Variants of DSR Protocol and their Contrasting Features

Energy efficient routing protocols have been the major topic of research these days. The main reason behind the wider research on the same is the limitation of mobile adhoc networks. The mobile adhoc network consist of nodes which have unlimited mobility level within the range, and most importantly limited battery capacity. These drawbacks of nodes harm the nodes itself and even the network‟s capacity they belong to. So as a result of this many routing protocols have been optimized and converted into energy efficient routing protocols. Out of the present protocols DSR is considered as the best protocol when conservation of energy is the need. This paper describes why DSR is considered as the best energy efficient algorithm. It also discusses the original DSR in brief and elaborating the strategies of optimization. This paper describes many variants of energy efficient DSR protocol. Each of the protocol uses different mechanism of optimization, but having the same global goal of effective energy utilization.