Patent ID: 7085290

Claim:
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 multi-layer protocol hierarchy for, at an upper protocol 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 at least one intermediate protocol layer below the upper protocol layer, selecting at least one route for transmitting data to the at least one destination mobile node based upon the QoS threshold, and determining whether a QoS metric for the selected route falls below the QoS threshold; and at a lower protocol layer below the at least one intermediate protocol layer, cooperating with said wireless communications device to determine the QoS metric for the at least one selected route, transmit the given data to the at least one destination mobile node via the at least one selected route, and adjust signal transmission power based upon a determination that the QoS metric has fallen below the QoS threshold.