Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
Mobile devices, such as laptop computers, Pocket PCs, cellular phones, etc., are now easily
affordable, and are becoming more popular in everyday life [42]. As they all become
communication devices; which need an infrastructure to play their role. The infrastructures
that can be used are wired, wireless cellular or wireless LAN. However, such infrastructure
may not be available in all situations. Therefore, there is a need for infrastructureless
communication.
A network of mobile hosts without an infrastructure is known as an ad hoc network [12].
According to [42], a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is defined as follows:
"An ad hoc network is a collection of wireless mobile hosts forming a temporary network
without the aid of any centralized administration or standard support services regularly
available on the wide-area network to which the hosts may normally be connected."
Ad hoc networks were first mainly used for military applications. Since then, they have
become increasingly more popular within the computing industry. Applications include
emergency search-and-rescue operations, deployment of sensors, conferences, exhibitions,
virtual classrooms and operations in environments where construction of infrastructure is
difficult or expensive.
1.1 Multicast Applications
As computer and network technologies have developed, conditions have been created by
which the transfer of multimedia data in real time can be supported. This means that the
development of advanced applications, such as television and videoconferencing via the
Internet, has become possible.