Abstract-Research on multi-path routing protocols to provide improved throughput and route resilience as compared with single-path routing has been explored in details in the context of wired networks. However, multi-path routing mechanism has not been explored thoroughly in the domain of ad hoc networks.In this paper, we analyze and compare reactive single-path and multi-path routing with load balance mechanisms in ad hoc networks, in terms of overhead, traffic distribution and connection throughput. The results reveals that in comparison with general single-path routing protocol, multi-path routing mechanism creates more overheads but provides better performance in congestion and capacity provided that the route length is within a certain upper bound which is derivable. The analytical results are further confirmed by simulation.Index Terms-ad-hoc networks, load balancing, multi-path routing, overheads.

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