[[File:Olsr-overview.pdf|thumb|460px|Diagram of OLSR data flow.]]
The '''Optimized Link State Routing Protocol''' ('''OLSR''')<ref name=":0">RFC{{cite IETF |title=Optimized Link State Routing Protocol (OLSR) |rfc=3626 |author1=Thomas Heide Clausen |author2=Philippe Jacquet |date=October 2003 |publisher=[[Internet Engineering Task Force|IETF]] |access-date=22 October 2024}}</ref> is an [[Internet Protocol|IP]] routing protocol optimized for [[mobile ad hoc network]]s, which can also be used on other [[wireless ad hoc network]]s. OLSR is a proactive [[link-state routing protocol]], which uses ''hello'' and ''topology control'' (TC) messages to discover and then disseminate link state information throughout the mobile ad hoc network. Individual nodes use this topology information to compute next hop destinations for all nodes in the network using shortest hop forwarding paths.
== Features specific to OLSR ==
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Being a link-state protocol, OLSR requires a reasonably large amount of [[Bandwidth (computing)|bandwidth]] and CPU power to compute optimal paths in the network. In the typical networks where OLSR is used (which rarely exceed a few hundreds of nodes), this does not appear to be a problem.
By only using MPRs to flood topology information, OLSR removes some of the redundancy of the flooding process, which may be a problem in networks with moderate to large packet loss rates<ref>{{cite journalconference|author1=M. Abolhasan |author2=B. Hagelstein |author3=J. C.-P. Wang |title=Real-world performance of current proactive multi-hop mesh protocols|year=2009|url=http://ro.uow.edu.au/infopapers/736/ |conference=15th Asia-Pacific Conference on Communications}}</ref> – however the MPR mechanism is self-pruning (which means that in case of packet losses, some nodes that would not have retransmitted a packet, may do so).
