What is MANET – Mobile Ad Hoc Network

MANET stands for Mobile Ad Hoc Network, it is an IETF (Internet engineering task force) work group that was created in 1998 for systematizing the routing protocols based on Internet protocol for ad hoc network, phones etc. MANET is group of large independent wire nodes interconnecting each other on peer to peer basis in an environment without any infrastructures.

MANET’s Routing Protocols

The types of Manet routing protocols are as follows

  1. Topology-based routing protocols
  2. Position bases routing protocols

1. Topology bases routing protocols: –

Topology protocol is dived into two types of categories, i.e.

  • On demand protocol: – On demand protocol is also known as reactive protocol and they create routes as per needs.
  • Proactive protocol: – It is also called as periodic protocol. They maintains tables of routes for every destination and for this purpose they exchange messages.

2. Position Based Protocol: – The nodes are work as the geographical position to make routing decisions. To use this position based protocol nodes are able to establish location of itself and with all the nodes that require communicating.

 manet

Characteristics of MANET

Manet networks are created by an independent system of mobile nodes that are connected with wireless connections and without any infrastructures. They don’t have any fixed infrastructure and the mobile nodes interrelate among themselves for communication. So every node in the network acts as source and route packets to other nodes in the network.

Communication with Nodes

The communication between nodes is based on multiple hops. Mobile Ad Hoc Networks are made up of mobile hosts that are connected by radio connections with out having any infrastructure. The communication is transferred directly between nodes and intermediary nodes are acts as routers. Each mobile node act as host and router, like transferring information from one neighbor to another. For communication, nodes 1 and 3 must engage with 2 and 4 nodes to transfer protocol packets.

Manet networks are used for various applications such as during military operations, Crowd Controls, conferences, various research activities, etc.