Abstract— The use of middleware has extended from simplyfacilitating applications’ communication to a broad set ofservices supporting a huge spectrum of networked anddistributed computing environments. At the same timemobile wireless ad hoc networks (MANET) have become apopular distributed environment and its application domainis expanding rapidly. However, like all distributedenvironments several issues must be considered and manyproblems have to be addressed to have efficient and usefulapplications. Current researchers moved towards usingmiddleware to provide solutions to these issues and simplifyapplication development for MANETs. In this paper wecover the latest trends and developments in middleware forMANETs and survey these approaches to identify theirqualities and limitations. We then classify these approachesinto six categories that group them based on thecommunication models and the programming paradigmused. The paper also evaluates these approaches in terms ofthe identified categories such as support for mobility,openness and heterogeneity, and the ease of use. Finally, wetry to identify the open issues and the possible researchdirections that would provide better middleware solutionsfor MANETs.

Index Terms— Middleware, Mobile Ad Hoc Networks,Pervasive Computing, Programming Paradigms

Cite: Salem Hadim, Jameela Al-Jaroodi and Nader Mohamed, "Trends in Middleware for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks," Journal of Communications, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 11-21, 2006.