Abstract
A mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) is formed by a cluster of mobile hosts, each instal led with a wireless transceiver, without the assistance of base stations. Due to the transmission range constraint of transceivers, two mobile hosts may communicate with each other indirectly, by having other mobile hosts relay their packets. Several routing protocols have been proposed for a MANET to support the delivery of packets between mobile hosts in a dynamical ly changing topology [4, 6, 11, 8, 12]. In a MANET, a route, while being used for transmission, may become worse due to host mobility or the system may new ly form some better routes. Existing protocols, such as DSR, SSA, AODV, and ZRP, however, wil l stick on a xed route between a pair of mobile hosts once it is discovered, until the route is expired or broken. In this paper, we show how to enhance these four protocols with route optimization capability, such that the routing paths can be adjusted on-the- y while they are stil l being used for delivering packets.