MOBILE AD HOC NETWORK (MANET) PROVIDING QUALITY-OF-SERVICE (QOS)BASED UNICAST AND MULTICAST FEATURES

摘要

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) (20) may include a plurality of mobile nodes(21-28) each including a wireless communications device (30) and a controller(31) connected thereto. The controller (31) may operate in accordance with amulti-layer protocol hierarchy (32~). More particularly, at an upper protocollayer (36~), the controller (31) may establish a quality-of-service (Qos)threshold. Furthermore, at at least one intermediate protocol layer (40~)below the upper protocol layer (36~), the controller (31) may select betweenunicast and multicast communications modes based upon the QoS threshold. Assuch, at a lower protocol layer (44~) below the at least one intermediateprotocol layer (40~), the controller (31~) may cooperate with the wirelesscommunications device (30) to transmit data to at least one destination mobilenode (25) based upon the selected communications mode.