Ad Hoc Wireless Networking

Wireless networking enables two or more computers to communicate using standard network protocols without network cables. Since their emergence in the 1970s, wireless networks have become increasingly pop­ ular in the computing industry. In the past decade, wireless networks have enabled true mobility. There are currently two versions of mobile wireless networks. An infrastructure network contains a wired backbone with the last hop being wireless. The cellular phone system is an exam­ ple of an infrastructure network. A multihop ad hoc wireless network has no infrastructure and is thus entirely wireless. A wireless sensor network is an example of a multihop ad hoc wireless network. Ad hoc wireless networking is a technique to support robust and ef­ ficient operation in mobile wireless networks by incorporating routing functionality into mobile hosts. This technique will be used to realize the dream of "anywhere and anytime computing", which is termed mo­ bile computing. Mobile computing is a new paradigm of computing in which users carrying portable devices have access to shared infrastruc­ ture in any location at any time. Mobile computing is a very challenging topic for scientists in computer science and electrical engineering. The representative system for ad hoc wireless networking is called MANET, an acronym for "Mobile Ad hoc NETworks". MANET is an autonomous system consisting of mobile hosts connected by wireless links which can be quickly deployed.