Performance analysis of WMN routing protocols for disaster networks

This paper evaluates the performance of the routing protocols HWMP, Babel and B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced for disaster networks. The evaluation is performed using a virtual environment so that the obtained results are similar to the expectations of a real world testbed. According to the specific requirements in disaster situations, three different scenario categories are implemented. The focus of the scenarios defined in the first category is to evaluate the behavior of the protocols inside a static network. The focus in the second category is to test their performance after dynamic processes. The focus in the last category is to predict the behavior of the routing protocols inside a large network expected after a disaster. The obtained results can be interpreted as follows: in the first category, the results obtained by HWMP and B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are similar. Both protocols take the variations in the link throughput into consideration for their routing operations. In the second category, the protocol HWMP shows the most promising results concerning dynamic processes inside the network. The results obtained in the last category show that none of the examined protocols is appropriate for large networks, with the exception of Babel, which can be modified to support a large number of clients and routers. Because none of the examined routing protocols can fulfil the requirements in disaster situation, a new network architecture is proposed, which combines the advantages of two routing protocols to address the existing routing challenges.