Performance Evaluation Of An Enhanced Dsr Protocol For Security And Stability In Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

This paper reports a comprehensive simulation-based evaluation of an Enhanced Dynamic Source Routing protocol with load balancing, designated EDSR-LB, for Mobile Ad hoc Networks. EDSR-LB augments baseline DSR with an energy-aware composite route metric, multipath path diversity, adaptive cache management and preemptive local repair, together with a content-validation and authentication layer for security. Using the NS-2 network simulator (version 2.35) with the IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function, a 1000 m × 1000 m field, the random-waypoint mobility model and constant-bit-rate traffic, we compare EDSR-LB against standard DSR and AODV across network sizes from 20 to 100 nodes and mobility speeds from 1 to 20 m/s. Six metrics are measured: packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay, normalized routing overhead, network throughput, per-node energy consumption and a load-balancing index. EDSR-LB consistently outperforms both baselines, delivering up to 16.2% higher packet delivery ratio, up to 38.6% lower end-to-end delay, up to 43.9% lower routing overhead, up to 21.8% higher throughput and up to 37.3% lower energy consumption, while sustaining a load-balancing index roughly 37% higher than DSR. The protocol also degrades more gracefully as the network densifies, indicating better scalability for dense MANET deployments.