Mobile ad hoc network

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a self-configuring infrastructureless network of mobile devices connected by wireless. Ad hoc is Latin and means "for this purpose".

Each device in a MANET is free to move independently in any direction, and will therefore change its links to other devices frequently. Each must forward traffic unrelated to its own use, and therefore be a router. The primary challenge in building a MANET is equipping each device to continuously maintain the information required to properly route traffic. Such networks may operate by themselves or may be connected to the larger Internet.

MANETs are a kind of Wireless ad hoc network that usually has a routable networking environment on top of a Link Layer ad hoc network.

The growth of laptops and 802.11/Wi-Fi wireless networking have made MANETs a popular research topic since the mid-1990s. Many academic papers evaluate protocols and their abilities, assuming varying degrees of mobility within a bounded space, usually with all nodes within a few hops of each other. Different protocols are then evaluated based on measure such as the packet drop rate, the overhead introduced by the routing protocol, end-to-end packet delays, network throughput etc.

Types of MANET

• Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) are used for communication among vehicles and between vehicles and roadside equipment

• Internet based mobile ad hoc networks (iMANET) are ad hoc networks that link mobile nodes and fixed Internet-gateway nodes. In such type of networks normal adhoc routing algorithms don't apply directly.

Simulation of MANETs

There are several ways to study MANETs. One solution is the use of simulation tools like OPNET, NetSim and NS2

Data Monitoring and Mining Using MANETs

MANETS can be used for facilitating the collection of sensor data for data mining for a variety of applications such as air pollution monitoring and different types of architectures can be used for such applications. It should be noted that a key characteristic of such applications is that nearby sensor nodes monitoring an environmental feature typically register similar values. This kind of data redundancy due to the spatial correlation between sensor observations inspires the techniques for in-network data aggregation and mining. By measuring the spatial correlation between data sampled by different sensors, a wide class of specialized algorithms can be developed to develop more efficient spatial data mining algorithms as well as more efficient routing strategies. Also researchers have developed performance models for MANET by applying Queueing Theory.

Security of MANETs

A lot of research was done in the past but the most significant contributions were the PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) and the trust based security but none of the protocols made a decent trade off between security and performance. In an attempt to enhance security in MANETs many researchers have suggested and implemented new improvements to the protocols and some of them have suggested new protocols.

Classification of Attacks on MANETs

These attacks on MANETs challenge the mobile infrastructure in which nodes can join and leave easily with dynamics requests without a static path of routing. Schematics of various attacks as described by Al-Shakib Khan [1] on individual layer are as under:

• Application Layer: Malicious code, Repudiation
• Transport Layer: Session hijacking, Flooding
• Network Layer: Sybil, Flooding, Black Hole, Grey Hole. Worm Hole, Link Spoofing, Link Withholding, Location disclosure etc.
• Data Link/MAC: Malicious Behavior, Selfish Behavior, Active, Passive, Internal External
• Physical: Interference, Traffic Jamming, Eavesdropping

See also

• AmbientTalk, an experimental programming language for MANETs
• List of ad hoc routing protocols
• Delay-tolerant networking
• Wireless community network
• Wireless mesh network
• Backpressure Routing
• Data Mining
• Wireless Sensor Networks

Further reading

Mobile ad hoc social network (Overview):

• Abdul Shabbir, Anasuri Sunil Kumar (January 2012). "An Efficient Authentication Protocol for Security in MANETs". IJCCT 3 (1): 71–74. 
• Kahn, R. E. (January 1977). "The Organization of Computer Resources into a Packet Radio Network". IEEE Transactions on Communications. COM-25 (1): 169–178. 

• Jubin, J., and Tornow, J. D. (January 1987). "The DARPA Packet Radio Network Protocols". Proceedings of the IEEE 75 (1). 
• N. Schacham and J. Westcott (January 1987). "Future directions in packet radio architectures and protocols". Proceedings of the IEEE 75 (1): 83–99. doi:10.1109/PROC.1987.13707. 

Ad Hoc Network Papers (Overview):

• Royer, E., Chai Keong Toh (April 1999). "A Review of Current Routing Protocols for Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networks". IEEE Personal Communications 6 (2): 46–55. doi:10.1109/98.760423. 

• Mauve, M., Widmer, J., Hartenstein, H. (December 2001). "A Survey on Position-Based Routing in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks". IEEE Network 1 (6): 30–39. doi:10.1109/65.967595. 
• D. Djenouri, L. Kheladi, N. Badache. (4th quarter 2005). "A Survey of Security Issues in Mobile Ad hoc and Sensor Networks". IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials 7 (4). 
• Maihöfer, C. (2nd quarter 2004). "A Survey on Geocast Routing Protocols". IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials 6 (2). 

External links

• IETF MANET group
• NIST MANET and Sensor Network Security project
• Wireless Ad Hoc Networks Bibliography
• Hybrid Ad Hoc Mesh Networks in Military
• IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society – for VANETs
• Smart Multi-Grid Wifi Mesh: Integrated wifi mesh network provides metering, traffic safety, wifi access to communities in US.