Interference Effects on the OLSR Protocol:
NS-2 Simulation Results
Dang Quan Nguyen
INRIA Rocquencourt, Domaine de Voluceau
Rocquencourt - B.P. 105
78153 Le Chesnay Cedex, France
dang-quan.nguyen@inria.fr
Abstract— Through their intrinsic qualities, mobile ad-
hoc networks enable a rapid deployment, without needing
a pre-built infrastructure, and are self-adaptive. Ad-hoc
nodes are wireless and they transmit at the same frequency
within the same radio network. The transmission of a
node can interfere with the transmission of other nodes if
at the receivers, the carrier to interference ratio is lower
than a threshold value. This article deals with the radio
interferences in mobile ad-hoc networks. We first show,
by using simulations under NS2, that interferences can
disrupt the bandwidth granted to already established flows.
We propose a bandwidth reservation model which ensures
that the interferences produced by a new flow do not affect
the bandwidth granted to the already accepted flows. We
also show that link hysteresis can help a proactive routing
protocol like OLSR to reduce the interference effect, thus
providing more stable routes.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Multi-hop wireless ad-hoc networks can be quickly
deployed and nodes adapt themselves to network topol-
ogy changes. Such a network does not need base stations
which are required in other types of wireless networks
(e.g.: cellular networks,...). Each node of an ad-hoc
network can move freely and keep its communication
as long as network connectivity is kept. Nodes use the
same radio frequency, with limited transmission ranges,
over the whole ad-hoc network. Packets are relayed to
reach their multi-hop destination. If we assume that
the medium access problem is solved by an efficient
MAC protocol (e.g. CSMA/CA) and environment spe-
cific problems (ex.: obstacles, multi-path fading) are
neglected, there is still a problem to solve in such
networks. How does a routing protocol account for
the interferences: communication between two adjacent
nodes can be altered by distant nodes transmission. Such
a protocol is said interference aware.
470
Pascale Minet
INRIA Rocquencourt, Domaine de Voluceau
Rocquencourt - B.P. 105
78153 Le Chesnay Cedex, France
pascale.minet@inria.fr
Quality of service routing protocols usually use the
bandwidth reservation mechanism to provide an end-to-
end quality of service (QoS) [3], [4]. We will show in this
paper the impact of the interference phenomenon on the
bandwidth effectively granted by QoS routing protocols
and on the bandwidth amount that should be reserved.
A flow can consume more bandwidth than the effective
bandwidth amount requested, due to the interference it
generates along its path. Therefore, the bandwidth of
already accepted flows may significantly decrease as a
new flow is introduced. Hence the interference problem
must be accounted for by QoS routing protocols.
In this paper, we propose an interference-aware band-
width reservation model that operates at the routing level.
While other bandwidth reservation protocols like IN-
SIGNIA [4] or BRuIT [3] use reactive routing protocols
(e.g. DSR, AODV) to find a route, our protocol takes
advantage of the proactive routing protocol OLSR [5] to
find a route more rapidly.
We also address the effect of link hysteresis on com-
munication loss rate. In order to calculate the OLSR
routing table, each node advertises its links with a
subset of its neighbors to all nodes in the network.
It turns out that many among those links are unstable
due to interferences, lack of correct reception of control
messages,. . . We will show that link hysteresis helps the
OLSR routing protocol to provide more stable routes.
This paper is organized as follows. In section II, we
define our model for computing the bandwidth amount
that must be reserved in the presence of interferences. We
give a summary of the OLSR routing protocol and de-
scribe our bandwidth reservation protocol in section III.
Results of the NS-2 simulations with the OLSR protocol
and our reservation model are discussed in section IV.
Section V presents the effect of link hysteresis on loss
rate. Finally, we conclude in section VI.
II. I NTERFERENCE AWARE BANDWIDTH
RESERVATION MODEL
Researches have been carried out in order to define
an interference model for ad-hoc networks. [1], [2]
deal with the network capacity at the physical layer,
in the presence of radio interference. In this paper,
we propose an interference aware bandwidth reservation
model that operates at the routing level. This simple
model computes the bandwidth consumed by flows, con-
sidering the interference influence. This model provides
the bandwidth reservation with an overestimation of the
bandwidth required by flows. We assume that the radio
transmission spreading is unbounded: radio interferences
produced by one single transmission disturb all nodes in
the ad-hoc network. Thus, each node is considered as an
interference generator by all other nodes.
When a source node S wants to transmit a flow to a
destination node D at distance dist from S , measured
in number of hops, and requires a bit rate of k bps, the
bandwidth amount to be reserved B is:
B = k ∗ dist (1)
This quantity of bandwidth, B , is reserved at each node
of the network by using a signaling protocol.
In this model, the bandwidth amount for the reser-
vation is equal to the product of the requested amount
of bandwidth k by the path length dist. This can be
explained because any node in the path is considered as
an interference generator with equal interference level.
However, the distance parameter dist is not totally
appropriate to provide the reservation mechanism with a
good estimation of the interferences generated by flows.
There are scenarios where a flow f1 takes a path shorter
than a flow f2 , but there are more neighbour nodes
along the path of the former than of the latter. Thus,
the interferences caused by flow f1 affect more nodes
than these of flow f2 . A more realistic approach to
compute the bandwidth to be reserved should take into
consideration the number of interfered nodes along the
path.
With some additional assumptions, this model can be
adapted as follows:
(
k ∗ dist if dist ≤ 5
B=
5∗k if dist > 5
The interference radius is assumed to be equal to 2 times
the coverage radius. Moreover, any node is supposed to
471
belong to the interference area of at most 5 nodes such
as in a straight line configuration.
Another interference model for bandwidth reservation
in ad-hoc networks has been proposed in the protocol
BRuIT [3]. In that model, the interference area of a
source node s, where nodes are affected by interferences
generated by s, includes only nodes at a distance less
than or equal to l, measured in number of hops, from s.
Therefore, for a flow that requires k bps, BRuIT makes
a bandwidth reservation with the quantity of bandwidth
k bps not only along the path of that flow but also at
all nodes within l hops from the path. The model does
not take into account the path length parameter and can
not prevent a new bandwidth reservation from interfering
with already accepted reservations.
Our bandwidth reservation model, B = k ∗ dist, takes
into consideration the path length parameter, dist. This
is to ensure that all transmitting nodes are counted.
The longer the path is, the more transmitting nodes
along that path. Thus, the interference level increases
proportionally.
III. BANDWIDTH RESERVATION WITH OLSR
In this section, we introduce the bandwidth reservation
mechanism in the OLSR protocol, according to our
model described in the section II. We have done simula-
tions under the NS-2 simulator to show the interference
effect on the bit rate of flows at the receiver. Simulations
also show that bandwidth reservation is compromised if
the interference aspect is not accounted for.
A. OLSR protocol
OLSR (Optimized Link State Routing) is an optimiza-
tion of a pure link state routing protocol. It is based
on the concept of multipoint relays (MPRs) [5]. First,
using multipoint relays reduces the size of the control
messages: rather than declaring all its links to all nodes
in the network, a node declares only the set of links with
its neighbors that are its “multipoint relays”. The use of
MPRs also minimizes flooding of control traffic. Indeed
only multipoint relays forward control messages. This
technique significantly reduces the number of retransmis-
sions of broadcast control messages [6]. The two main
OLSR functionalities, Neighbor Discovery and Topology
Dissemination, are now detailed.
1) Neighbor Discovery:
Each node must detect the neighbor nodes with which it
has a direct link. For this, each node periodically broad-
casts Hello messages, containing the list of neighbors
known to the node and their link status. The link status
can be either symmetric (if communication is possible in
both directions), asymmetric (if communication is only
possible in one direction), multipoint relay (if the link
is symmetric and the sender of the Hello message has
selected this node as a multipoint relay), or lost (if the
link has been lost). The Hello messages are received by
all one-hop neighbors, but are not forwarded. They are
broadcast once per refreshing period “Hello interval”.
Thus, Hello messages enable each node to discover its
one-hop neighbors, as well as its two-hop neighbors.
This neighborhood and two-hop neighborhood informa-
tion has an associated holding time, after which it is no
longer valid. On the basis of this information, each node
independently selects its own set of multipoint relays
among its one-hop neighbors in such a way that the
multipoint relays cover (in terms of radio range) all two-
hop neighbors (see [5] for an algorithm example). The
multipoint relay set is computed whenever a change in
the one-hop or two-hop neighborhood is detected. In
addition, each node M maintains its “MPR selector set”.
This set contains the nodes which have selected M as
a multipoint relay. Node M only forwards broadcast
messages received for the first time from one of its MPR
selectors.
To avoid the use of bad quality links (e.g. unstable
links), OLSR monitors the link quality according to the
algorithm described in section V.
2) Topology Dissemination:
Each node of the network maintains topological infor-
mation about the network obtained by means of TC
(Topology control) messages. Each node M selected as a
multipoint relay, broadcasts a TC message at least every
“TC interval”. The TC message originated from node M
declares the MPR selectors of M . If a change occurs in
the MPR selector set, the next TC can be sent earlier.
The TC messages are flooded to all nodes in the network
and take advantage of MPRs to reduce the number of
retransmissions. Thus, a node is reachable either directly
or via its MPRs. This topological information collected
in each node has also an associated holding time.
The neighbor information and the topology informa-
tion are refreshed periodically, and they enable each
node to compute the routes to all known destinations.
These routes are computed with Dijkstra’s shortest path
algorithm [7]. Hence, they are optimal as concerns the
number of hops. The routing table is computed whenever
there is a change in neighborhood or topology informa-
tion.
472
B. OLSR protocol enhanced with bandwidth reservation
We now propose to enhance the OLSR protocol in
order to support QoS routing. This QoS routing is based
on bandwidth reservation. The OLSR protocol enhanced
with bandwidth reservation includes three phases: (1)
resource reservation, (2) data/voice/video transfer and (3)
resource release. Resource reservation uses the OLSR
routing protocol to find the route to the destination,
bandwidth is reserved on all nodes of the network
according to the model described in section II. Once the
bandwidth is reserved, QoS routing ensures that during
the transfer phase all packets belonging to that flow
follow the same route to the destination. When there
is no more packet to transmit, the resources reserved for
this flow are released.
1) Resource reservation:
In this section, we assume that the available bandwidth
is the same for all nodes in the network. Hence if the
bandwidth available at the source allows the acceptance
of the new flow, it is the same for all nodes in the
network. We will see in section III.D how to remove
this assumption.
Nodes can approximately determine their local avail-
able bandwidth in different ways. This feature is inves-
tigated in section III.C.
In the resource reservation phase,
• an amount of bandwith is reserved at all nodes in
the network for the flow f considered.
• the route R from the source to the destination is
determined and a soft-state entry associated with f
is created at each node on R.
When a node S wants to start a flow to a node D
at a rate of k bps, the reservation mechanism locally
computes the bandwith amount to be reserved, B =
k ∗ dist, where dist is the distance, in number of
hops, between S and D , given by the OLSR routing
table. If the residual bandwidth at S is greater than the
bandwidth amount B , then the flow is accepted. S sends
a bandwidth reservation (BW RESV) message containing
the value of the bandwidth quantity B to inform all
nodes of the reservation. This message is broadcast to
the entire ad-hoc network by the OLSR routing protocol
in the same way as a topology control (TC) message.
Every node in the network updates its residual bandwidth
amount by decreasing it by B , because according to our
model the interference is supposed to affect all nodes.
For each accepted flow f , the reservation mechanism
also determines thanks to OLSR the route R from the
source to the destination. This route R is used for the
transfer phase. A soft-state entry associated with f is
created or updated at each node on R when the node
receives a marked packet. The source node marks the
first packet of the flow f when it starts to transmit f
after bandwidth reservation or after any modification of
the route R. At node Ni , the soft-state entry associated
with f contains the source S , the next hop Ni+1 , the
previous hop Ni−1 , the destination D and the distance
between Ni and D . Only nodes on the route R have a
soft-state for the flow f , all other nodes do not. They
only maintain the residual bandwidth amount.
In scenarios where topology changes cause the path
length to change, the routing protocol must adapt its
bandwidth reservation mechanism in function of the
path length variation. This topic is discussed in sec-
tion III-B.3.
2) Data/Voice/Video transfer:
Once the flow is accepted into the network, all packets
of that flow follow the route R that has been determined
by the resource reservation mechanism. Therefore, the
route length remains unchanged and the flow consumes
the amount of bandwidth that was initially reserved.
This phase can be realized using source routing or
per-hop routing. With source routing, once the route R
is found, R is included in all the outgoing packets at
the source. Intermediate nodes use this information to
forward packets. Including R in every packet generates
overheads. Therefore the flow actually consumes more
bandwidth than the requested bandwidth amount k .
We adopt the per-hop routing which is the following.
All packets of f are forwarded by node Ni to node
Ni+1 . Ni+1 is in the soft-state of node Ni , it has
been determined in the reservation phase. As long as
all links (Ni , Ni+1 ) are maintained, all packets of f
follow the same route R. We deal with broken links in
section III-B.3.
The associated soft-state entry at a node N is refreshed
everytime N receives a packet of f . If there is no
refresh during the time soft-state validity time (SSVTime),
then the soft-state entry expires. The node removes the
expired soft-state and does not recover the bandwidth
amount that has been reserved for f . In other word, soft-
state can be seen as an indication whether the node N
belongs to the route R of f .
3) Resource release and reservation renewal:
Resource release mechanism makes sure that nodes in
the network recover the bandwidth that has been reserved
for flow f but is no longer used. This mechanism is
invoked in two ways:
- when the source node explicitly notifies the end of
473
f ’s transmission, or
- when the soft state of f at the destination node
expires.
In the first case, the source node releases the band-
width amount B that f has reserved at all nodes in
the network. It broadcasts a bandwidth free (BW FREE)
message to all nodes in the ad-hoc network. This mes-
sage contains the bandwidth amount B and the flow
identifier fid of f . BW FREE is broadcast in the same
way as a BW RESV or a TC message. Upon reception
of BW FREE, a node updates its residual bandwidth by
adding B to it. Nodes on the route R remove their soft-
state entry for fid.
In the second case, the destination node of flow f
is in charge of releasing the bandwidth granted to f . It
proceeds as the source in the first case.
Let us consider the behavior of a node Ni on the
route R detecting that the link with its next hop N i+1 is
broken. We distinguish two cases:
• either the node Ni knows how to reach the destina-
tion with the same distance as R, Ni locally repairs
the route R by choosing a new next hop Ni+1 0 and
0
marking the first packet of f it sends to Ni+1 . Thus
node Ni+10 and all the following nodes that do not
belong to R create a soft state for f . This local
repair is transparent to the source.
• or the node Ni informs all source nodes that
have flows going through this link of the inter-
ruption, by sending them a unicast route down
(ROUTE DOWN) message. This message is for-
warded backward to the source. Upon receipt of
this message a node removes the broken link from
its topology table. A source can choose to relocate
the flow on a new route by reservation, or to end
the flow as described above.
If the source chooses to relocate the flow, then it has
to modify the reserved bandwidth amount according to
the length of the new route. Let ∆d be the difference of
the lengths, expressed in number of hops:
∆d = distnew route − distold route (2)
If ∆d 6= 0, the source node broadcasts a bandwidth
update (BW UPD) message to all nodes in the network.
BW UPD is broadcast in the same manner as a TC
message. It contains the quantity of bandwidth ∆B to
be added or removed at each node, where ∆B = k ∗∆d.
In all cases, whatever the value of ∆d, the source node
marks the first packet of f transmitted on the new route
to create/update soft-state entries.
 We now investigate the mechanisms enabling nodes to
obtain the amount of maximum available bandwidth.
C. Maximum available bandwidth and residual band-
width
There exist a number of methods for bandwidth esti-
mation in the literature [10], [11], [12]. However, they
are created for the wired networks and can hardly be
applied to the ad-hoc wireless networks. Indeed, the
maximum bandwidth is much less in wireless environ-
ment and ad-hoc nodes have limited battery capacity. It
is then preferable not to introduce overhead to estimate
available bandwidth amount like in the wired networks.
Node mobility makes it even more difficult to estimate
the local bandwidth. Below we enumerate some simple
methods to estimate the amount of available bandwidth
in the ad-hoc wireless networks.
1) Manual configuration:
This is perhaps the simplest way to estimate the max-
imum available bandwidth in an ad-hoc network. This
method assumes that the bandwidth available at a node
is the same for all nodes in the ad-hoc network. This
available bandwidth is measured between two neigbor
nodes. One can set up a two-nodes scenario and de-
termine the maximum bandwidth Bmax on the link by
increasing the transmission rate of the source node until
stabilization of the reception rate at the destination node.
All other nodes are kept silent during this operation.
Then the maximum available bandwidth is configured to
Bmax on all nodes participating in this ad-hoc network.
The residual bandwidth is the difference between B max
and the sum of all bandwidth amounts that have been
reserved.
This method can be applied to scenarios where no new
node shows up during an existing session. Otherwise,
such node should acquire the knowledge of Bmax and
the bandwidth amounts that have been reserved, before
making any resource reservation.
2) Bianchi’s 802.11 DCF analysis and parameters:
Bianchi [8] has analyzed the 802.11 Distributed Coordi-
nation Function (DCF) used in ad-hoc mode. This anal-
ysis provides an estimation of the maximum bandwidth
in different configurations of an ad-hoc network: number
of nodes, basic access vs. RTS/CTS access. This can be
applied to any ad-hoc network with the appropriate pa-
rameters to estimate the value of the maximum available
bandwidth.
We have done simulations under NS-2 to determine
the maximum available bandwidth at the MAC layer.
474
The simulation results closely match with the analysis
results of Bianchi’s model.
3) Dynamic estimation of local available bandwidth:
A non-intrusive bandwidth estimation method has been
introduced by Zhang and al. [9]. The model is based on
the observed signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) to estimate the
residual bandwidth at MAC layer.
This method can be used to dynamically and locally
monitor the local available bandwidth (LAB). The band-
width available at one node can differ from bandwidth
available at another node. We will show in section III-D
how our reservation algorithm can account for these
different values.
D. Computation of the available bandwidth
With the dynamic estimation of local available band-
width method, the LAB can differ from one node to
another. Hence, we define the available bandwidth in the
network as the minimal value among the LABs.
To make a reservation based on the minimum available
bandwidth, a node must acquire the available bandwidth
of all other nodes in the network. The following algo-
rithm is used to perform this task.
We assume that all nodes compute their LAB using
one of the three methods above. Nodes add an extra
information which is their LAB value to each Hello
message. Each MPR broadcasts in its TC the LAB value
of each MPR selector. Therefore, the LAB value of each
node is periodically advertised to all other nodes. With
our reservation model, each node computes the available
bandwidth as the minimum of those LAB values, and uses
this value in the reservation protocol.
IV. NS-2 SIMULATIONS
A. Simulation parameters
We have performed simulations under NS-2. The
OLSR routing protocol and the IEEE 802.11b MAC
protocol are used. At the physical layer, the transmission
power Pt is constant. Nodes have a transmission range
of 250m. Within this range, they are able to correctly
receive packets from each other. This parameter in NS-
2 is derived from the RXThresh (Receive Threshold)
parameter. Between 250m and 500m, nodes are capable
to detect packets but unable to correctly receive them.
Thus, the wireless channel is sensed busy (signal is con-
sidered as Interference) should there be any transmission
inside this range. This value (500m) is calculated from
the CSThresh (Carrier Sense Threshold) parameter. The
reception power (RxPr) depends on the distance between
the sender and the receiver and on other parameters,
according to the radio propagation model being used
(we use the Two-Ray-Ground propagation model). If
the RxPr/Interference ratio is lower than a Capture
Threshold (CPThres ), then a collision occurs. We use
the default values of these parameters given in table I.
The RTS/CTS option is activated in the MAC layer.
Each simulation lasts for 600s. Flows are CBR (constant-
bit-rate). The size of all packets is set at 1 KB. In
order to simplify the simulation of the model, we use
the manual configuration method to obtain and impose Fig. 1
the maximum available bandwidth to all nodes. The 8 NODES , 3 FLOWS IN Fig. 2
maximum available bandwidth between two neighbour PARALLEL 9 NODES , 2 CROSSED FLOWS

nodes using OLSR is 1.3 Mbps, as tested under NS-2.

We have used a simple scenario with only two nodes (one
sender transmits a CBR/UDP flow to one receiver) that
300 Kbps. At time t = 100s, node F starts to transmit
are within the transmission range of each other. The MAC
to node I a flow, f1 , at 300 Kbps. Node A stops its
bandwidth (bandwidth ) parameter is 2 Mbps. But the
transmission at time t = 500s, node F at t = 550s.
maximum bit rate recorded at the application layer of the
receiver node is only 1.3 Mbps. This value is therefore 1) Results without bandwidth reservation:
known to all nodes participating in this ad-hoc network Flows start and stop their transmission without regard to
configuration as the maximum available bandwidth. the available bandwidth of nodes. In the first scenario,
there is not sufficient bandwidth left for the admission
TABLE I of f2 at any node of the network. Thus, when f2 starts
PARAMETERS OF WIRELESS PHYSICAL LAYER . its transmission, interferences cause the bandwidth of
reserved flows, f0 and f1 , to decrease (cf. Figure 3). This
Parameter Value significantly affects already accepted flows: a bandwidth
Pt (W) 0.28183815 decrease of 30% for f0 , and more than 15% for f1 .
RXThresh (W) 3.652e-10
The transmission bit rate of f2 only reaches 200 Kbps
CSThresh (W) 1.559e-11
CPThresh (db) 10.0 whereas 500 Kbps are required. The flows f0 and f1
MAC bandwidth (Mbps) 2.0 meet again their bandwidth requirements at time t =
350s when f2 stops its transmission.
B. Static scenarios 1200
f0
f1
f2
Two scenarios have been considered. OLSR is used 1000
total

without link hysteresis. The first scenario includes

8 nodes (cf. Figure 1) on a surface of 1500x1500 m2 . 800

Three CBR flows are transmitted, using three parallel

bandwidth (Kbps)

paths. Flows are disjoint: no node is visited by more than 600

oneAtflow.
timeThis
t =scenario hasAbeen
50s, node used
wants to by BRuITa [3]
transmit in
flow,
its
f0 , simulations.
to node C, at 250 Kbps. Node G wants to transmit, 400

at time t = 100s, a flow, f1 , to node H at 600 Kbps.

200
Node D starts to transmit a flow, f2 , to node F, at time
t = 150s, with a bit rate of 500 Kbps. Node A stops 0
its transmission at t = 400s, G at t = 500s, and D at 0 100 200 300
time (s)
400 500 600

t = 350s.
The second scenario includes 9 nodes on a
1500x1500 m2 surface (cf. Figure 2). The two CBR
flows have one single common node (node C) which
relays packets on behalf of both flows. At time t = 50s,
node A starts to transmit a flow, f0 , to node E, at
Fig. 3
B IT RATES WITHOUT RESERVATION IN SCENARIO 1
In the second scenario, the situation is similar to
the first one. But the residual bandwidth amount is

475
 TABLE II
very limited as more interference sources exist in this
F LOW PARAMETERS FOR SCENARIOS 1 AND 2.
scenario: each flow is transmitted at 300 Kbps on a 4-
hop path. When both flows are active at the same time, Scenario 1 Scenario 2
their effective bandwidth is reduced about 50%: the bit Reservation model B = k ∗ dist
rate obtained for each flow is 150 Kbps. f1 reaches its Total bandwidth (Kbps) 1300
Flow f0
required bit rate of 300 Kbps after f0 has finished its
k (Kbps) 250 300
transmission (cf. Figure 4). dist (hops) 2 4
B (Kbps) 500 1200
600 Residual bandwidth (Kbps) 800 100
f0
f1
total
Flow f1
500
k (Kbps) 600 300
dist (hops) 1 4
B (Kbps) 600 1200
400
Residual bandwidth (Kbps) 200 not accepted
bandwidth (Kbps)

Flow f2
300
k (Kbps) 500 –
dist (hops) 2 –
200
B (Kbps) 1000 –
Bandwidth left after reser- not accepted –
100 vation (Kbps)

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
time (s)

Fig. 4 the bandwidth requirement of f2 . The flow f2 cannot

B IT RATES WITHOUT RESERVATION IN SCENARIO be accepted. f0 and f1 have their transmission bit rates
2 left unchanged during their session.

1200
2) Results with bandwidth reservation: f0
f1
f2
The goal of the bandwidth reservation is to provide the total
1000
requested quality of service to the accepted flows, despite
the acceptation of new flows. In our study, the quality of 800

service parameter is the bandwidth. The network should

bandwidth (Kbps)

be able to provide this guarantee as long as the accepted 600

flow remains active. A new bandwidth reservation must

be accepted only if the residual bandwidth on the path 400

is still sufficient to satisfy the requirement, and radio

interferences produced by that flow do not affect the 200

already accepted bandwidth reservations. Simulations

have been performed with the previous two scenarios, 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
time (s)
and the OLSR protocol enhanced with a bandwidth
reservation mechanism (see table II). Fig. 5
Results obtained with the first scenario are shown in B IT RATES WITH RESERVATION IN SCENARIO 1
Figure 5. At time t = 50s, f0 starts successfully, and
transmits at 250 Kbps. The path length of f0 is 2 hops.
Therefore, the OLSR protocol makes a reservation for
Results obtained with the second scenario are shown
500 Kbps at every node in the network. The bandwidth
in Figure 6. They show that f1 is not accepted into
remaining after this reservation is 800 Kbps, as the
the network, because bandwidth is not sufficient and f 0
maximum bandwidth capacity is 1300 Kbps. The
continues to transmit at 300 Kbps until the end of its
flow f1 can also be accepted with its transmission at
session.
600 Kbps on a 1-hop path. The bandwidth left after this
reservation is 200 Kbps which is not enough to meet

476
 600 TABLE III
f0
f1
total T RANSMITTED FLOWS
500 fid src dst k dist initial route
1 5 56 50 3 5, 50, 18, 56
400 2 24 12 60 4 24, 69, 61, 27, 12
3 68 14 70 2 68, 65, 14
bandwidth (Kbps)

4 4 33 80 3 4, 2, 19, 33
300
5 36 59 90 3 36, 68, 0, 59

200

100 rate at the destination nodes. Results show that the

average loss rate without reservation is 6.45% whereas
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 the average loss rate with reservation is only 1.12%.
time (s)

Fig. 6
120
flow 1
B IT RATES WITH RESERVATION IN SCENARIO 2 flow 2
flow 3
flow 4
100 flow 5

80
C. Generic scenarios
In this section, OLSR is used with link hysteresis as bandwidth (kbps)
60

recommended in the RFC. We have simulated with NS-2

40
a generic configuration. This configuration includes 70
nodes randomly located in a 1000x1000 m2 area. Five
20
CBR flows start and stop at different times. We compare
the bandwidth obtained by each flow without and with 0
bandwidth reservation. Simulation results are depicted 0 100 200 300
time (s)
400 500 600

in figures 8 and 9 respectively.

Fig. 8
S IMULATION RESULTS WITHOUT BANDWIDTH
Network Configuration RESERVATION
1000
17 2 19 node
flow 1
900 44 26 8 flow 2
4 flow 3
flow 4
53 42
800 38 39 36 34 flow 5

23
16
3352
35 0
15 As further work, we will study the behavior of the
68
700
37
3
58
5
protocol in presence of node mobility.
65
600 64
32
9 30 59
y (m)

500 45 24
10

400
63
5057
V. L INK HYSTERESIS AND LOSS RATE
14
13
300 2225 28 49 To avoid packet loss, the OLSR RFC [5] recommends
51 69 54 47
46 55
200 31
20
1
12 18 not to use links of bad quality and links oscillating very
41 56 66 48

100 61
43
frequently between the up and down states. Link hystere-
27 6
7 21 62
29
11 67
40
60
sis has been introduced to enhance neighbor discovery
0
0 100 200 300 400 500
x (m)
600 700 800 900 1000
by detecting and avoiding the use of such links. In this
section, we focus on link hysteresis. We first show how
Fig. 7 link hysteresis works. We then evaluate by simulation
N ETWORK CONFIGURATION WITH 70 NODES the benefit brought by link hysteresis on the loss rate.
A. Link hysteresis principles
With bandwidth reservation, we observe that the As described in [5], link hysteresis monitors for any
bandwidth obtained by each flow is smoother than link its quality, denoted L Quality . Only links of good
without bandwidth reservation. We measure the loss quality can be used by data/voice/video transfer. As a

477
 100
A packet is detected lost after a gap in the packet
flow 1

90
flow 2
flow 3
sequence number or after a long period of silence.
flow 4
flow 5
80

70
The default values of link hysteresis parameters are:
TABLE IV
bandwidth (kbps)

60

50 L INK HYSTERESIS PARAMETERS

40 Parameter Value
30
Hyst Low 0.3
Hyst High 0.8
20 Hyst Scaling 0.5
10

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 B. Simulation results
time (s)
We consider the generic static scenario used in
Fig. 9 subsection IV-C. We assume that the OLSR protocol
S IMULATION RESULTS WITH BANDWIDTH is enhanced with resource reservation as defined in
RESERVATION section III. We compare the loss rate measured at the
destination obtained with and without link hysteresis.
In the simulations, we use the default values of link
hysteresis parameters.
consequence a link enters a pending state before being
established:
The results depicted on figure 10 are obtained without
• A link is established if its quality is strictly higher
link hysteresis. They have to be compared with those
than Hyst High. of figure 9. Moreover, the average loss rate is equal
• An established link is dropped (i.e. becomes pend-
to 4.97%, compared with 1.12% obtained with link
ing) if its quality is strictly smaller than Hyst Low, hysteresis. Hence link hysteresis is a powerful tool to
with cope with interferences.
Hyst Low ≤ Hyst High
100
flow 1
• An established link such that 90
flow 2
flow 3
flow 4
flow 5
Hyst Low ≤ L Quality ≤ Hyst High 80

70
remains in the same state.
bandwidth (kbps)

60

Notice that the condition to establish a link is stronger 50

than the condition to drop it. A link is dropped as soon 40

as L Quality decreases under Hyst Low or a timer 30

expires. 20

If the link layer does not provide information on

10
the quality of links, for any link L, L Quality can be
0
computed by an exponentially smoothed sliding average 0 100 200 300
time (s)
400 500 600

as follows:
• on the first time an OLSR packet is received on L, Fig. 10
L Quality is set to Hyst Scaling ; S IMULATION RESULTS WITH BANDWIDTH
• on receipt of an OLSR packet on L: RESERVATION AND WITHOUT LINK HYSTERESIS

L Quality = (1 − Hyst Scaling) ∗ L Quality

+Hyst Scaling
• on detection of a lost OLSR packet on L:
L Quality = (1 − Hyst Scaling) ∗ L Quality
Moreover, simulation results show an interesting
property provided by link hysteresis. The routes
taken by flows tend to move apart in order to
avoid interferences. We have simulated a 50-nodes

478
configuration with 3 flows (see figure 11). Initially the Simulation results show that with bandwidth reserva-
3 routes are very closed. Interferences between flows tion, the bandwidth effectively granted to flows is not
contribute to decrease the link quality. Link hysteresis subject to high variations unlike without reservation.
and the OLSR routing tend to replace bad quality links These results are made possible by means of link hys-
by better ones. The routes are updated accordingly. teresis. By detecting bad quality links, link hysteresis
avoids the use of such links.
Moreover link hysteresis is very useful to cope with
Network Configuration
1000 10 node
the interferences. It allows the routing protocol to update
27 flow 1 initial
900
28 41
17
35
43
47
flow 2 initial
flow 3 initial
the routes to minimize the interference effects between
45 24
800
18
26
0
7 25
48
flow 2 1st re-route
flow 2 2nd re-route flows.
3
700 6
11 1
Routing enhanced with bandwidth reservation allows
600
2
15
4
to reduce the loss rate as shown by our simulations.
46 5
30
y (m)

500
12
19
21
400
31
49
300 38
36
44
200 20
39
100
4234
22
0 23 9
0 100 200 300 400
x (m)
Fig. 11
N ETWORK CONFIGURATION WITH 50
Let us consider flow 2 whose source is node 15 and
destination is 20. As we observe in the simulation, the
initial route taken by flow 2 is the shortest one according
to the OLSR routing protocol. It consists of nodes 46 and
19. Because of the interferences on node 19, the route
is updated to avoid that node. This second route goes
through nodes 29, 49, 36. In the same way, node 36 is
later avoided because of the interferences. The final route
goes through nodes 29, 44 and 39.
VI. C ONCLUSION
We have presented in this paper some simulation
results under NS-2 with the ad-hoc routing protocol
OLSR. They show the effect of radio interferences
on the bandwidth obtained by each flow. Because the
bandwidth is an important quality of service parameter,
it is necessary to provide the requested bandwidth, as
long as accepted flows remain active. This is a difficult
task if the routing protocol does not take into account
the radio interference aspect.
In this paper we propose to enhance the OLSR routing
protocol with bandwidth reservation mechanism. In order
to provide a good estimation of the bandwidth needed by
a flow, the bandwidth amount that is reserved at nodes
is proportional to the bandwidth requested by that flow
and to its path length.
16
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29
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