Mobile Ad-hoc Networking with AODV: A Review

Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) are becoming a promising and popular way to carry out ubiquitous computing in numerous vital applications. Unique characteristics of these spontaneous networks induce several challenges in the resource constraint environment. In this paper, firstly, we discuss these challenges and research work carried out for various applications of MANETs. Operations of routing protocol become vital in this unstable multi-hop environment. In this paper, we present classification of MANET routing protocols and study a popular reactive routing protocol, Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV). We also study basic operations of AODV and, present its variants and real world implementations. Furthermore, we study the design issues of AODV protocol and review the recent research works carried out to enhance AODV protocol addressing these issues. In spite of the research work of over a decade on the AODV design, there still exist open challenges that pave the way for further research on this prominent on-demand protocol.