Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) is capable of autonomously forming a network without human interaction. Each node in a WSN acts as a router, forwarding data packets to other nodes. Without routing protocols, these routers cannot work together in phase. A central challenge in the design of WSN is the development of routing protocols that can efficiently find routes in a network. The question is which criteria should be considered when selecting a routing protocol, for instance, energy consumption (battery life), bandwidth, or security? We selected energy consumption as this is the most important criterion in WSN. To find out the best routing protocol, we analyzed three routing protocols namely AODV (Ad-hoc On Demand Distance Vector), AOMDV (Ad-hoc On Demand Multiple Distance Vector), and DSDV (Destination Sequence Distance Vector). Overall performance of these protocols was analyzed by comparing end-to-end delay, throughput, normalized routing load, and energy consumption of the network. This was accomplished by using the Network Simulator, NS-2.34 over IEEE 802.11. The analysis shows that AOMDV is the best routing protocol in terms of energy consumption.