MANET(Mobile Ad hoc Network):

Consists of a set of mobile nodes connected wirelessly in a self-configured, self-healing

network without having a fixed infrastructure. MANET nodes are free to move randomly as
the network topology changes frequently. Each node behaves as a router as they forward
traffic to other specified nodes in the network.

 It is purely wireless network.

 There is no fixed infrastructure.
 Dynamic topologies.
 Node in MANET can act as Host or Router.
 MANET is a autonomous collection of mobile users that communicate over wireless
link.

Characteristics:
Dynamic topologies: nodes are free to move arbitrarily; thus the network topology may be
changed randomly and unpredictably and primarily consists of bidirectional links. In some
cases where the transmission power of two nodes is different, a unidirectional link may exist.

Bandwidth-constrained and variable capacity links: wireless links continue to have

significantly lower capacity than infrastructure networks.

Energy Constrained Operation:

As some or all the nodes rely on batteries or other exhaustible means for their [Link]
energy drop will [Link] nodes are characterized by less memory, power, and
lightweight features.

Limited Security:
Wireless networks are more prone to security threats. A centralized firewall is absent due to
the distributed nature of the operation for security, routing, and host configuration.

Less Human Intervention:

They require minimum human intervention to configure the network, therefore they are
dynamically autonomous in nature.

Pros and Cons of MANET –

Pros:
1. Separation from central network administration.
2. Each node can play both the roles ie. of router and host showing autonomous
nature
3. Self-configuring and self-healing nodes do not require human intervention.

Cons:
1. Resources are limited due to various constraints like noise, interference
conditions, etc.
2. Lack of authorization facilities.
3. More prone to attacks due to limited physical security.

Applications of MANET:

 Crisis management applications

 Defense applications
 Telemedicine
 Tele-geoprocessing application
 Education via the internet
 Virtual Navigation
 Vehicular area network
Properties:
 Fast Network establishment
 Peer to peer connectivity
 Independent communication
 No requirement of access point
 Less Wireless connectivity Range
Challenges:
 Dynamic topology (nodes keep on moving)
 Limited Bandwidth
 Energy constrained(there is no backup space)
 Difficulty in Routing
1. Nodes are mobile in nature
2. Change the links frequently
Routing
Routing is the process of finding the best path for traffic in a network, or across multiple
networks.
Routing protocol should follow:
1. Reliabillity
2. Least cost in routing traffic in network
3. Maximum throughput means minimum idle time for nodes.
Types of Routing:
 Proactive
 Reactive
 Hybrid

Proactive Routing:
 Route is determained in advance
 It is also called as Table Driven Routing
Advantages:
a) Low route latency(delay)
b) State information
c) Quality of service guarantee
Disadvantage:
a) Unfortunately, it is a big overhead to maintain routing tables in the MANET
environment.
b) Periodic update is needed.
Reactive routing:
1. reactive protocols build the routes only on demand so called as on demand routing.
2. Route is determined only when needed
Advantages:
 a) Less overhead
b) Scalability is good
Disadvantage:
a) Latency time is high in route finding
b) Route caching can be reduced
Hybrid Routing:
Proactive +reactive
For nearby nodes we use proactive protocol where information is stored.
For far away nodes Reactive protocol is used only on the need basis
Hybrid protocols attempt to take advantage of best of reactive and proactive schemes. The
basic idea behind such protocols is to initiate route discovery on demand but at a limited
search cost. One of the popular hybrid protocols is zone routing protocol (ZRP).

Wireless Ad hoc Network vs Wireless Sensor network

Wireless Ad hoc Network :

A wireless ad-hoc network is a wireless network deployed without any framework
or infrastructure. This incorporates wireless mesh networks, mobile ad-hoc networks, and
vehicular ad-hoc networks.
Wireless ad-hoc networks, in particular mobile adhoc network are growing very fast
as they make communication simpler and progressively accessible. In any case, their
conventions or protocols will in general be hard to structure due to topology dependent
behavior of wireless communication, and their distributed and adaptive operations to
topology dynamism. They are allowed to move self-assertively at any time. So, the network
topology of MANET may change randomly and rapidly at unpredictable times. This makes
routing difficult because the topology is continually changing and nodes cannot be expected
to have steady data storage.

Applications:
1. Data Mining
2. Military battlefield
3. Commercial Sector
4. Personal area network or Bluetooth.

Wireless Sensor Network:

A wireless sensor network can be characterized as a system of devices, indicated as
nodes which can detect the environment and impart the data accumulated from the
monitored field (e.g., a zone or volume) through remote or wireless connections. It can be
depicted as a system of nodes that agreeably sense and may control the environment
enabling association between people or computers and the surrounding environment. The
information is sent, possibly through different jumps, to a sink (indicated as a controller or
 monitor) that can utilize it locally or is associated with different systems (e.g., The Internet)
through a portal. The nodes can be fixed or moving.
Applications:
1. Environmental Monitoring
2. Health Care
3. Positioning and Monitoring

Differences between Wireless Ad hoc Network and Wireless Sensor Network :

Wireless Ad hoc Network Wireless Sensor Network

The medium used in wireless adhoc The medium used in wireless sensor networks are
networks is radio waves. radio waves, infrared, optical media.

Application independent network is

used. Application dependent network is used.

Query based (data centric routing) or location based

Hop-to-Hop routing takes place. routing takes place.

It is heterogeneous in type. It is homogeneous in type.

The traffic pattern is any-to-any, many-to-one,

The traffic pattern is point-to-point. many-to-few, one-to-many.

Wireless router is used as an inter- Application level gateway is used as an inter-

connecting device. connecting device.

The data rate is high. The data rate is low.

Supports common services. Supports specific applications.

Traffic triggering depends on

application needs. Triggered by sensing events.

Local unique MAC address or spatial IP is used for

IP address is used for addressing. addressing.
ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES FOR WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS
Building such wireless sensor networks has only become possible with some
fundamental advances in enabling technologies.
First and foremost among these technologies is the miniaturization of hardware.
Smaller feature sizes in chips have driven down the power consumption of the basic
components of a sensor node to a level that the constructions of WSNs can be contemplated.
This is particularly relevant to microcontrollers and memory chips as such, but also,
the radio modems, responsible for wireless communication, have become much more energy
efficient.
Reduced chip size and improved energy efficiency is accompanied by reduced cost,
which is necessary to make redundant deployment of nodes affordable.
Next to processing and communication, the actual sensing equipment is the third
relevant technology.
These three basic parts of a sensor node have to accompanied by power supply. This
requires, depending on application, high capacity batteries that last for long times, that is,
have only a negligible self-discharge rate, and that can efficiently provide small amounts of
current.
Ideally, a sensor node also has a device for energy scavenging, recharging the battery
with energy gathered from the environment – solar cells or vibration-based power generation
are conceivable options.
Such a concept requires the battery to be efficiently chargeable with small amounts of
current, which is not a standard ability. Both batteries and energy scavenging are still objects
of ongoing research.
The counterpart to the basic hardware technologies is software. The first question to
answer here is the principal division of tasks and functionalities in a single node – the
architecture of the operating system or runtime environment.
This environment has to support simple retasking, cross-layer information exchange,
and modularity to allow for simple maintenance.
This software architecture on a single node has to be extended to a network
architecture, where the division of tasks between nodes, not only on a single node, becomes
the relevant question – for example, how to structure interfaces for application programmers.
The third part to solve then is the question of how to design appropriate
communication protocols.
ISSUES AND CHALLENGES
[Link] Issues:
–tolerant Communication: Due to the deployment of sensor nodes in an uncontrolled
or harsh environment, it is not uncommon for the sensor nodes to become faulty and
unreliable.
framework deals with are urgent which should be
recognized immediately by the operator. Therefore, the framework has to detect and notify
the events quickly as soon as possible.
 portionally
to the capacity added, is said to be a scalable system. The number of sensor nodes deployed
in the sensing area may be in the order of hundreds or thousands, or more.
-hop sensor network, communicating nodes are linked by a
wireless medium. The traditional problems associated with a wireless channel (e.g., fading,
high error rate) may also affect the operation of the sensor network.
Coverage Problems: One fundamental problem in wireless sensor networks is the coverage
problem, which reflects the quality of service that can be provided by a particular sensor
network. The coverage problem is defined from several points of view due to a variety of
sensor networks and a wide-range of their applications.
B. Topology Issues

position information. It is mainly proposed for wireless networks and based on the idea that
the source sends a message to the geographic location of the destination instead of using the
network address.

are not available or the available nodes cannot participate in the actual routing of the data due
to various possible reasons.
The task of identifying holes is especially challenging since typical wireless sensor networks
consist of lightweight, low-capability nodes that are unaware of their geographic location.
well an area is monitored or tracked
by sensors. The coverage and connectivity problems in sensor networks have received
considerable attention in the research community in recent years. This problem can be
formulated as a decision problem, whose goal is to determine whether every point in the
service area of the sensor network is covered by at least k sensors, where k is a given
parameter.
C. Other issues
The major issues that affect the design and performance of a wireless sensor network
are as follows:
A. Challenges in real time:
WSN deal with real world environments. In many cases, sensor data must be
delivered within time constraints so that appropriate observations can be made or actions
taken. Very few results exist to date regarding meeting real-time requirements in WSN. Most
protocols either ignore real-time or simply attempt to process as fast as possible and hope that
this speed is sufficient to meet deadlines. Some initial results exist for real-time routing. To
date, the limited results that have appeared for WSN regarding real-time issues has been in
routing. Many other functions must also meet real-time constraints including: data fusion,
data transmission, target and event detection and classification, query processing, and
security. New results are needed to guarantee soft real-time requirements and that deal with
the realities of WSN such as lost messages, noise and congestion. Using feedback control to
address both steady state and transient behaviour seems to hold promise. Dealing with real-
time usually identifies the need for differentiated services, e.g., routing solutions need to
support different classes of traffic; guarantees for the important traffic and less support for
unimportant traffic. It is important not only to develop real-time protocols for WSN, but
associated analysis techniques must also be developed
B. Challenges in power managements:
Low-cost deployment is one acclaimed advantage of sensor networks. Limited
processor bandwidth and small memory are two arguable constraints in sensor networks,
which will disappear with the development of fabrication techniques. However, the energy
constraint is unlikely to be solved soon due to slow progress in developing battery capacity.
Moreover, the untended nature of sensor nodes and hazardous sensing environments preclude
battery replacement as a feasible solution. On the other hand, the surveillance nature of many
sensor network applications requires a long lifetime; therefore, it is a very important research
issue to provide a form of energy-efficient surveillance service for a geographic area. Much
of the current research focuses on how to provide full or partial sensing coverage in the
context of energy conservation.
C. Network Scale and Time-Varying Characteristics of WSN
Under severe energy constraints, Sensor nodes operate with limited computing,
storage and communication capabilities. Depending upon the application, the densities of the
WSNs may vary widely, ranging from very sparse to very dense. In these sensor nodes the
behaviour of sensor nodes is dynamic and highly adaptive, as the need to self organize and
conserve energy forces sensor nodes to adjust the behaviour constantly in response to their
current level of activity. Furthermore, the sensor nodes may be requires adjusting the
behaviour in response to the erratic and unpredictable behaviour of wireless connections
caused by high noise levels and radio-frequency interference, to prevent severe performance
degradation of the application supported.
D. Management at a Distance:
Sensor nodes will be deployed at our door field such as a subway station. It is difficult
for managers or operators to manage the network directly. Thus the framework should
provide an indirect remote control/ management system.