Routing Protocols for MANETS: Issues and Challenges

Abstract

Wireless communication technologies have experienced a gigantic leap in terms of communication methods and speed of communication coupled together with mobility. Conventional wired methods of communication have been fast replaced with wireless technologies with state of art infrastructure less Ad-Hoc networks. One such innovative concept is the mobile ad hoc network or Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) which is finding widespread utility in remote installations for monitoring, surveillance and control. Nodes form the back bone of MANETs and incorporation of a strong routing mechanism ensures the optimal and efficient implementation of MANETs for given application. However, routing is a complex research issue as it has to take into consideration a collection of attributes before dictating the routing path. Based on the several bounds and constraints, the application to which it is being put used to, routing methods are classified into proactive, reactive and hybrid protocols. An elaborate and systematic review of several research issues clouding the performance of routing methods has been discussed in this review article with briefings on concepts of clustering to reduce network complexity.