A Review on Routing Protocols and Routing Issues in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) consist of a collection of wireless mobile nodes which dynamically exchange data among without reliance on a fixed base station or a wired backbone network, which makes routing a crucial issue to the design of a MANET. If two mobile nodes are within each other’s transmission range, they can communicate with each other directly; otherwise, the nodes in between have to forward the packets for them. In such a case, every mobile node has to function as a router to forward the packets for others. Thus, routing is a basic operation for the MANET. Because traditional routing protocols cannot be directly applied in the MANET, a lot of routing protocols for unicast, multicast, and broadcast transmission have been proposed since the advent of the MANET. Mobile Ad Hoc Network is an anywhere, anytime network. MANET does not use a static network infrastructure. It uses multi-hop routing to provide network connectivity. The goals of routing protocols are to find short routes, decrease routing related overhead and find stable routes. This survey gives a thorough study of routing protocols in the MANET. In our work, we have also discussed some of the major routing issues in MANET.