Introduction of Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET)

MANET stands for Mobile Adhoc Network also called a wireless Adhoc network or Adhoc
wireless network that usually has a routable networking environment on top of a Link Layer ad
hoc network.. They consist 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.

MANET may operate a standalone fashion or they can be part of larger internet. They form a
highly dynamic autonomous topology with the presence of one or multiple different transceivers
between nodes. The main challenge for the MANET is to equip each device to continuously
maintain the information required to properly route traffic. MANETs consist of a peer-to-peer,
self-forming, self-healing network MANET’s circa 2000-2015 typically communicate at radio
frequencies (30MHz-5GHz). This can be used in road safety, ranging from sensors for the

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environment, home, health, disaster rescue operations, air/land/navy defense, weapons, robots,
etc.

Characteristics of MANET –

• Dynamic Topologies:
Network topology which is typically multihop may change randomly and rapidly with
time, it can form unidirectional or bi-directional links.
• Bandwidth constrained, variable capacity links:
Wireless links usually have lower reliability, efficiency, stability, and capacity as
compared to a wired network
• Autonomous Behavior:
Each node can act as a host and router, which shows its autonomous behavior.
• Energy Constrained Operation:
As some or all the nodes rely on batteries or other exhaustible means for their energy.
Mobile 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.

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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.

Types of MANET in Computer Network

Prerequisite – MANET: Mobile Ad hoc Network

MANET stands for Mobile adhoc Network also called as wireless adhoc network or adhoc
wireless network. They consist 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.

Types of MANET –

1. Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANETs) –

Enable effective communication with another vehicle or with the roadside equipments.
Intelligent vehicular ad hoc networks(InVANETs) deals with another vehicle or with
roadside equipments.

2. Smart Phone Ad hoc Network (SPANC) –

To create peer-to-peer networks without relying on cellular carrier networks, wireless
access points, or traditional network infrastructure. Here peers can join or leave the
network without destroying it.

3. Internet based Mobile Ad hoc Network (iMANETs) –

It supports internet protocols such as TCP/UDP and IP. To link mobile nodes and
establish routes distributed and automatically.

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 4. Hub-Spoke MANET:
Multiple sub MANET’s may be connected in hub-spoke VPN to create a geographically
distributed MANET. Normal Ad-hoc routing algorithm does not apply directly.

5. Military or Tactical MANETs –

This is used by the military units. Emphasis on data rate, real-time demand, fast re-
routing during mobility, security, radio range, etc.

6. Flying Ad hoc Network (FANETs) –

This is composed of unmanned aerial vehicles (commonly known as drones). Provides
links to remote areas and mobility.

Introduction

Mobile ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) are composed of mobile nodes communicating over
multiple hops from a source to a destination. They do not have an infrastructure such as a base
station or an access point to facilitate data transfer. Mobile nodes acting as relays receive data
from the source or other relays and forward such data to the next hop until the destination has
been reached. Delay-tolerant Networks (DTNs) are a special kind of MANET that will allow
mobile nodes to receive, store, and forward data when they move and meet each other. Unlike in
MANETs, in DTNs, there is no need for an end-to-end path from the source to the destination
when the data are transferred. Thus, DTNs are suitable for non-real-time traffic, namely delay-
tolerant traffic. Typically, in MANETs and DTNs, the energy supply to the mobile nodes in the
networks is limited and intermittent. Additionally, mobility makes data transfer less reliable than
in infrastructure-based wireless networks such as cellular systems. Therefore, when one adopts
wireless energy harvesting and transfer, some related issues, e.g., routing and energy
replenishment, have to be revisited.

This chapter deals with wireless-powered MANETs and DTNs. Firstly, overviews of MANETs
and DTNs are presented. Some issues related to energy in conventional MANETs and DTNs are
discussed. Then, the chapter presents in detail energy management approaches for mobile nodes
in wireless-powered MANETs and DTNs.

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 1. • The first approach deals with content delivery services in a wireless-powered DTN. In
the network, a mobile node acting as a mobile router moves randomly to collect content
from a content source and deliver it to a gateway. The mobile node receives energy from
the gateway, and thus must optimize energy usage for content delivery. A constrained
Markov decision process (CMDP) is formulated and solved to obtain an optimal content
delivery policy. Additionally, multiple mobile nodes can help each other to deliver
content from different content sources. A coalition formation game is applied to
determine an optimal coalition among mobile nodes.
2. • The second approach considers delay-limited communication in the wireless-powered
MANET. The mobile node generates and has to transmit delay-sensitive data before a
deadline. If the deadline is violated,

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are a new class of wireless networks that
are becoming very popular with a huge number of civilian and military
applications. A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a wireless network that
contains distributed independent sensor devices that are meant to monitor
physical or environmental conditions. A WSN consists of a set of connected
tiny sensor nodes, which communicate with each other and exchange
information and data. These nodes obtain information on the environment
such as temperature, pressure, humidity or pollutant, and send this
information to a base station. The latter sends the info to a wired network or
activates an alarm or an action, depending on the type and magnitude of data
monitored

Typical applications include weather and forest monitoring, battlefield

surveillance, physical monitoring of environmental conditions such as
pressure, temperature, vibration, pollutants, or tracing human and animal

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movement in forests and borders [1–23]. They use the same transmission
medium (which is air) for wireless transmission as wireless local area
networks (WLANs). For nodes in a local area network to communicate
properly, standard access protocols like IEEE 802.11 are available. However,
this and the other protocols cannot be directly applied to WSNs. The major
difference is that, unlike devices participating in local area networks, sensors
are equipped with a very small source of energy (usually a battery), which
drains out very fast.

Wireless Sensor Networks

A sensor network is a wireless network that consists of thousands of very small

nodes called sensors. Base station Figure 1: Architecture of wireless sensor
networksWireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) 2

WSN Sensors are equipped with sensing, limited computation, and wireless
communication capabilities. Figure 2: Typical hardware components of a sensor
node in wireless sensor networksWireless Sensor Networks (cont.) 3

Wireless sensor networks consists of protocols and algorithms with self-organizing

capabilities. 4Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networks These sensors work with
each other to sense some physical phenomenon and then the information gathered
is processed to get relevant results.  Wireless Sensor Networks are networks that
consists of sensors which are distributed in an ad hoc manner. Introduction

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Sensor nodes may not have global ID because of the large amount of overhead and
large number of sensors. 5Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networks Unlike ad
hoc networks wireless sensor networks are limited by sensors limited power,
energy and computational capability.  Wireless sensor networks mainly use
broadcast communication while ad hoc networks use point-to-point
communication. Comparison with ad hoc networks

They have an ever-increasing number of applications, such as infrastructure

protection and security, surveillance, health-care, environment monitoring, food
safety, intelligent transportation, and smart energy. WSNs have many advantages
over traditional networking techniques. WSNs Applications 6

WSNs Applications 7

WSNs Applications

Applications of Wireless Sensor networks

The applications can be divided in three categories:

1. Monitoring of objects.

2. Monitoring of an area.

3. Monitoring of both area and objects.

Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networks

Intelligent Alarms 9Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networks Military

Surveillance  Indoor Climate Control  Precision Agriculture  Environmental
and Habitat Monitoring Monitoring Area

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Example: Precision Agriculture Precision agriculture aims at making cultural
operations more efficient, while reducing environmental impact. The information
collected from sensors is used to evaluate optimum sowing density, estimate
fertilizers and other inputs needs, and to more accurately predict crop yields.
10Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networks

Urban terrain mapping 11Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networks Medical

Diagnostics  Condition-based Maintenance  Eco-physiology  Structural
Monitoring Monitoring Objects

Health Care 12Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networks Asset Tracking 

Ubiquitous Computing  Emergency Response  Disaster Management  Wildlife
Habitats Monitoring Interactions between Objects and Space

Wireless networks can also be deployed in extreme environmental conditions and

may be prone t energy constrained due to their small size.  limited memory 
low power  Wireless Sensor Networks mainly consists of sensors. Sensors are -
Characteristics of Wireless Sensor Networks Although deployed in an ad hoc
manner they need to be self organized and self healing and can face constant
reconfiguration. 13Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networkso enemy attacks.

The data should be transferred efficiently between sensors 14Introduction to

Wireless Sensor Networks Low Bandwidth Communication  The algorithms
need to be centralized as the processing is carried out on different nodes. 
Distributed Processing  The devices deployed maybe of various types and need to
collaborate with each other.  Heterogeneity Design Challenges

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 The computation should be done quickly as new data is always being generated.
15Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networks Real Time Computation  The
sensors should be utilized in a ways that produce the maximum performance and
use less energy.  Utilization of Sensors  The sensors need to coordinate with
each other to produce required results.  Large Scale Coordination Continued..

Survivability in harsh environments 16Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networks

Scalability to a large number of sensor nodes  Node failure are expected  Noisy
measurements  Wireless communication  Errors are common  Low bandwidth
and high error rates  Limited storage and computation  Energy Efficiency
Operational Challenges of Wireless Sensor Networks

Enabling Technologies Embedded Networked Sensing Control system w/ Small

form factor Untethered nodes Exploit collaborative Sensing, action Tightly
coupled to physical world Embed numerous distributed devices to monitor and
interact with physical world Network devices to coordinate and perform higher-
level tasks Exploit spatially and temporally dense, in situ, sensing and actuation
17Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networks

The Pentagon building has used sensors extensively. 18Introduction to Wireless

Sensor Networks Better lighting and heating in office buildings.  Sensors
controlling electrical devices in the house. Future of WSN Smart Home / Smart
Office

Record anomalies 19Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networks Monitor vital

signs  Hospital Sensors  Cochlear implants  Artificial retina  Chronic Diseases
 Cancer detection  Heart rate  Glucose  Health Monitors Biomedical /
Medical

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Military Remote deployment of sensors for tactical monitoring of enemy troop
movements. 20Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networks

Industrial & Plant Equipment Maintenance Monitoring 21Introduction to Wireless

Sensor Networks Theft Deterrent and Customer Tracing  Automated Problem
Reporting  In-Process Parts Tracking  Inventory Tracking  Agricultural Crop
Conditions  Numerous industrial and commercial applications: Commercial

Traffic Management & Monitoring Future cars could use wireless sensors to:
Handle Accidents Handle Thefts Sensors embedded in the roads to: –Monitor traffic
flows –Provide real-time route updates 22Introduction to Wireless Sensor Network

Applications of wireless sensor network

Military applications: Wireless sensor networks be likely an integral part of military
command, control, communications, computing, intelligence, battlefield surveillance,
reconnaissance and targeting systems.

Area monitoring: In area monitoring, the sensor nodes are deployed over a region
where some phenomenon is to be monitored. When the sensors detect the event being
monitored (heat, pressure etc), the event is reported to one of the base stations, which
then takes appropriate action.

Transportation: Real-time traffic information is being collected by WSNs to later

feed transportation models and alert drivers of congestion and traffic problems.

Health applications: Some of the health applications for sensor networks are
supporting interfaces for the disabled, integrated patient monitoring, diagnostics, and
drug administration in hospitals, tele-monitoring of human physiological data, and
tracking & monitoring doctors or patients inside a hospital.

Environmental sensing: The term Environmental Sensor Networks has developed to

cover many applications of WSNs to earth science research. This includes sensing
volcanoes, oceans, glaciers, forests etc. Some other major areas are listed below:

• Air pollution monitoring

• Forest fires detection

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 • Greenhouse monitoring
• Landslide detection

Structural monitoring: Wireless sensors can be utilized to monitor the movement

within buildings and infrastructure such as bridges, flyovers, embankments, tunnels
etc enabling Engineering practices to monitor assets remotely with out the need for
costly site visits.

• Industrial monitoring: Wireless sensor networks have been developed for

machinery condition-based maintenance (CBM) as they offer significant cost
savings and enable new functionalities. In wired systems, the installation of
enough sensors is often limited by the cost of wiring.
• Agricultural sector: using a wireless network frees the farmer from the
maintenance of wiring in a difficult environment. Irrigation automation enables
more efficient water use and reduces waste.

Design issues of a wireless sensor network

Sensor nodes communicate over wireless, lossy lines with no infrastructure. An

additional challenge is related to the limited, usually non-renewable energy supply of
the sensor nodes. In order to maximize the lifetime of the network, the protocols need
to be designed from the beginning with the objective of efficient management of the
energy resources

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Fault Tolerance: Sensor nodes are vulnerable and frequently deployed in dangerous
environment. Nodes can fail due to hardware problems or physical damage or by
exhausting their energy supply. We expect the node failures to be much higher than
the one normally considered in wired or infrastructure-based wireless networks. The
protocols deployed in a sensor network should be able to detect these failures as soon
as possible and be robust enough to handle a relatively large number of failures while
maintaining the overall functionality of the network. This is especially relevant to the
routing protocol design, which has to ensure that alternate paths are available for
rerouting of the packets. Different deployment environments pose different fault
tolerance requirements.

Scalability: Sensor networks vary in scale from several nodes to potentially several
hundred thousand. In addition, the deployment density is also variable. For collecting
high-resolution data, the node density might reach the level where a node has several
thousand neighbours in their transmission range. The protocols deployed in sensor
networks need to be scalable to these levels and be able to maintain adequate
performance.

Production Costs: Because many deployment models consider the sensor nodes to be
disposable devices, sensor networks can compete with traditional information
gathering approaches only if the individual sensor nodes can be produced very
cheaply. The target price envisioned for a sensor node should ideally be less than $1.

Hardware Constraints: At minimum, every sensor node needs to have a sensing

unit, a processing unit, a transmission unit, and a power supply. Optionally, the nodes
may have several built-in sensors or additional devices such as a localization system
to enable location-aware routing. However, every additional functionality comes with
additional cost and increases the power consumption and physical size of the node.
Thus, additional functionality needs to be always balanced against cost and low-power
requirements.

Sensor Network Topology: Although WSNs have evolved in many aspects, they
continue to be networks with constrained resources in terms of energy, computing
power, memory, and communications capabilities. Of these constraints, energy
consumption is of paramount importance, which is demonstrated by the large number
of algorithms, techniques, and protocols that have been developed to save energy, and
thereby extend the lifetime of the network.

Transmission Media: The communication between the nodes is normally

implemented using radio communication over the popular ISM bands. However, some
sensor networks use optical or infrared communication, with the latter having the
advantage of being robust and virtually interference free.

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Power Consumption: As we have already seen, many of the challenges of sensor
networks revolve around the limited power resources. The size of the nodes limits the
size of the battery. The software and hardware design needs to carefully consider the
issues of efficient energy use. For instance, data compression might reduce the
amount of energy used for radio transmission, but uses additional energy for
computation and/or filtering. The energy policy also depends on the application; in
some applications, it might be acceptable to turn off a subset of nodes in order to
conserve energy while other applications require all nodes operating simultaneously.

Structure of a wireless sensor node

A sensor node is made up of four basic components such as sensing unit, processing unit,
transceiver unit and a power unit which is shown in Fig. 5. It also has application dependent
additional components such as a location finding system, a power generator and a mobilizer.
Sensing units are usually composed of two subunits: sensors and analogue to digital converters
(ADCs) (Akyildiz et al., 2002). The analogue signals produced by the sensors are converted to
digital signals by the ADC, and then fed into the processing unit. The processing unit is generally
associated with a small storage unit and it can manage the procedures that make the sensor node
collaborate with the other nodes to carry out the assigned sensing tasks. A transceiver unit
connects the node to the network. One of the most important components of a sensor node is the
power unit. Power units can be supported by a power scavenging unit such as solar cells. The
other subunits, of the node are application dependent.

A functional block diagram of a versatile wireless sensing node is provided in Fig. 6. Modular
design approach provides a flexible and versatile platform to address the needs of a wide variety
of applications. For example, depending on the sensors to be deployed, the signal conditioning
block can be re-programmed or replaced. This allows for a wide variety of different sensors to be
used with the wireless sensing node. Similarly, the radio link may be swapped out as required for
a given applications’ wireless range requirement and the need for bidirectional communications.

The components of a sensor node

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Figure 6.

Functional block diagram of a sensor node

Using flash memory, the remote nodes acquire data on command from a base station, or by an
event sensed by one or more inputs to the node. Moreover, the embedded firmware can be
upgraded through the wireless network in the field.

The microprocessor has a number of functions including:

• Managing data collection from the sensors

• performing power management functions
• interfacing the sensor data to the physical radio layer
• managing the radio network protocol

A key aspect of any wireless sensing node is to minimize the power consumed by the system.
Usually, the radio subsystem requires the largest amount of power. Therefore, data is sent over
the radio network only when it is required. An algorithm is to be loaded into the node to
determine when to send data based on the sensed event. Furthermore, it is important to minimize
the power consumed by the sensor itself. Therefore, the hardware should be designed to allow
the microprocessor to judiciously control power to the radio, sensor, and sensor signal
conditioner (Akyildiz et al., 2002).

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