ABSTRACT
A MANET is an autonomous collection of mobile users (nodes) that communicate over
relatively bandwidth-constrained wireless links. The infrastructure less and the dynamic
nature of these networks demands new set of networking strategies to be implemented in
order to provide efficient end-to-end communication. MANETs employ the traditional
TCP/IP structure to provide end-to-end communication between nodes. However, due to
their mobility and the limited resource in wireless networks, each layer in the TCP/IP model
require redefinition or modifications to function efficiently in MANETs. Routing in the
MANETs is a challenging task and has received a tremendous amount of attention from
researches. This has led to development of many different routing protocols for MANETs,
which are classified in two basic categories: reactive routing and proactive routing protocols.
This paper compares and analyze reactive routing protocols on the basis of various
properties.
Keywords: MANETs, Routing protocols, Ad-hoc.