A Survey on Cross-Layer Based Approach for Improving TCP Performance in Multi Hop Mobile Adhoc Networks

Wireless networks are becoming increasingly popular among corporate and home users worldwide. Users are looking forward to new technologies that allow them to communicate anytime, anywhere, and using any communication device. Toward this end, wireless communications are foreseen to play a key role in future communication systems. The primary advantages of wireless networks in comparison with their wired counterparts include flexible mobility management, faster and cheaper deployment, and ultimately easier maintenance and upgrade procedures. In addition to the infrastructure mode, users are also starting to enjoy the ad hoc mode of 802.11 in which multiple wireless hops are used to connect two distant nodes. In ad hoc mode, nodes can communicate directly to each other (without a central coordinator) and should relay data to each other in a self-organizing fashion. This configuration is commonly referred to as multihop wireless ad hoc networks or simply multihop wireless networks. The topology of these networks can change rapidly and unpredictably as the mobile nodes change position or the wireless channel condition fluctuates. Such features require robust, adaptive communication protocols that can handle the unique challenges of these multihop networks smoothly.