The Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV)

algorithm enables dynamic, self-starting, multihop

routing between participating mobile nodes wishing to
establish and maintain an ad hoc network. It allows
mobile nodes to establish routes quickly for new
destinations as on requirement and nodes neednot maintain
routes to destinations that are in passive state.
It enables the Manet nodes to react
to link breakages in the network and topological changes in a
timely manner. The operation of AODV is loop free as it overcomes
"counting to infinity" problem that offers quick convergence . One of the
dominant features of AODV is its use of destination
sequence numbers for all the route entries. The destination
sequence number is generated by the destination and it is
included along with route information that it transmits to
requesting nodes. This improves the ease of programming. Whenever there is a
choice between two routes to a destination, the requesting
node usually opts to select the route with largest sequence number.
In AODV,
Route Requests (RREQs), Route Replies (RREPs), and
Route Errors (RERRs) are the message types used and are received via UDP
and normal IP headers. So, for
instance, the requesting node is expected to use its IP
address as the Originator IP address for the messages.
For broadcast messages, the IP limited broadcast
address is used. This implies that these route query
messages are not blindly forwarded and also fragmentation of these routing messages is typically not
required as long as the
endpoints of communication have valid
routes to each other.
Whenever a route path to a new destination is required, the node
broadcasts a RREQ to generate a route to the destination.The new
route will be established when the RREQ reaches either
the final destination or an intermediate node which has a fresh route to the destination.
The sequence number of newly generated route is at least as great as that contained in
the RREQ. The route is made available by unicasting a
RREP back to the origination of the network. Nodes consistently monitor the link status of successive
hops in
routes. When breakage of links in an active route is
sensed, a RERR message is sent to notify other nodes in the network to signify
that there is a loss of link. The RERR
message helps to indicate the destinations
that there doesnot exist a reachable route to the destination due to broken
link.
AODV is a routing protocol, and its
functioning deals with routing table management.The route table
information must be recorded even for short-span routes,
for example as they are created to temporarily store reverse paths
towards the nodes generating RREQs.
Following fields are included in each route table entry of AODV:
Destination IP Address, Destination Sequence Number, Valid Destination Sequence Number flag, Other
state and routing flags (e.g., valid, invalid, repairable, being repaired),Network Interface, Hop Count
(number of hops needed to reach destination), Next Hop, List of Precursors, Lifetime (expiration or
deletion time of the route).
Use of sequence number is of high prominence in avoiding
routing loops, that helps even if links are broken and a intermediate or destination node is no
longer reachable to convey its own information about its
sequence number. When these
conditions araise, the route is invalidated by operations
involving the sequence number and marking the route state as invalid.