Introduction
Most conventional approaches for routing in MANETs (mobile ad-hoc networks) use a model, which is deviated from the wired model: Each pair of nodes is seen either as linked or not linked, only linked nodes can communicate directly:
As the figure above shows, the model sees all nodes within a certain range of each other to be linked, all other nodes to be not linked. This enables protocols known from wired networks to be applied: Static routes are chosen before a packet is sent through the network. Unfortunately, this masks all the wonderful wireless characteristics: In wireless networks, all nodes - in principle - can communicate with each other: