Mobile ad hoc networks are infrastructure-less networks that have no fixed routers; all nodes are capable of movement and are connected dynamically. In this type of network there is no base station that acts as a router, instead each node functions as a router, forwarding data for other nodes.

 Due to the recent advancements and commercial growth in wireless communication technology, MANET is expected to be very useful for the deployment of temporary networks in emergency situations such as fire/safety/rescue operations, meetings or conventions in which persons wish to quickly share information, and data acquisition operations using autonomous vehicles.

 The main challenge of MANET is that the connections between the nodes within the network are continuously changing. Thus routing protocols must be adaptive and fast enough to maintain routes in spite of the changing network topology.

 Many protocols have been proposed for the implementation of MANET. Of these there are two categories, table based and on-demand based. Table based protocol requires nodes to keep an up-to-date table of routes to all destination nodes. On-demand based protocol discovers routes as they are needed using a route discovery process.

 Our goal is to perform a survey and analysis of two such dynamic routing protocols. Of the various MANET protocols, we have chosen Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector routing (AODV) and Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) due to their popularity and implementations within Network Simulator.