A router acts as a junction between two or more networks to transfer data packets among them.
Published in Chapter:
Mobile Ad Hoc Network Security Vulnerabilities
Animesh K. Trivedi (Indian Institute of Information Technology, India), Rajan Arora (Indian Institute of Information Technology, India), Rishi Kapoor (Indian Institute of Information Technology, India), and Sudip Sanyal (Indian Institute of Information Technology, India)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 5
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-026-4.ch407
Abstract
Mobile ad hoc networks inherently have very different properties from conventional networks. A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a collection of mobile nodes that are self configuring (network can be run solely by the operation of the end-users), capable of communicating with each other, establishing and maintaining connections as needed. Nodes in MANET are both routers and terminals. These networks are dynamic in the sense that each node is free to join and leave the network in a nondeterministic way. These networks do not have a clearly defined physical boundary, and therefore, have no specific entry or exit point. Although MANET is a very promising technology, challenges are slowing its development and deployment. Nodes in ad hoc networks are in general limited in battery power, CPU and capacity. Hence, the transmission ranges of these devices are also limited and nodes have to rely on the neighboring nodes in the network to route the packet to its destination node. Ad hoc networks are sometimes referred to as multi-hop networks, where a hop is a direct link between two nodes. MANET has many important applications, including battlefield operations, emergency rescues, mobile conferencing, home and community networking, sensor dust and so forth.