Internet connectivity for mobile ad hoc network: a survey based study

Abstract

Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a collection of wireless mobile nodes forming a temporary network without the aid of any established infrastructure or centralized administration. MANETs have become increasingly significant in recent years due to their potential applications. From a technological point of view, the realization of this vision still requires a large number of challenges to be solved related to devices, protocols, applications and services. The drawbacks of MANETs are the limited number of services and applications, limited wireless coverage, limited bandwidth and battery power, and dynamic network topology. The growth of the Internet services and applications and the trend in the fourth generation (4G) wireless networks to all-IP networks have led to an increasing demand for enabling MANET nodes to connect to the Internet and use its services and applications. These kinds of networks are named as hybrid MANETs which can be deployed quickly and easily. The main objective of this paper is to introduce an overview of the different challenges and solutions for MANET---Internet integration. It will also introduce a solid analysis of the most significant proposals by describing their functionality, characteristics, and drawbacks. Summary of features of existing hybrid integration approaches for integration is presented. This survey concludes with further points for investigation.