Abstract—Power consumption of nodes in ad hoc networks is a critical issue as they predominantly operate on batteries. In order to improve the lifetime of an ad hoc network, all the nodes must be utilized evenly and the power required for connections must be minimized. In this project a link layer algorithm known as Power Aware medium Access Control (PAMAC) protocol is proposed which enables the network layer to select a route with minimum total power requirement among the possible routes between a source and a destination provided all nodes in the routes have battery capacity above a threshold. When the battery capacity goes below a predefined threshold, routes going through these nodes will be avoided and these nodes will act only as source and destination. Further, the first few nodes whose battery power drained to the set threshold value are pushed to the exterior part of the network and the nodes in the exterior are brought to the interior. Since less total power is required to forward packets for each connection. The network layer protocol AOMDV is basically an extension to the AODV routing protocol. AOMDV is designed to form multiple routes to the destination and it also avoid the loop formation so that it reduces the unnecessary congestion to the channel. In this project, the performance of AOMDV is evaluated using PAMAC as a MAC layer protocol and the average power consumption, throughput and average end to end delay of the network are calculated and the results are compared with that of the other network layer protocol AODV. Keywords—AODV, PAMAC, AOMDV, Power consumption. I. INTRODUCTION OBILE ad hoc networks (MANETs) represent complex distributed systems that comprise wireless mobile nodes that can freely and dynamically self- organize into arbitrary and temporary, ‘‘ad-hoc’’ network topologies, allowing people and devices to seamlessly internet work in areas with no pre-existing communication infrastructure, e.g., disaster recovery environments. Ad hoc networking concept is not a new one, having been around in various forms for over 20 years. Traditionally, tactical networks have been the only communication networking application that followed the ad hoc paradigm. Recently, the introduction of new technologies such as the Blue tooth, IEEE 802.11 and Hyper LAN are helping enable eventual commercial MANET deployments outside the military domain. These recent evolutions have B. Malarkodi is with the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India (phone: 0431-2501301; fax:0431-2500133; e-mail:malark@nitt.edu). S. K. Riyaz Hussain is with the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India (e-mail:208108007@nitt.edu). B. Venkataramani is with the Natinal Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India (e-mail:bvenki@nitt.edu). been generating a renewed and growing interest in the research and development of MANET [1]. The nodes in an adhoc network are constrained by limited battery power for their operation. The use of multi-hop relaying requires a sufficient number of relaying nodes to maintain the network connectivity. Hence, battery power which is a precious resource must be used efficiently in order to avoid early termination of any nodes. Efficient battery management, transmission power management and system power management are the three major means of increasing the lifetime of a node [2]. Battery management is concerned with problems that lie in the selection of battery technologies, finding the optimal capacity of the battery, and scheduling of batteries that increase the battery capacity. Transmission power management techniques attempt to find an optimum power level for the nodes in an adhoc wireless network. System power management deals with minimizing the power required by hardware peripherals of a node and incorporating low power strategies into the protocols used in various layers of the protocol stack. Battery–driven systems are those systems which are designed taking into consideration mainly the battery and its internal characteristics. They try to maximize the amount of energy provided by the power source by exploiting the inherent property of the batteries to recover their charge when kept idle. It is shown that [2] by varying the manner in which energy is drawn from the batteries, significant improvement can be obtained in the total amount of energy supplied by them. Transmission power control on a network wide basis is exercised based on the following observation: Each node in an ad hoc network communicates directly with nodes within its transmission range. To send a packet to a destination, a node forwards the packet to its neighbor, which in turn forwards it to its neighbor, and so on, until the packet reaches the destination. 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 with time. There are several MAC layer protocols such as CSMA, MACA and IEEE 802.11. In CSMA protocol, a station wishing to transmit, first listens to the medium in order to determine if another transmission is in progress. If the transmission medium is busy, the station waits, otherwise it may transmit. But CSMA protocol has the limitations of hidden and exposed terminals. The MACA and the 802.11 protocols use the RTS/CTS dialogue for collision avoidance on the shared channel. MACA does not make use of carrier Performance Evaluation of AOMDV-PAMAC Protocols for Ad Hoc Networks B. Malarkodi, S. K. Riyaz Hussain, and B. Venkataramani M World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering Vol:4, No:2, 2010 302 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 4(2) 2010 ISNI:0000000091950263 Open Science Index, Electrical and Computer Engineering Vol:4, No:2, 2010 publications.waset.org/8710/pdf