Scalability of Zone Routing Protocol Extensions for Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

This study is a modification of the research by Dr. Sinha, which explains the scalability of ZRP for unidirectional links. Ad-Hoc Networks are the mobile nodes that communicate with each other. An ad-hoc network neither not have any infrastructures nor it posses any fixed topology. The routing of data between such networks is quite a difficult task. Several routing protocols have been proposed for wireless ad-hoc networks. Most of the proposed are assumed to be of bi-directional links but in actual the ad-hoc networks have different transmission range and routing capabilities. The Zone routing Protocol is designed keeping the unidirectional behavior of nodes in the networks. The Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP) is a hybrid routing protocol that proactively maintains routes within a local region of the network (which we refer to as the routing zone). Knowledge of this routing zone topology is leveraged by the ZRP to improve the efficiency of a reactive route query/reply mechanism. The ZRP can be configured for a particular network through adjustment of a single parameter, the routing zone radius. In this study, we address the issue of configuring the ZRP to provide the best performance for a particular network at any time. Previous study has demonstrated that an optimally configured ZRP operates at least as efficiently as traditional reactive flood-search or proactive distance vector/link state routing protocols (and in many cases, much more efficiently)