Muhammad Ullah, Waqar Ahmad, Shoaib Bakhtyar

School of Computing, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Ronneby 37225, Blekinge, Sweden

Abstract
The resource constrained nature of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) impels various challenges in its design and operations hence degrading a WSN’s performance. On the other hand, varying numbers of applications having different constraints in their nature makes it further challenging for such resources constrained networks to attain application expectations. These challenges can be seen at different layer of WSNs starting from physical layer up to application layer. At routing layer, routing protocols are mainly concerned with WSN operation. The presence of these challenges affects the performance of routing protocols resulting in overall WSN performance degradation. In this paper we will identify the performance challenges of WSN and analyze their impact on the performance of routing protocols in a mobile nodes wireless sensor network.

Keywords: WSN, OLSR, DSR, mobile nodes network, OPNET, Performance evaluation.