Design and investigation of scalable multicast recursive protocols for wired and wireless ad hoc networks

Chapter 2

RESEARCH BACKGROUND

In this chapter, the different types of routing protocols (Unicast and Multicast) proposed and
developed for Ad hoc networks are discussed. At the beginning of this chapter a general
description of ad hoc networks, their applications and special features over traditional
wireless network are discussed. The different types of routing protocols for Mobile Ad hoc
Networks (MANETs) with examples of each type are then surveyed. Some examples will be
discussed in details as they will be used as a part of our research work.

2.1 Introduction

As computer applications have become massively embedded in our daily tasks we therefore
want these applications to be available “all the time everywhere”. A number of reasons have
helped in supporting the previous fact: the rapid decrease in the size of mobile devices, the
rise in mobile computer laptops specifications, the huge availability of applications on
mobile devices, and the growth in the markets for wireless telephones and mobile devices.

As wireless devices become widely used and the applications using the Internet on these
devices are also abundantly available, customers still require using these network
applications at any place and at any time even when neither the Internet nor the infrastructure
is available. For example, during military operations military units in a battlefield using
wireless devices, require keep contact with each other to exchange information forming a
network in the absence of base stations [72]. In the case of infrastructure absence, the only
way is to establish a wireless network is by distributing routing function of base station
(routing) to the wireless nodes and establish a temporary network- in other words Mobile Ad
hoc networks (MANETs) and sometimes called ad-hoc networks or multihop wireless
networks.

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