Dynamic Source Routing

Dynamic Source Routing ( DSR) is a routing protocol for wireless mesh network. It is similar to the AODV protocol, because the routes are only sought when a computer has a specific connection request (reactive routes).

One notable optimization of DSR is that the computer, which forward the user data must have no routing tables. Instead, a list of destination addresses is packed in each package. This sounds at first awkward, but reduces the need for the forwarding computer to always have current routing tables. This reduces the transmission of routing information and the essential forwarding computer can be constructed easier ( lower hardware requirement) and have no great memory for the routing tables have.

Participants listen to local network traffic in order to get more routing information. This is possible, since a list of addresses of other infected nodes in each transmitted message. In addition, they recognize route requests, route errors and other computer information. This they can use themselves later.

DSR has a similar protocol for finding routes such as AODV. In small, less congested wireless networks, the two protocols have similar performance characteristics. If the load is higher, however, caused DSR only about 1/3 of the data volume. The DSR nodes get a lot of information by eavesdropping network traffic and so have the power with less strain on their own route preferences.

On the other hand eavesdropping caused the problem that a lot of information is gathered and older - identified information and must be removed from the routing tables - no longer current.