Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) with quality-of-service (QoS) protocol hierarchy and related methods

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) comprising:

• a plurality of mobile nodes each comprising a wireless communications device and a controller connected thereto;
• said controller operating in accordance with a multilayer protocol hierarchy for,
• at an application layer, establishing a quality-of-service (Qos) threshold from among a plurality of different possible QoS thresholds based upon a type of given data to be transmitted to at least one destination node;
• at a QoS support layer below the application layer, determining whether to require data reception acknowledgements based upon the QoS threshold;
• at a QoS coding layer below the QoS support layer, encoding data from the application layer for transmission to the at least one destination mobile node;
• at a QoS route selection layer below the QoS coding layer, selecting at least one route to the at least one destination mobile node based upon the QoS threshold;
• at a QoS traffic layer below the QoS route selection layer, controlling data traffic flow based upon the QoS threshold;
• at a physical layer below the QoS traffic layer, cooperating with said wireless communications device to transmit the given data to the at least one destination mobile node via the at least one selected route;
• and
• at a radio adaptation layer between the physical layer below the QoS traffic layer, providing an interface between the physical device and QoS traffic layer.

A method for operating a mobile node in a mobile ad hoc network (MANET), comprising a plurality of mobile nodes, in accordance with a multi-layer protocol hierarchy, the mobile node comprising a wireless communications device, and the method comprising:

• at an application layer, establishing a quality-of-service (QoS) threshold from among a plurality of different possible QoS thresholds based upon a type of given data to be transmitted to at least one destination node;
• at a QoS support layer below the application layer, determining whether to require data reception acknowledgements based upon the QoS threshold;
• at a QoS coding layer below the QoS support layer, encoding data from the application layer for transmission to the at least one destination mobile node;
• at a QoS route selection layer below the QoS coding layer, selecting at least one route to the at least one destination mobile node based upon the QoS threshold;
• at a QoS traffic layer below the QoS route selection layer, controlling data traffic flow based upon the QoS threshold;
• and
• at at least one lower protocol layer below the QoS traffic layer, causing the wireless communications device to transmit the given data to the at least one destination mobile node via the at least one selected route.