Types of MANETs: A survey

A Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) is a type of wireless ad hoc network, and is a self-configuring network of mobile devices connected by many wireless links. Every device in a MANET is also a router as it is required to forward traffic unrelated to its own use. Each MANET device is free to move independently, in any arbitrary direction, and thus each device will potentially change its links to other devices on a regular basis. The primary challenge for building a MANET is for each device to continuously maintain the information required to properly route traffic. MANETs are broadly classified into three types they are Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks(VANET), Intelligent Vehicular Ad-hoc Network (InVANET) and Internet Based Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (iMANET). They differ based on the applications used. This paper reports a study of various MANETs.