Mobile ad hoc networking: milestones, challenges, and new research directions

TLDR

Mobile multihop ad hoc networking has been conflated with the IETF MANET working group’s solutions, yet over the past decade the two paradigms have diverged. The article aims to review the state of the art, explain why the MANET paradigm failed to influence mainstream communications, trace the evolution of multihop ad hoc networking, and outline emerging people‑centric research directions. The authors analyze four pragmatic networking paradigms—mesh, sensor, opportunistic, and vehicular—that evolved from the MANET world, using lessons learned to guide the multihop ad hoc networking paradigm.

Abstract

In this article we discuss the state of the art of (mobile) multihop ad hoc networking. This paradigm has often been identified with the solutions developed inside the IETF MANET working group, and for this reason it is called the MANET paradigm. However, they do not coincide, and in the last decade they clearly diverged. In this article, we start from the reasons why the MANET paradigm did not have a major impact on computer communications, and we discuss the evolution of the multihop ad hoc networking paradigm by building on the lessons learned from the MANET research. Specifically, we analyze four successful networking paradigms, mesh, sensor, opportunistic, and vehicular networks, that emerged from the MANET world as a more pragmatic application of the multihop ad hoc networking paradigm. We also present the new research directions in the multihop ad hoc networking field: peoplecentric networking, triggered by the increasing penetration of the smartphones in everyday life, which is generating a people-centric revolution in computing and communications.