Author(s): M. Palaniammal; M. Lalli
Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) is collection of multi-hop wireless mobile nodes that Communicate with each other without centralized control or established infrastructure. The wireless links in this network are highly error prone and can go down frequently due to mobility of nodes, interference and less infrastructure. Therefore, routing in MANET is a critical task due to highly dynamic environment. In recent years, several routing protocols have been proposed for mobile ad hoc networks and prominent among them are DSR, AODV and TORA. This research paper provides an overview of these protocols by presenting their advantages and disadvantages of the proactive, reactive and hybrid protocols and then makes their comparative analysis of their advantages and disadvantages. The objective is to make observations about how the advantages and disadvantages of these protocols can be improved.