A Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is a collection of wireless mobile nodes forming a temporary network without the need for base stations or any other pre–existing network infrastructure. In a peer-to-peer fashion, mobile nodes can communicate with each other by using wireless multihop communication. Due to its low cost, high flexibility, fast network establishment and self-reconfiguration, ad hoc networking has received much interest during the last ten years. However, without a fixed infrastructure, frequent path changes cause significant numbers of routing packets to discover new paths, leading to increased network congestion and transmission latency over fixed networks. Many on-demand routing protocols have been developed by using various routing mobility metrics to choose the most reliable routes, while dealing with the primary obstacle caused by node mobility. ¶ In the first part, we have developed an analysis framework for mobility metrics in random mobility model. Unlike previous research, where the mobility metrics were mostly studied by simulations, we derive the analytical expressions of mobility metrics, including link persistence, link duration, link availability, link residual time, link change rate and their path equivalents. We also show relationships between the different metrics, where they exist. Such exact expressions constitute precise mathematical relationships between network connectivity and node mobility. ¶ We further validate our analysis framework in Random Walk Mobility model (RWMM). Regarding constant or random variable node velocity, we construct the transition matrix of Markov Chain Model through the analysis of the PDF of node separation after one epoch. In addition, we present intuitive and simple expressions for the link residual time and link duration, for the RWMM, which relate them directly to the ratio between transmission range and node speed. We also illustrate the relationship between link change rate and link duration. Finally, simulation results for all mentioned mobility metrics are reported which match well the proposed analytical framework. ¶ In the second part, we investigate the mobility metric applications on caching strategies and hierarchy routing algorithm. When on-demand routing employed, stale route cache information and frequent new-route discovery in processes in MANETs generate considerable routing delay and overhead. This thesis proposes a practical route caching strategy to minimize routing delay and/or overhead by setting route cache timeout to a mobility metric, the expected path residual time. The strategy is independent of network traffic load and adapts to various non-identical link duration distributions, so it is feasible to implement in a real-time route caching scheme. Calculated results show that the routing delay achieved by the route caching scheme is only marginally more than the theoretically determined minimum. Simulation in NS-2 demonstrates that the end-to-end delay from DSR routing can be remarkably reduced by our caching scheme. By using overhead analysis model, we demonstrate that the minimum routing overhead can be achieved by increasing timeout to around twice the expected path residual time, without significant increase in routing delay. ¶ Apart from route cache, this thesis also addresses link cache strategy which has the potential to utilize route information more efficiently than a route cache scheme. Unlike some previous link cache schemes delete links at some fixed time after they enter the cache, we proposes using either the expected path duration or the link residual time as the link cache timeout. Simulation results in NS-2 show that both of the proposed link caching schemes can improve network performance in the DSR by reducing dropped data packets, latency and routing overhead, with the link residual time scheme out-performing the path duration scheme. ¶ To deal with large-scale MANETs, this thesis presents an adaptive k-hop clustering algorithm (AdpKHop), which selects clusterhead (CH) by our CH selection metrics. The proposed CH selection criteria enable that the chosen CHs are closer to the cluster centroid and more stable than other cluster members with respect to node mobility. By using merging threshold which is based on the CH selection metric, 1-hop clusters can merge to k-hop clusters, where the size of each k-hop cluster adapts to the node mobility of the chosen CH. Moreover, we propose a routing overhead analysis model for k-hop clustering algorithm, which is determined by a range of network parameters, such as link change rate (related to node mobility), node degree and cluster density. Through the overhead analysis, we show that an optimal k-hop cluster density does exist, which is independent of node mobility. Therefore, the corresponding optimal cluster merging threshold can be employed to efficiently organise k-hop clusters to achieve minimum routing overhead, which is highly desirable in large-scale networks. ¶ The work presented in this thesis provides a sound basis for future research on mobility analysis for mobile ad hoc networks, in aspects such as mobility metrics, caching strategies and k-hop clustering routing protocols.