Detailed Comparative Study of Various Routing Protocols in Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks

Abstract — Vehicular Ad-hoc Network (VANET) has become a research area for analysis and development. VANET is a subclass of MANET (Mobile Ad-hoc Networks), which provides a communication among nearby vehicles and between vehicles and nearby fixed infrastructure. VANET is different from MANETs in terms of high mobility and dynamic topology. Maintaining High mobility and information routing in VANETs is very difficult and challenging task. Key characteristics of VANETs are time-varying nature of vehicle density, time critical safety applications, self-organizing, distributed communication, road pattern restrictions and high mobility. Sudden change in network topology and sporadic connectivity are also the characteristics of VANET. VANET provides facilities regarding road safety, traffic management, internet access, map location, for passengers and drivers. In this paper we describe a brief overview on some topology based protocol: proactive routing protocol and reactive routing protocol