Patent ID: 7394826

Claim:
A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) comprising: a plurality of mobile nodes each comprising a wireless communications device providing a selectable signal transmission pattern and a controller connected thereto; said controller operating in accordance with a multi-layer protocol hierarchy for, at an upper protocol layer, establishing a quality-of-service (QoS) threshold, at at least one intermediate protocol layer below the upper protocol layer, selecting between a unicast communications mode and a multicast communications mode based upon the QoS threshold, and at a lower protocol layer below the at least one intermediate protocol layer, cooperating with said wireless communications device to transmit data to at least one destination mobile node based upon the selected communications mode and determine a QoS metric for the at least one selected route; said controller also operating in accordance with the multi-layer protocol hierarchy for, at the at least one intermediate protocol layer, determining whether the QoS metric falls below the QoS threshold, and at the lower protocol layer, modulating the data using a first modulation technique if the QoS metric is greater than or equal to the QoS threshold, and otherwise using a second modulation technique.