Wireless networking enables two or more computers to communicate using
standard network protocols without network cables. Since their emergence
in the 1970s, wireless networks have become increasingly pop- ular in
the computing industry. In the past decade, wireless networks have
enabled true mobility. There are currently two versions of mobile
wireless networks. An infrastructure network contains a wired backbone
with the last hop being wireless. The cellular phone system is an exam-
ple of an infrastructure network. A multihop ad hoc wireless network has
no infrastructure and is thus entirely wireless. A wireless sensor
network is an example of a multihop ad hoc wireless network. Ad hoc
wireless networking is a technique to support robust and ef- ficient
operation in mobile wireless networks by incorporating routing
functionality into mobile hosts. This technique will be used to realize
the dream of "anywhere and anytime computing", which is termed mo- bile
computing. Mobile computing is a new paradigm of computing in which
users carrying portable devices have access to shared infrastruc- ture
in any location at any time. Mobile computing is a very challenging
topic for scientists in computer science and electrical engineering. The
representative system for ad hoc wireless networking is called MANET, an
acronym for "Mobile Ad hoc NETworks". MANET is an autonomous system
consisting of mobile hosts connected by wireless links which can be
quickly deployed.
