IOSR Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering (IOSR-JECE) e-ISSN: 2278-2834,p- ISSN: 2278-8735.Volume 11, Issue 3, Ver. III (May-Jun .2016), PP 51-57 www.iosrjournals.org DOI: 10.9790/2834-1103035157 www.iosrjournals.org 51 | Page Differentiative Comparison Study of Routing Protocols and Maintaining Energy Management in MANETS P.Sathyaraj 1 , K.Kannan 2 , G.Sathish Kumar 3 , D.Vignesh 4 1,2,3 Assistant Professor R.M.K. College of Engineering and Technology 4 Technical Team leader IPRO Solutions, Chennai Abstract: A Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) is a dynamic Wireless network that can be formed without the need for any pre-existing infrastructure in which each node can act as a router. Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is an autonomous system of mobile nodes connected by wireless links. Each node operates as a router to forward packets and also acts as an end system. The nodes are free to move about and organize themselves into a network. The position of the nodes will be changed frequently. The main classes of routing protocols are Proactive, Reactive and Hybrid. A Reactive (on-demand) routing strategy is a popular routing category for wireless ad hoc routing. The design follows the idea that each node tries to reduce routing overhead by sending routing packets whenever a communication is requested. In this work an attempt has been made to compare the performance of three routing protocols for MANETs: Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) protocols, Ad-hoc on- demand Multipath Distance Vector Routing (AOMDV) and Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP). DSR is reactive gateway discovery algorithms where a mobile device of MANET connects by gateway only when it is needed. AOMDV was designed primarily for highly dynamic ad hoc networks where link failures and route breaks occur frequently. It maintains routes for destinations in active communication and uses sequence numbers to determine the freshness of routing information to prevent routing loops. It is a timer-based protocol and provides a way for mobile nodes to respond to link breaks and topology changes. ZRP is hybrid protocol. It is the combination of both proactive and reactive protocols. The performance differentials are analyzed using varying number of nodes. These simulations are carried out using the ns-2 network simulator. The results presented in this work illustrate the importance in carefully evaluating and implementing routing protocols in an ad-hoc environment. Keywords: MANETS, PROTOCOLS, DSR, AOMDV, ZRP I. Introduction A mobile ad-hoc network or MANET is a collection of mobile nodes sharing a wireless channel without any centralized control or established communication backbone. They have no fixed routers with all nodes capable of movement and arbitrarily dynamic. These nodes can act as both end systems and routers at the same time. When acting as routers, they discover and maintain routes to other nodes in the network. The topology of the ad-hoc network depends on the transmission power of the nodes and the location of the mobile nodes, which may change from time to time [1]. One of the main problems in ad-hoc networking is the efficient delivery of data packets to the mobile nodes where the topology is not pre-determined nor does the network have centralized control. Hence, due to the frequently changing topology, routing in ad-hoc networks can be viewed as a challenge. II. Classification of Routing Protocols Classification of routing protocols in mobile ad hoc network can be done in many ways; the routing protocols can be categorized as Proactive (Table Driven), Reactive (on-demand) and Hybrid depending on the network structure. A. Proactive Routing Protocols or Table Driven Proactive routing is also often termed as table- driven routing. In this type of routing protocols, fresh lists of destinations and their routes are maintained by periodic distribution of routing tables throughout the