Mobile Ad-Hoc Network (MANET) facilitates the creation of dynamic reconfigurable networks, without centralized infrastructure. MANET routing protocols have to face high challenges like link instability, node mobility, frequently changing topologies and energy consumption of node, due to these challenges routing becomes one of the core issues in MANETs. This Thesis mainly focuses on the reactive routing protocol such as Ad-Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol. Reliable and Efficient Reactive Routing Protocol (RERRP) for MANET has been proposed to reduce the link breakages between the moving nodes. This scheme selects a reliable route using Reliability Factor (RF); the RF considers Route Expiration Time and Hop Count to select a routing path with high reliability and have less number of hops. The simulation result shows that RERRP outperforms AODV and enhance the packet delivery fraction (PDF) by around 6% and reduces the network routing load (NRL) by around 30%. Broadcasting in MANET could cause serious redundancy, contention, and collision of the packets. A scheme, Effective Broadcast Control Routing Protocol (EBCRP) has been proposed for the controlling of broadcast storm problem in a MANET. The EBCRP is mainly selects the reliable node while controlling the redundant re-broadcast of the route request packet. The proposed algorithm EBCRP is an on-demand routing protocol, therefore AODV route discovery mechanism was selected as the base of this scheme. The analysis of the performance of EBCRP has revealed that the EBCRP have controlled the routing overhead significantly, reduces it around 70% and enhance the packet delivery by 13% as compared to AODV. An Energy Sensible and Route Stability Based Routing Protocol (ESRSBR) have also been proposed that mainly focuses on increasing the network lifetime with better packet delivery. The ESRSBR supports those nodes to participate in the data transfer that have more residual energy related to their neighbour nodes. The proposed protocol also keeps track of the stability of the links between the nodes. Finally, the ESRSBR selects those routes which consist of nodes that have more residual energy and have stable links. The comparative analysis of ESRSBR with AODV and recently proposed routing protocol called Link Stability and Energy Aware (LSEA) routing protocol revealed that the proposed protocol ESRSBR has a significantly affect the network lifetime, increases it around 10% and 13% as compared to LSEA and AODV protocols respectively. The ESRSBR also decreases the routing overhead by 22% over LSEA and by 38% over AODV.

Ad hoc networks have gained significant importance and gathered huge momentum within the wireless network research community. We explore the novel idea of applying ad hoc networking for urban search and rescue operations. Several algorithms have been proposed and implemented for routing in ad hoc networks and their performance have been thoroughly analyzed. But none of the prior work deals specifically for search and rescue operations, which entail certain specific criteria such as prevention of node loss, maximizing the area of coverage and constant and instantaneous access to a main controller. In this thesis, we propose a centralized and adaptive algorithm tailored for efficient performance of mobile nodes assisting in search and rescue operations. The proposed algorithm assists in finding and maintaining stable links between the mobile nodes and base station, while optimizing the area of coverage and energy efficiency of the nodes. The algorithm is implemented using ns (network simulator), and its performance is compared with that of a widely used ad hoc routing protocol, Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol. We use frequency of link breakages, network throughput and routing overhead as our performance metrics. This algorithm can also be extended to provide support for routing among mobile nodes.