1.

Introduction of ad-hoc network:- An ad-hoc network is a local area network (LAN)

that is built spontaneously as devices connect. Instead of relying on a base station to coordinate
the flow of messages to each node in the network, the individual network nodes forward packets
to and from each other. In Latin, ad hoc literally means "for this," meaning "for this special
purpose" and also, by extension, improvised or impromptu.

2. In the Windows operating system, ad-hoc is a communication mode (setting) that allows
computers to directly communicate with each other without a router.

"Ad Hoc" is actually a Latin phrase that means "for this purpose." It is often used to describe solutions
that are developed on-the-fly for a specific purpose. In computer networking, an ad hoc network refers
to a network connection established for a single session and does not require a router or a wireless base
station. networks are the networks which directly connects one computer to another without using
any router or hubs. That means in an AD-Hoc network there is no base station to control and coordinate
the packet flow. In Ad Hoc network packets are flowing from one computer to another directly.Ad hoc
wireless networks work more like walkie-talkies, because the computers communicate directly with
each other without any third party devices. Ad Hoc Networks are self organising, self healing,
distributed networks which most often employ wireless transmission techniques. My ongoing
research in this area is divided into several domains. The first is airborne ad hoc networking (my
doctoral research topic), the second is Suburban Ad Hoc networking and the related topic of
Smart Ad Hoc Networks, and the third is in networked military systems.

My research in this area by necessity spans a number of areas of physics, engineering and
computer science. These include radiofrequency propagation effects in “radar-like” and urban
geometries, antenna parametrisation, satellite navigation support protocols, routing strategies and
protocols, and network performance modelling. Related research I have performed includes radar
performance modelling and vehicle signature modelling.

n recent years, many network scientists have turned their attention away from centralized
networks — such as the Internet and the cell-phone network — and toward ad hoc networks,
wireless networks formed on the fly by, say, emergency responders fanning through a burning
building, tiny sensors scattered on the slopes of a volcano to monitor its activity, or
autonomous robots exploring a forbidding environment. “The problems are very tantalizing,
they’re exciting to work on and they have an interesting mathematical structure,” says Nancy
Lynch, NEC Professor of Software Science and Engineering. “All of traditional distributed-
computing theory deals with wired-network algorithms, so those communication protocols
have been studied for many years.”

In the Internet, the responsibility for directing data traffic lies with special-purpose devices called
routers. Internet service providers monitor the flow of traffic across their networks and, if they spot
congestion, revise the routers’ instructions accordingly. With the cell network, two people a block apart
could be having a phone conversation, but they aren’t directly exchanging data. Rather, they’re sending
data to a cell tower that determines what to do with it — as it does for thousands of other cell-phone
users in the vicinity. “If everything could be run by some node that’s on the Internet, that’s maybe a
solved problem, kind of boring,” Lynch says. “The base station just computes everything and tells
everybody what to do.”

In an ad hoc network, there are no base stations, and there are no supervisors monitoring network
performance as a whole. A sensor dropped on the side of a volcano powers on and tries to determine
how many other active sensors are within communication range. Together, the sensors then piece
together whatever information they need to perform their collective task.

Another common feature of ad hoc networks is that they’re constantly changing. The wind blows — or
the lava flows — and suddenly some of the volcano sensors are farther away from their neighbors, with
lower-bandwidth data connections than they had before; or perhaps some of the connections have
been broken entirely, while new ones have been formed; or perhaps some of the sensors have been
destroyed outright. The problem of changing network topology is even more acute for, say, robots
crawling all over an underwater oil rig looking for leaks, or sensor-laden cars exchanging data about
traffic conditions as they weave among each other on a busy state highway.

If the devices in an ad hoc network had unlimited power, it would be relatively easy for them to
accommodate changing topologies: any one device could send as much data as it needed to any other,
regardless of the distance separating them. But for many of the envisioned applications of ad hoc
networking, power is at a premium. The oil-rig robots might need to operate for hours between battery
charges, the volcano sensors for years. The need to maximize the efficiency of data exchange — in order
to minimize energy consumption — makes designing communications protocols for ad hoc networks
even more challenging.

conveying information across an entire ad hoc network. But there was no ad hoc network set up. There
was no software to do that.” The “killer app” that would persuade people to open up their phones to
direct transmissions from their neighbors may not have emerged yet. But the enthusiasm greeting
Apple’s announcement that future versions of the iPhone might be able to serve as wireless base
stations suggests that the idea could have market potential.

For example, if you need to transfer a file to your friend's laptop, you might create an ad hoc network
between your computer and his laptop to transfer the file. This may be done using an Ethernet
crossover cable, or the computers' wireless cards to communicate with each other. If you need to share
files with more than one computer, you could set up a mutli-hop ad hoc network, which can transfer
data over multiple nodes.
Basically, an ad hoc network is a temporary network connection created for a specific purpose (such as
transferring data from one computer to another). If the network is set up for a longer period of time, it

The history of mobile ad-hoc networks:- A mobile ad-hoc network is a collection of

mobile nodes forming an ad-hoc network without the assistance of any centralized structures.
These networks introduced a new art of network establishment and can be well suited for an
environment where either the infrastructure is lost or where deploy an infrastructure is not very
cost effective There are quite a number of uses for mobile ad-hoc networks. For example, the
military can track an enemy tank as it moves through the geographic area covered by the
network. Your local community can use an ad-hoc network to detect your car moving though an
intersection, checking the speed and direction of the car. In an environmental network, you can
find out the temperature, atmospheric pressure, amount of sunlight, and the relative humidity at a
number of locations.

The whole life-cycle of ad-hoc networks could be categorized into the first, second, and the third
generation ad-hoc networks systems. Present ad-hoc networks systems are considered the third
generation.

The first generation goes back to 1972. At the time, they were called PRNET (Packet Radio
Networks). In conjunction with ALOHA (Areal Locations of Hazardous Atmospheres) and
CSMA (Carrier Sense Medium Access), approaches for medium access control and a kind of
distance-vector routing PRNET were used on a trial basis to provide different networking
capabilities in a combat environment.

The second generation of ad-hoc networks emerged in 1980s,when the ad-hoc network systems
were further enhanced and implemented as a part of the SURAN (Survivable Adaptive Radio
Networks) program. This provided a packet-switched network to the mobile battlefield in an
environment without infrastructure. This program proved to be beneficial in improving the
radios' performance by making them smaller, cheaper, and resilient to electronic attacks.

In the 1990s, the concept of commercial ad-hoc networks arrived with notebook computers and
other viable communications equipment. At the same time, the idea of a collection of mobile
nodes was proposed at several research conferences.

The IEEE 802.11 subcommittee had adopted the term "ad-hoc networks" and the research
community had started to look into the possibility of deploying ad-hoc networks in other areas of
application.

Meanwhile, work was going on to advance the previously built ad-hoc networks. GloMo (Global
Mobile Information Systems) and the NTDR (Near-term Digital Radio) are some of the results of
these efforts. GloMo was designed to provide an office environment with Ethernet-type
multimedia connectivity anywhere and anytime in handheld devices.
3.Understanding mobile ad-hoc network:- Stands for "Mobile Ad Hoc Network." A MANET is a
type of ad hoc network that can change locations and configure itself on the fly. Because MANETS are
mobile, they use wireless connections to connect to various networks. This can be a standard Wi-Fi
connection, or another medium, such as a cellular or satellite transmission.
Wireless cellular systems have been in use since 1980s. We have seen their evolutions to first,
second and third generation's wireless systems. Wireless systems operate with the aid of a
centralized supporting structure such as an access point. These access points assist the wireless
users to keep connected with the wireless system, when they roam from one place to the other.

The presence of a fixed supporting structure limits the adaptability of wireless systems. In other
words, the technology cannot work effectively in places where there is no fixed infrastructure.
Future generation wireless systems will require easy and quick deployment of wireless networks.
This quick network deployment is not possible with the existing structure of current wireless
systems.

Recent advancements such as Bluetooth introduced a new type of wireless systems known as
mobile ad-hoc networks. Mobile ad-hoc networks or "short live" networks operate in the absence
of fixed infrastructure. They offer quick and easy network deployment in situations where it is
not possible otherwise. Ad-hoc is a Latin word, which means "for this or for this only." Mobile
ad-hoc network is an autonomous system of mobile nodes connected by wireless links; each
node operates as an end system and a router for all other nodes in the network.

Nodes in mobile ad-hoc network are free to move and organize themselves in an arbitrary
fashion. Each user is free to roam about while communication with others. The path between
each pair of the users may have multiple links and the radio between them can be heterogeneous.
This allows an association of various links to be a part of the same network.

The popular IEEE 802.11 "WI-FI" protocol is capable of providing ad-hoc network facilities at
low level, when no access point is available. However in this case, the nodes are limited to send
and receive information but do not route anything across the network. Mobile ad-hoc networks
can operate in a standalone fashion or could possibly be connected to a larger network such as
the Internet.

Mobile ad-hoc networks can turn the dream of getting connected "anywhere and at any time"
into reality. Typical application examples include a disaster recovery or a military operation. Not
bound to specific situations, these networks may equally show better performance in other
places. As an example, we can imagine a group of peoples with laptops, in a business meeting at
a place where no network services is present. They can easily network their machines by forming
an ad-hoc network. This is one of the many examples where these networks may possibly be
used. Some MANETs are restricted to a local area of wireless devices (such as a group of laptop
computers), while others may be connected to the Internet. For example, A VANET (Vehicular Ad Hoc
Network), is a type of MANET that allows vehicles to communicate with roadside equipment. While the
vehicles may not have a direct Internet connection, the wireless roadside equipment may be connected
to the Internet, allowing data from the vehicles to be sent over the Internet. The vehicle data may be
used to measure traffic conditions or keep track of trucking fleets. Because of the dynamic nature of
MANETs, they are typically not very secure, so it is important to be cautious what data is sent over a
MANET.

4.A wireless ad hoc sensor network consists of a number of sensors spread across a
geographical area.  Each sensor has wireless communication capability and some level
of intelligence for signal processing and networking of the data.  Some examples of
wireless ad hoc sensor networks are the following:

1. Military sensor networks to detect and gain as much information as

possible about enemy movements, explosions, and other phenomena of
interest.
 
2. Sensor networks to detect and characterize Chemical, Biological,
Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive (CBRNE) attacks and material.
 
3. Sensor networks to detect and monitor environmental changes in plains,
forests, oceans, etc.
 
4. Wireless traffic sensor networks to monitor vehicle traffic on highways or
in congested parts of a city.
 
5. Wireless surveillance sensor networks for providing security in shopping
malls, parking garages, and other facilities.
 
6. Wireless parking lot sensor networks to determine which spots are
occupied and which are free.

The above list suggests that wireless ad hoc sensor networks offer certain capabilities
and enhancements in operational efficiency in civilian applications as well as assist in
the national effort to increase alertness to potential terrorist threats.
Two ways to classify wireless ad hoc sensor networks are whether or not the nodes are
individually addressable, and whether the data in the network is aggregated.  The
sensor nodes in a parking lot network should be individually addressable, so that one
can determine the locations of all the free spaces.  This application shows that it may be
necessary to broadcast a message to all the nodes in the network.  If one wants to
determine the temperature in a corner of a room, then addressability may not be so
important.  Any node in the given region can respond.  The ability of the sensor network
to aggregate the data collected can greatly reduce the number of messages that need
to be transmitted across the network. This function of data fusion is discussed more
below.
The basic goals of a wireless ad hoc sensor network generally depend upon the
application, but the following tasks are common to many networks:

1. Determine the value of some parameter at a given location: In an

environmental network, one might one to know the temperature,
atmospheric pressure, amount of sunlight, and the relative humidity at a
 number of locations.  This example shows that a given sensor node may
be connected to different types of sensors, each with a different sampling
rate and range of allowed values.
 
2. Detect the occurrence of events of interest and estimate parameters of the
detected event or events:  In the traffic sensor network, one would like to
detect a vehicle moving through an intersection and estimate the speed
and direction of the vehicle.
 
3. Classify a detected object:  Is a vehicle in a traffic sensor network a car, a
mini-van, a light truck, a bus, etc.
 
4. Track an object: In a military sensor network, track an enemy tank as it
moves through the geographic area covered by the network.

In these four tasks, an important requirement of the sensor network is that the required
data be disseminated to the proper end users.  In some cases, there are fairly strict time
requirements on this communication.  For example, the detection of an intruder in a
surveillance network should be immediately communicated to the police so that action
can be taken.
Wireless ad hoc sensor network requirements include the following:

1. Large number of (mostly stationary) sensors:  Aside from the deployment

of sensors on the ocean surface or the use of mobile, unmanned, robotic
sensors in military operations, most nodes in a smart sensor network are
stationary.  Networks of 10,000 or even 100,000 nodes are envisioned, so
scalability is a major issue.
 
2. Low energy use:  Since in many applications the sensor nodes will be
placed in a remote area, service of a node may not be possible.  In this
case, the lifetime of a node may be determined by the battery life, thereby
requiring the minimization of energy expenditure.
 
3. Network self-organization:  Given the large number of nodes and their
potential placement in hostile locations, it is essential that the network be
able to self-organize; manual configuration is not feasible.  Moreover,
nodes may fail (either from lack of energy or from physical destruction),
and new nodes may join the network.  Therefore, the network must be
able to periodically reconfigure itself so that it can continue to function.
Individual nodes may become disconnected from the rest of the network,
but a high degree of connectivity must be maintained.
 
4. Collaborative signal processing:  Yet another factor that distinguishes
these networks from MANETs is that the end goal is detection/estimation
of some events of interest, and not just communications.  To improve the
detection/estimation performance, it is often quite useful to fuse data from
 multiple sensors.  This data fusion requires the transmission of data and
control messages, and so it may put constraints on the network
architecture.
 
5. Querying ability:  A user may want to query an individual node or a group
of nodes for information collected in the region.  Depending on the amount
of data fusion performed, it may not be feasible to transmit a large amount
of the data across the network.  Instead, various local sink nodes will
collect the data from a given area and create summary messages.  A
query may be directed to the sink node nearest to the desired location.

Sensor types and system architecture:

With the coming availability of low cost, short range radios along with advances in
wireless networking, it is expected that wireless ad hoc sensor networks will become
commonly deployed.  In these networks, each node may be equipped with a variety of
sensors, such as acoustic, seismic, infrared, still/motion videocamera, etc. These nodes
may be organized in clusters such that a locally occurring event can be detected by
most of, if not all, the nodes in a cluster.  Each node may have sufficient processing
power to make a decision, and it will be able to broadcast this decision to the other
nodes in the cluster.  One node may act as the cluster master, and it may also contain a
longer range radio using a protocol such as IEEE 802.11 or Bluetooth.

5.An ad hoc routing protocol is a convention, or standard, that controls how nodes decide
which way to route packets between computing devices in a mobile ad hoc network .

In ad hoc networks, nodes do not start out familiar with the topology of their networks; instead,
they have to discover it. The basic idea is that a new node may announce its presence and should
listen for announcements broadcast by its neighbours. Each node learns about nodes nearby and
how to reach them, and may announce that it, too, can reach them.

Note that in a wider sense, ad hoc protocol can also be used literally, that is, to mean an
improvised and often impromptu protocol established for a specific purpose.

Content
 1 Pro-active (table-driven) routing
 2 Reactive (on-demand) routing
 3 Flow-oriented routing
 4 Adaptive (situation-aware) routing
 5 Hybrid (both pro-active and reactive) routing
 6 Hierarchical routing protocols
 7 Host Specific Routing protocols
 8 Geographical routing protocols
 9 Power-aware routing protocols
 10 Multicast routing
  11 Geographical multicast protocols (Geocasting)
 12 Other protocol classes
 13 External links

Some applications of mobile ad-hoc networks

By Humayun Bakht

The field of wireless networking emerges from the integration of personal computing, cellular
technology, and the Internet. This is due to the increasing interactions between communication
and computing, which is changing information access from "anytime anywhere" into "all the
time, everywhere." At present, a large variety of networks exists, ranging from the well-known
infrastructure of cellular networks to non-infrastructure wireless ad-hoc networks.

 Unlike a fixed wireless network, wireless ad-hoc or on-the-fly networks are characterized
by the lack of infrastructure. Nodes in a mobile ad-hoc network are free to move and
organize themselves in an arbitrary fashion. Each user is free to roam about while
communicating with others. The path between each pair of the users may have multiple
links, and the radio between them can be heterogeneous. This allows an association of
various links to be a part of the same network. Mobile ad-hoc networks can operate in a
stand-alone fashion or could possibly be connected to a larger network such as the
Internet.
 Ad-hoc networks are suited for use in situations where an infrastructure is unavailable or
to deploy one is not cost effective. One of many possible uses of mobile ad-hoc networks
is in some business environments, where the need for collaborative computing might be
more important outside the office environment than inside, such as in a business meeting
outside the office to brief clients on a given assignment. Work has been going on to
introduce the fundamental concepts of game theory and its applications in
telecommunications. Game theory originates from economics and has been applied in
various fields. Game theory deals with multi-person decision making, in which each
decision maker tries to maximize his utility. The cooperation of the users is necessary to
the operation of ad-hoc networks; therefore, game theory provides a good basis to
analyze the networks.
 A mobile ad-hoc network can also be used to provide crisis management services
applications, such as in disaster recovery, where the entire communication infrastructure
is destroyed and resorting communication quickly is crucial. By using a mobile ad-hoc
network, an infrastructure could be set up in hours instead of weeks, as is required in the
case of wired line communication. Another application example of a mobile ad-hoc
network is Bluetooth, which is designed to support a personal area network by
eliminating the need of wires between various devices, such as printers and personal
digital assistants. The famous IEEE 802.11 or Wi-Fi protocol also supports an ad-hoc
network system in the absence of a wireless access point.
 In conclusion, mobile ad-hoc networks allow the construction of flexible and adaptive
networks with no fixed infrastructure. These networks are expected to play an important
role in the future wireless generation. Future wireless technology will require highly-
adaptive mobile networking technology to effectively manage multi-hop ad-hoc network
 clusters, which will not only operate autonomously but also will be able to attach at some
point to the fixed networks.

Difference between cellular and AD hoc network :-The ad hoc networks are
completely autonomous wireless networks where all the users are mobile. These networks do
not work on any infrastructure and the nodes communicate either directly or via other nodes of
the network by establishing routes. In cellular networks, there is sometimes a problem with
communication between nodes and Base station due to signal strength when they are highly
apart and also due to high structural density. In this aim, we propose a dynamic wireless
topology, which will integrate the Cellular system with MANET to enhance the performance of
the system. It will decrease the work load on the Base station, as in the recent years the
numbers of mobile nodes are increasing. It will help in communicating with the nodes which are
receiving low signals from Base station. It will communicate with nearby mobile nodes even
without Base station. Thus it will decrease the cost of communication in a single cell. The system
will work efficiently and effectively where the RSSI (signal strength) value of the Base Station is
not acceptable for communication.

Wireless communication has become one of the most vibrant areas of technology innovation.
Cellular wireless networks have experienced dramatic global growth for the past decade.
Recently, wireless local area networks are being rapidly deployed in industrial, commercial, and
home networks. Several organizations are actively developing standards for future wireless
networks. One important reason for their growing popularity is that wireless networks, to some
extent, enable people to exchange information on the move anytime and anywhere in the
world. As wireless devices become more inexpensive and widely available, communication
networks will become more ubiquitous and far reaching in daily life.

A mobile network consists of mobile devices, herein simply referred to as "nodes", which are
free to move about. The way in which mobile networks operate is fundamentally different to
traditional fixed networks. In order to understand these differences, and the challenges of
designing and implementing a mobile network, some background information needs to be
presented. Network models and the concept of routing will be presented first. Then the
characteristics of mobile ad hoc networks will be compared to fixed wire networks.

To achieve truly ubiquitous communication, infrastructure-less networks, also known as ad hoc

networks, come into play in addition to the widely deployed infrastructure-based networks. In
cellular networks, users are connected via base stations and backbone networks. Although users
can hand-off between base stations and roam among different networks, their mobility is
limited within the coverage areas of the base stations. In ad hoc networks, communicating
devices (nodes) can form arbitrary networks “on the fly” to exchange information without the
need of pre-existing network infrastructure. Ad hoc

The advantages of Ad Hoc Networks :-

Fast installation: the level of flexibility for setting up AHN’s is high, sincet h e y d o n o t
require any previous installation or infrastructure and, thus, they can
b e brought up and torn down in very short time.
•
Dynamic topologies: nodes can arbitrarily move around the network and can disappear
temporally from the AHN, so the network topology graph can becontinuously changing at
undetermined speed.
•
Fault tolerance
: o w i n g t o t h e l i m i t a t i o n s o f t h e r a d i o i n t e r f a c e s a n d t h e dynamic topology,
AHN’s support connection failures, because routing and transmissioncontrol protocols are
designed to manage these situations.
•
Connectivity
: the use of centralized points or gateways is not necessary for  the communication
within the AHN, due to the collaboration between nodes in the task of delivering packets.
•
Mobility
: the wireless mobile nodes can move at the same time in different directions. Although
the routing algorithms deal with this issue, the performances i m u l a t i o n s s h o w t h a t t h e r
Cost
: AHN’s could be more economical in some cases as they eliminate fixedinfrastructure costs and
reduce power consumption at mobile nodes.
•
Spectrum reuse possibility
: owing to short communication links (node-to-node instead of node to a central
base station), radio emission levels could be kept at low level. This increases spectrum
reuse possibility or possibility

Conclusion:-Ad-hoc networks are suited for use in situations where an infrastructure is

unavailable or to deploy one is not cost effective. One of many possible uses of mobile ad-hoc
networks is in some business environments, where the need for collaborative computing might
be more important outside the office environment than inside, such as in a business meeting
outside the office to brief clients on a given assignment. Work has been going on to introduce the
fundamental concepts of game theory and its applications in telecommunications. Game theory
originates from economics and has been applied in various fields. Game theory deals with multi-
person decision making, in which each decision maker tries to maximize his utility. The
cooperation of the users is necessary to the operation of ad-hoc networks; therefore, game theory
provides a good basis to analyze the networks.

A mobile ad-hoc network can also be used to provide crisis management services applications,
such as in disaster recovery, where the entire communication infrastructure is destroyed and
resorting communication quickly is crucial. By using a mobile ad-hoc network, an infrastructure
could be set up in hours instead of weeks, as is required in the case of wired line communication.
Another application example of a mobile ad-hoc network is Bluetooth, which is designed to
support a personal area network by eliminating the need of wires between various devices, such
as printers and personal digital assistants. The famous IEEE 802.11 or Wi-Fi protocol also
supports an ad-hoc network system in the absence of a wireless access point.

In conclusion, mobile ad-hoc networks allow the construction of flexible and adaptive networks
with no fixed infrastructure. These networks are expected to play an important role in the future
wireless generation. Future wireless technology will require highly-adaptive mobile networking
technology to effectively manage multi-hop ad-hoc network clusters, which will not only operate
autonomously but also will be able to attach at some point to the fixed networks.