Proactive Source Routing Protocol for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks Using BFST Algorithm

Opportunistic data forwarding has drawn much attention in the research community of multihop wireless networking, with most research conducted for stationary wireless networks. One of the reasons why opportunistic data forwarding has not been widely utilized in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) is the lack of an efficient lightweight proactive routing scheme with strong source routing capability. A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a wireless communication network, where nodes that are not within the direct transmission range of each other require other nodes to forward data It can operate without existing infrastructure and support mobile users, and it falls under the general scope of multihop wireless networking. This networking paradigm originated from the needs in battlefield communications, emergency operations, search and rescue, and disaster relief operations. It has more recently been used for civilian applications such as community networks. A great deal of research results have been published since its early days in the 1980s . The most salient research challenges in this area include end-to-end data transfer, link access control, security, and providing support for real-time multimedia streaming . The network layer has received a great deal of attention in the research on MANETs. In fact, the two most important operations at the network layer, i.e., data forwarding and routing, are distinct concepts. Data forwarding regulates how packets are taken from one link and put on another. Routing determines what path a data packet should follow from the source node to the destination.