Comparative performance study of ADMR and ODMRP in the context of wireless LANs and wireless sensor networks

Wireless LANs (WLANs) and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are two large groups of networks that have well established application ranges. Despite the fact that they address very distinctive groups of devices and have clearly differentiated wireless interfaces, there are certain similarities which push scientists to look for adopting solutions already designed for WLANs to WSNs. An example of this is the case with routing layer protocols. AODV, an unicast routing protocol, developed for Mobile Ad Hoc networks (MANET), has proved to be applicable and accepted by IEEE as the standard for the routing layer in Low Rate - Wireless Personal Area Networks (LR-WPAN). Still, MANET-originated solutions, including multicast protocols, were initially designed in the context of IEEE 802.11 MAC layer protocol. This paper investigates the feasibility of two popular MANET multicast protocols, ADMR and ODMRP over the IEEE 802.15.4 standard and provides a comprehensive study of the performance of these two protocols with different underlying physical and media access protocols. The protocols have been analyzed with ns-2 network simulator. It appears that even though both protocols are applicable in the selected scenarios, there are specifics in their performance in the context of WSNs which should not be neglected.