An ad hoc network is a collection of wireless mobile nodes dynamically forming a temporary network without the use of any existing network infrastructure or centralized administration. Due to the limited transmission range of wireless network interfaces, multiple network "hops" may be needed for one node to exchange data with another across the network. In recent years, a variety of new routing protocols targeted specifically at this environment have been developed, but little performance information on each protocol and no realistic performance comparison between them is available.