Performance Comparison of Flat and Cluster-Based Hierarchical Ad Hoc Routing with Entity and Group Mobility

Ad hoc routing protocols can be divided into flat and hierarchical routing. One typical way to build hierarchy is to group mobile nodes into clusters, thus decrease routing space and improve network performance. Mobility models also affect the performance of ad hoc routing protocols and can be divided into entity mobility and group mobility models. This paper first studies the performance of flat routing, AODV and DSR, and cluster-based hierarchical routing, CBRP and ECBRP, on entity mobility, Random Waypoint, and group mobility, RPGM and RRGM. Performance comparisons between flat and cluster-based hierarchical routing protocols in different mobility models are analyzed. We have observed that the effects of group mobility on routing protocols are significantly different from that of entity mobility.