networks, users expect to get access to the network securely and seamlessly to share the data flow of access points anytime and anywhere. However, either point-to-point or point-to-multipoint methods in traditional wireless networks make the network bandwidth decrease rapidly, which cannot meet the requirements of users. Recently, a new wireless broadband access network, wireless mesh networks (WMNs), has emerged. As one of the key technologies in WMNs, wireless routing protocols plays an important role in performance optimization of WMNs. Therefore, in this paper, we address the on-demand routing protocols by focusing on dynamic source routing (DSR) protocol and ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) routing protocol in WMNs. Then, we use the OPNET modules to establish the simulation models of DSR and AODV protocols in WMNs. Simulation and results show that, DSR protocol that is based on the dynamic source routing is not suitable for wireless transmission, while AODV routing protocol that is based on the purpose-driven routing is suitable for wireless transmission with rapid change of network topology. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.