Mobile ad hoc networking (MANET) is a family of technologies, and a technical Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force.[1] MANET applications include the Automatic identification system for maritime safety[2] and the U.S. and allied military Joint Tactical Radio Systems.[3]
MANET devices will most often run over wireless media, in topologies ranging from static, to extremely dynamic, the latter including aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles at supersonic speed. Typically, MANET will be applied at the edge of Internet Protocol infrastructure. Many of the mobile devices will have limited physical space and electrical power, may be in a physically hostile environment, and will have strict constraints on packaging of the associated electronics.
Not only will hosts "roam", as do cellular telephones and wireless laptops today, but the routers organizing them into groups of hosts will themselves roam. Other names for the family of approaches involved include