Mobile Ad Hoc Network

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a temporary, self-organizing network of wireless mobile nodes without the support of any existing infrastructure that may be readily available on conventional networks. It allows various devices to form a network in areas where no communication infrastructure exists. Although there are many problems and challenges that need to be solved before the large-scale deployment of an MANET, small and medium-sized MANETs can be easily deployed. The motivation and development of MANET was mainly triggered by Department of Defense (DoD)-sponsored research work for military applications (Freebersyser and Leiner, 2002). In addition, ad hoc applications for mobile and dynamic environments are also driving the growth of these networks (Illyas, 2003; Perkins, 2002; Toh, 2002). As the number of applications of wireless ad hoc networks grows, the size of the network varies greatly from a network of several mobile computers in a classroom to a network of hundreds of mobile units deployed in a battlefield, for example. The variability in the network size is also true for a particular network over the course of time; a network of a thousand nodes may be split into a number of smaller networks of a few hundred nodes or vice versa as the nodes dynamically move around a deployed area. Ad hoc networks not only have the traditional problems of wireless communications like power management, security, and bandwidth optimization, but also the lack of any fixed infrastructure, and their multihop nature poses new research problems. For example, routing, topology maintenance, location management, and device discovery, to name a few, are important problems and are still active areas of research (Wu & Stojmenovic, 2004).