# MANET Routing Protocols' Performance Assessment Under Dynamic Network Conditions
## 5 Results and Comparative Analysis
### Scenarios with Homogeneous Nodes
#### 5.1.5 Energy Consumption  
In Figure 5, a thorough comparison of energy consumption across various network sizes is shown. At first, all protocols use comparatively little energy at 20 nodes, creating a baseline against which to compare. Due to their continuous route maintenance, proactive protocols exhibit minimal energy consumption, which makes them more effective for smaller networks. For very large networks, however, the overhead of maintaining routing tables reduces their performance. Reactive protocols noticeably use more energy when the network size reaches 80 nodes because of the overhead of route discovery in moderate traffic scenarios. Under moderate traffic levels, the overhead of route finding causes reactive protocols to noticeably increase their energy consumption as the network size grows to 80 nodes. At 200 nodes, the energy usage increases the most, underscoring the difficulties in scalability and adaptability that come with increasing node density. Because hybrid protocols exhibit balanced performance by combining proactive and reactive techniques, they are especially well-suited for very high-density networks (500 nodes), where they can effectively handle the increased energy consumption. Energy usage generally stabilizes at 500 nodes for the majority of protocols, suggesting a return to efficiency at the highest network densities. The effectiveness and scalability of each protocol category are highlighted in this analysis, which also offers important insights into their operational performance and possible limitations in a range of network scenarios. The protocol's suitability for the four distinct scenarios, taking energy usage into account, is summarized in Table 9 below. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline
**Network Size** & **Proactive Protocols (OLSR,** & **Reactive Protocols (AODV,** & **Hybrid Protocols (ZRP, GRP)** \\
**Nodes)** & **DSDV)** & **DSM, AODDV, TORA)** & **Hybrid Protocols (ZRP, GRP)** \\ \hline
20 Nodes & Moderate delay, efficient for smaller networks & Varying delay, generally higher than proactive protocols & Moderate delay, balanced performance \\
80 Nodes & Noticeable increase, consistent performance & Significant increase due to route discovery overhead & Balanced increase, effective management of increased delay \\
200 Nodes & Sharp rise, high delay & Peak delay, highlighting scalability challenges & Peak delay, balanced performance, effective integration of strategies \\
500 Nodes & Decrease or stabilizes, less optimal due to maintenance overhead & Stabilizes, indicating return to efficiency & Stabilizes, maintains efficient performance, most suitable for high-density networks \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 8: Protocol Suitability for Different Scenarios Considering the Average Delay. The fundamental cause of the high energy consumption of active protocols--especially proactive ones--is the requirement for ongoing routing table updating. These protocols cause a large overhead in control message traffic because they constantly distribute updates to guarantee that all nodes have the most recent routing information. Nodes continuously send and receive data packets, even when no data transmission is taking place, which depletes battery life. Energy consumption is further increased by the requirement to continuously monitor network topology because nodes are still active and involved in routing tasks. Nodes must constantly adapt to account for node mobility in dynamic contexts, which adds another layer of energy consumption because they must exert more effort to maintain connectivity and routing accuracy. As a result, proactive protocols are  
Figure 5: Energy Consumption across the Four Scenarios.