IJSRSET1622280 | Received : 13 April 2016 | Accepted : 21 April 2016 | March-April 2016 [(2)2: 876-879] © 2016 IJSRSET | Volume 2 | Issue 2 | Print ISSN : 2395-1990 | Online ISSN : 2394-4099 Themed Section: Engineering and Technology 876 An Analysis on Characteristics, Challenging Issues and Comparisons of Routing Protocols of MANET Gurucharan Banerjee * , Anjani Kumari, Arvind Thakur, Komal Kumari, Jitendra Parit Department of Computer Science and Engineering, BITM, Shantiniketan, West Bengal, India ABSTRACT As the popularity of mobile device and wireless networks significantly increase over the past few years, wireless ad- hoc networks has now become one of the most vibrant and active field of communications of networks. Due to serve challenges the special features of MANET bring the technology great opportunities together. Our project describes fundamental problems of ad-hoc network by giving its related research background including the concept, features, status and vulnerabilities of MANET. Keywords: Network, Ad-hoc, MANET, Protocol, DSR, AODV I. INTRODUCTION MANET is new emerging technology which enables users to communicate without any physical infrastructure regardless of their geographical location, that’s why it is sometimes referred to as an “infrastructure less” network. Like in a cellular network, users are connected through base station and backbone networks. Users mobility is limited within a range of base station. In ad-hoc network communicating devices can form arbitrary networks “on the fly” to exchange information without the need of pre-existing network. A mobile ad-hoc network is an autonomous collection of mobile devices (laptops, smart phones, sensors etc) that communicate with each other over wireless links and cooperate in a distributed manner in order to provide necessary functionality in absence of a fixed infrastructure. This type of network, operating as a standalone network or with one or multiple points of attachment to cellular networks or to the internet, paves the way to numerous way and exciting applications. Applications include: emergency and rescue operations, conference or campus settings, personal networking etc II. METHODS AND MATERIAL A. Characteristics 1) Dynamic Topology: Nodes are free to move arbitrarily with different speeds, thus the network topology may change randomly and at unpredictable time. The nodes in MANET dynamically establish routing among themselves as they travel around, establishing their own network. 2) Distributed Operation: There is no network for central support, the control of network is distributed among nodes. The nodes involved in a MANET should cooperate with each other and communicate among themselves and each node act as a relay as needed, to implement specific functions such as routing and security. 3) Multi routing: When a node tries to send information to other nodes which is out of its communication range, the packet should be forwarded via one or more intermediate nodes. 4) Autonomous Terminal: In MANET, each mobile node is an independent node, which could function as both a host and a router. 5) Light Weight Terminal: In maximum cases, nodes in a MANET are mobile with less CPU capability, low power storage and small memory size.