2011 11th International Conference on ITS Telecommunications

Evaluation of ad-hoc routing protocols in vehicular

ad-hoc network using OPNET
Xiaozhou Fang

K K Chai, Y Alfadhl, Y Sun

International School
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Beijing, China
joe.xfang@gmail.com

School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science

Queen Mary, University of London
London, UK
Michael.Chai@eecs.qmul.ac.uk
nodes which have to obey the traffic light signal and been
driven on the predefined roads, instead of random moving
nodes that defined in most of the MANET projects.

AbstractVehicular Ad-hoc NETwork (VANET) is becoming a

promising technology in which moving vehicles are able to
exchange information between them without the need of
infrastructure. The original idea of VANET is for the safety
purposes such as warning the drivers when there is an accident
happened in the front of the road. Nowadays, VANET is
extended to offer more services like downloading emails transfer,
assessing Internet and Global Positioning System (GPS) services.
To make sure that information transmitted correctly, an efficient
routing protocol is crucial and indispensable for coping with the
rapid topology changes. In this paper, we developed an OPNET
model to evaluate the VANET performance of Ad-hoc Ondemand Distance Vector (AODV) and Dynamic Source Routing
(DSR) protocols in the city with different scenarios. We found out
that AODV outperforms DSR protocol in VANET with
increasing vehicles.

The rest of this paper is organized as follow: In section II,

we briefly introduce the ad hoc routing protocols. Section III
discusses the design of the vehicular scenarios with traffic
signal mechanism and vehicles trajectories. The OPNET
implementation is presented in section VI. We present the
simulation results in section V and then we draw conclusion in
section VI.
II.

Keywords-Ad-hoc routing protocol; Vehicular Ad-hoc Network;

AODV; DSR; network simulation

I.

INTRODUCTION

Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications have gained high

interest in recent years to provide a prospective that vehicles
are able to receive traffic information without fixed
infrastructure. In the VANET, the vehicles are equipped with
on board unit (OBU) where serves as both router and terminal
functions, that is able to communicate with the distant vehicles
via intermediate vehicles through packet forwarding [1].

In VANET, topology changes frequently because of

individual driving behaviors. Thus, the latest routing table
which requires consistent update information in table-driven is
considered to be efficient. Thus, in this paper, we only focus on
the performance of demand-driven routing protocols in
VANET. AODV and DSR routing protocols will be introduced
separately in the following section.

VANETs are proposed to offer wide range of applications

like safety warning, traffic information broadcasting and
Internet surfing. However, all these applications can only be
realised if the packet routing protocol can meet the minimum
QoS requirements. In most of previous work such as [2], they
were focusing on Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) where
the movements of nodes are random and totally different from
the realistic predefined vehicles' trajectories. In order to better
evaluate the routing protocols and get more realistic simulation
results, we developed VANET model and RSU model in
OPNET Modeler 14.5.

AODV routing protocol

AODV routing protocol is an improvement on DestinationSequenced Distance Vector (DSDV) protocol. AODV
maintains overall routing tables in the nodes and only
establishes routes when two nodes require a connection.
AODV is classified as a pure on-demand route acquisition
system [4], because few routing information is stored in the
nodes that are not on the selected route. A distinctive feature of
AODV is that it uses sequence number in routing discovery
process to avoid the counting to infinity problem [5].

The first contribution of this paper is the authors have

evaluated the two most commonly used ad hoc routing
protocols: Ad-hoc On Demand Vector (AODV) and Dynamic
Source Routing (DSR) protocols for VANET environments.
The second contribution is, the authors have defined the vehicle

978-1-61284-671-2/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE

AD-HOC ROUTING PROTOCOLS

Packet routing is a process of discovering available paths

for packets to go through and reach the destination in an
efficient route. As for ad-hoc routing protocols, they can be
mainly divided into two categories: Table-Driven protocols and
Demand-Driven protocols. The main difference between tabledriven and demand-driven routing protocols is the way of
storing routing table information. Table-driven routing
protocols always attempt to update the routing table to maintain
the consistent overview of the whole network. On the other
hand, demand-Driven routing protocols only create routes that
are desired and hence the routing table information is only kept
for very short period of time in most cases [3].

39

There are three types of message are used in AODV

routing process: Route Request (RREQ), Route Reply (RREP)
and Route Error (RERR). The network keeps silent until the
source node needs to communicate with the destination node.
If no valid route existed, route discovery process will be
initiated. The source node then broadcasts RREQs to its
neighbours, which will also forward this RREQ to their
neighbours and so on, until the RREQ reaches the destination
or an intermediate node which contains valid route to the
destination. Each node will assign sequence number and
broadcast ID. The sequence number will be increased along
the path with every RREQ generated. Therefore, RREQ can be
identified based on broadcast ID and the IP address of source
node.

III.

OVERALL DESIGN OF THE SIMULATION

We created two projects that include 14 scenarios. The first

project is named VANET_1, which AODV and DSR protocols
are applied. The second project is called VANET_RSU, which
evaluates the VANET performance with RSU.
A. VANET_1
VANET_1 is the main project for analysing routing
protocols behaviour in VANET environment, in which details
like traffic light signal and vehicular traces are being
considered.
Layout of the city scenario
In the design of scenarios, we assume that VANET_1 is
applied in the city centre. Thus, particular events, such as road
pattern and traffic light, should be taken into account. In order
to simplify the city centre scenarios, we designed a 3km*3km
area which has 4 crossroads and 12 road segments--1km long
of each. Also there are traffic lights equipped at the junction of
two road segments; sum up to be 8 traffic lights in the entire
area. Fig.1 shows the virtual map of this city scenario.

When RREQ reaches the destination or intermediate node

having an active route, it will reply back to the source. All
other RREQs arrive later from other nodes will be discarded.
When a link failure is detected by upstream node in the
network, RERR will be fed back to the source node and new
route discovery process will be initiated upon receives of
RERR.
DSR protocol
Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) protocol is a DemandDriven routing protocol based on the concept of source routing
[6]. It is a simple ad hoc routing protocol because it caches
routing information in each node even though it is on-demand
basis. The cached routing information indicates existed route in
the network and it will be updated when any routes are
discovered. Because of the cached routing information, the
overhead is minimized for periodic information transmission.

Figure 1. Layout of city scenario with traffic signal

Traffic Control Mechanism

DSR protocol composes two main processes: Route

discovery and Route maintenance. The same as AODV
protocol, the RREQ and RREP messages are used in DSR
route discovery process. Before sending RREQ, source node
will consult its routing cache to check whether there is any
unexpired routes can be used. If there is no available existing
route in the cache then the source node starts to broadcast
RREQ which contains a unique ID number and the addresses
of both source and destination node. Upon receive RREQ, the
node checks for any valid route to the destination. The process
continues to pass RREQ to the next nodes until it reaches final
destination or node that consists of the route to the destination.
The nodes on the route may receive several RREQs labelled
with same ID number but different route record due to the
broadcast mechanism from the source node. In this situation,
nodes only forward the first arrival of RREQ in which their
addresses have not been recorded.
When the RREQ reach the destination or intermediate node
which holds an unexpired route to the destination, RREP
contains route message will be generated and forwarded back
to source. If it is an intermediate node then the route
information will be added in the RREP.

The most common element in traffic control mechanism is

traffic light. In the Fig.1, all the traffic lights are labeled with
numbers from T1 to T8. The time span of light switching is 1
minute. The signals of two traffic lights located in the same
crossroad are complementary. The vehicles have four choices
when they approach crossroad: turning left, turning right,
passing through and stop. A traffic turning mechanism is set in
for vehicles to follow. When the traffic light is GREEN,
vehicles can turn left or go through. When the traffic light is
RED, vehicles can only turn right; otherwise they have to stop
to wait until the light change. For example, in Fig.1, one
vehicle on S3 is approaching T3 can directly turn right at 1
minute and 45 seconds when light is red. Table 1shows the
traffic switching time interval.
TABLE I.

40

SWITCH TIME IN TRAFFIC LIGHT IN MINUTE(S)

Property Design of Vehicles in Network

The number of nodes has direct impactt on the routing
performance in VANET. With a higher vehhicle density, the
connectivity in the network will be better. M
Multiple scenarios
with different number of vehicles have beeen designed and
simulated in OPNET.
Movement of vehicles in VANET can be cconsidered as the
most distinguish feature compared with MA
ANET. Vehicular
traffic simulation can generally be classifiedd as macroscopic
and microscopic approach [7]. Macroscopic aapproach focuses
on the overall network performance, whhile microscopic
approach concerns on the individual movem
ment. In VANET
simulation, accurate vehicle position is requuired for routing
protocols and therefore we follow the microscoopic approach.

Figure 3. Topology of VANETs with

w 40 and 100 vehicles

Design of data source and transmission in VANET

The data generation process is essential in VANET
simulation. In this simulation, the traffic information
transmitted in VANET is assumed to be relatively simply. For
this reason, raw packets are used
u
to represent traffic
information forwarded in the VAN
NET. In order to make the
simulation result more concise, only
y one vehicle in the network
will generate traffic information.

In order to simulate the traffic condition in real city roads,

we proposed an action rule based on thee general traffic
situation. This action rule is used to determ
mine the vehicles
actions.
Fig. 2 (i) shows the percentage of vehiccle take turning.
According to the rule, 60% of vehicles w
will directly pass
through the 3km*3km area, slightly greater thhan the 40% left.
Among the 40% of vehicles which take turnning, about 25%
take only 1 turning and 15% take 2 turnings inn their trajectories.
Fig. 2 (ii) is the percentage of vehicle leaving the network. The
initial network contains 60% vehicles which aare going to leave
the network. Among these 60% of vehicles, 355% of which will
leave the network via a long distance way annd 25% of which
will take the shortest one. Meanwhile, 40% oof vehicles which
are out of the network at the beginning w
will get into the
network after different interval from 10 secondds to 4 minutes.

One of the factors that influeences the routing protocol

performance is the transmission ran
nge of the vehicles. As the
transmission range increase, fewer hops are required between
source and destination. Thus it can help to improve the overall
network connectivity and reduce the bandwidth. However,
wider range of data transmission requires higher power, which
could create higher interference in the system. Since the
transmission range in VANET is defined
d
between 100 to 300
meters so we set the 200 meters as th
he range in the simulation.
B. VANET_RSU Project
valuate the performance of
The aim of this project is to ev
RSUs implemented in original VA
ANET. In order to simplify
the work, only AODV protocol is applied
a
in this project. RSU
is a device which has great potenttial for improving VANET
such as traffic analyses, real-time monitoring
m
and access point.
In addition to that, RSUs can also act as a fixed node in the
VANET to forward data, especiaally in the time when the
connectivity within the network iss weak, RSUs are used to
serve as an intermediate node to
o connect the source and
destination.

i) Ratio of vehicles taking turn

Through Turning
40%
60%

Onne
turnning
Two
255%
turnings
15%

ii) Ratio of vehicles leaving networkk

Getting Leaving
in
60%
40%

Long
distance Short
35% distance

6 RSU models are equipped

In the VANET_RSU project, 16
in the simulation scenarios containing 20 and 40 vehicles. 12
RSUs are located at the middle of road segments and 4 at the
intersections. All of these RSUs con
nnected with each other via
cable link to form a ring network.. The topology of VANET
equipped with RSU (tower icon) in OPNET is shown in Fig. 4.
With RSUs, one vehicle moving in
n the centre of the network
will find an intermediate node, no matter
m
fixed or mobile one,
in 250 meters.

255%

Figure 2. Action rules of vehicle movement in VANET

Fig. 3 shows the samples of the VANET ttopology with 40

and 100 vehicles respectively. The red vehiccle is the source
node that sending traffic information during itts movement. All
the initial locations of vehicles inside the netw
work are random
assigned. When the simulation begins, vehiclles start to move
along with their trajectories, which are alreaddy defined. After
considering the traffic situation in urban aarea and drivers
behavior, we set the range of velocity from 0 too 50 km/hr.

41

TABLE II.

Project

VANET
_1

Figure 4. Topology of VANETs equipped with RSUs

IV.

IMPLEMENTATION IN OPNET

VANET
_RSU

In order to evaluate the performance of AODV and DSR

protocols in VANET, OPNET Modeler 14.5 is used [8].
Sections below explain the implementation of two projects in
OPNET Modeler 14.5 with details.

CONFIGURATION OF SCENARIOS IN TWO PROJECTS

Scenario
name

AODV_20
AODV_40
AODV_60
AODV_80
AODV_100
DSR_20
DSR_40
DSR_60
DSR_80
DSR_100
RSU_20
RSU_40
No_20
No_40

Size
(km)

3*3

3*3

Num.
of
Vehicle

20
40
60
80
100
20
40
60
80
100
20
40
20
40

Num
of
RSU

Statistics
selection

Simulation
time
(minute)

Delay,
0

5
Throug
h-put

16
0

Throug
h-put,

Delay

C. Simulation Statistics and Project Configurations

Before simulation running, statistics collection is
indispensable. There are two types of results, Global Statistics
and Object Statistics in OPNET Modeler. Global Statistics used
for entire network evaluation while Object Statistics used for
analyzing particular model. In VANET project, two global
statistics are selected for routing protocols analysis: Delay and
Throughput.

A. Vehicle and RSU Models

In OPNET, manet_station_adv mobile node model is
selected to represent the vehicle in the network. This node
model has a raw packet generator which can transmit packet
over IP and WLAN. As to the movement of nodes, trajectories
of all the vehicles are defined manually instead of applying the
random waypoint in OPNET. By following the action rule,
specifications of trajectory such as speed, waiting time are set
individually.

In order to evaluate the performance of AODV and DSR

routing protocols, a variety of scenarios with different
parameters are generated. Table 2 above shows the basic
configuration of all 14 scenarios in three projects.

The red car labeled as S_0 is the source node that sends
traffic information. In addition, rx_config model is used to
define the transmission range of nodes.

V.

Since the functionality of RSU is similar with a router,

manet_gtwy_wlan_ethernet_slip4 fixed node model is used as
the prototype. Link ppp_28k, as a duplex point-to-point link
model, is used to connect these route models. The most
essential thing of RSU implementations is that the BSS
identifiers of all the nodes in one VANET must be the same,
indicating they are in the same network. In addition, the Access
Point Functionality in the RSUs must set to be Disable.
Otherwise, errors will be detected during the simulation.

SIMULATION RESULTS

Fig. 5 demonstrates AODV performance in VANET_1

project (throughput is shown in log distribution form).We can
observe that with more vehicles running in the VANETs,
throughputs of network increased significantly, especially the
throughput variation from 40 to 60 vehicles. After the vehicles
number increased from 60 to 100, the results show the same
trend which decreased at the first, then increased to the
maximum and finally decreased again. Also, we can easily
observe that the results of VANET with 20 and 40 vehicles
appeared late at around 1 minute, which is because of the poor
connectivity in these two scenarios at the beginning.

B. Raw Packet Generation and Protocols Assignment

As mentioned above, manet_station_adv model has a
MANET Traffic Generation Parameter which can be used to
generate data packets. Multiple generation processes with
different destinations are set in this parameter. The destination
is identified by IP address. Thus, individual IP addresses, from
192.1.1.1 to 192.1.1.X are assigned to vehicles in the network.
The packet transmit interval and packet size obey the
exponential distribution with the mean outcome of 1 second
and 1024 bits.

We also can see average end-to-end delay in Fig. 5 against

number of vehicles. The trends in VANETs with 60, 80 and
100 vehicles are quite similar. The overall delay slightly
increases as the number of vehicles increased. The delay in
AODV_20 and AODV_40 begins to decreases around 1 minute
probably due to poor connectivity during that time. After the
source node move into centre area of the network where
adjacent vehicles increased, more routes can be established,
leading to delay decreased in the entire network.

OPNET Modeler 14.5 provides several ad-hoc routing

protocols in MANET models. In this simulation, AODV and
DSR are selected for performance analyzing. In different
scenarios, either AODV or DSR protocols is selected in vehicle
and RSU models. The settings of protocols remain default.

42

two VANETs, we can see that the delay of DSR increases after
the middle of the simulation. On the contrary, delay of AODV
in both VANETs decline to less than 5ms.
All in all, we can summarize that AODV suffers nearly the
same delay as DSR while provides higher throughput in low
and medium vehicle density. In high vehicle density situation,
high throughput obtained in DSR requires cost of high delay.
The results of VANET applying RSUs are represented in
Fig. 7 and Fig. 8, in which delay and throughput are included.
The delay performances in both VANET projects using RSU
decline consistently and hold in a stable level at 0.5ms, which
is lower than VANET without RSU. The results also indicate
that RSUs improve the connectivity of entire network since
delay value appears at the start of simulation. The significant
performance difference is throughput between VANETs with
and without RSUs. Compared with original VANET, the
throughputs in VANETs using RSUs keep in a relative high
level. However, the values in original VANET are less than
5Kbps. Also, we can find out that RSUs solved the nonthroughput problem appeared in original network at the very
beginning of simulation. A dig of result in VANETs with RSU
indicates that RSU, to some extent, can improve the
connectivity in VANET.

Figure 5. Throughput and Delay of VANETs applying AODV

DSR performance is demonstrated in Fig. 6 in which both

throughput and delay are shown in log distribution form. We
can see the diversity of trend appears after the number of
vehicles increased to 60 and above. We can see that the
throughput becomes higher when the number of vehicles
increased. Meanwhile, we can find dips of throughput in the
first minute of AODV_60, 80 and 100. The possible reason for
this is that V_0 were moving into an area in which the vehicle
density is low. And also that is the reason why AODV_20 and
AODV _40, in which fewer vehicles can be served as
intermediate nodes, had no result at around 1 minute.
The average end-to-end delay of DSR in Fig. 6 shows that
in DSR_20, 40 and 60 keep falling as the time goes on.
However, with the number of vehicle increased, delay in DSR
ascended sharply and suddenly after first minute. One possible
reason is that DSR protocol requires more update information
for route cache maintenance. With more vehicles in the
network, the topology change is more frequent and therefore
the time used to refresh the route cache increased.

Figure 7. Comparative analysis of VANET_RSU with 20 vehicles

Figure 6. Throughput and Delayof VANETs applying DSR

In the result of throughput, we find out that AODV and

DSR perform more or less in the same curve. All the
throughputs of AODV are about 10% higher than that of DSR
in the same VANET except for the one contains 100 vehicles.
The throughput of DSR in VANET with 100 vehicles got
higher and reaches 1Mbps while the AODV one slightly falls
down. These results clearly demonstrate the effect of vehicle
density to DSR performance. As to delay evaluation, all delays
of VANETs containing 20, 40 and 60 vehicles are high at the
beginning. After the routing table is updated, the time for route
discovery descent rapidly and therefore the end-to-end delay
fall to a stable level. However, most significant difference
comes to the VANETs contain 80 and 100 vehicles. In these

Figure 8. Comparative analysis of VANET_RSU with 40 vehicles

VI.

CONCLUSION

In this paper, performances of AODV and DSR protocols in

the city scenario of VANET are evaluated in OPNET Modeler
14.5. Entire VANET, containing traffic signal mechanism,
vehicle model and RSU model, was developed in OPNET.
Based on the results and analysis, we can find out that AODV
outperforms DSR protocol in VANET by providing sufficient
throughput with lower delay. In addition, simulation results

43

show that RSUs applied in VANET to some extent can

improve the overall network efficiency in data delivery. And
we believe that VANET or InVANET will play an important
role in future city for improving the overall traffic situation.
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