Network functionalities play a major role in the connectivity and routing in an Ad-hoc networks because end user devices must contribute in routing and therefore maintain connectivity. In dynamic environments with mobile nodes, routing becomes very challenging; this challenge becomes even more burdensome if a network is deployed in larger areas. Therefore, in order to avoid centralisation and bottlenecks, routing algorithms in Ad-hoc networks should not depend on any specific node. Furthermore, these algorithms should be able to support routing in sparse topologies when the density of the nodes is very low in a large deployment area. The rationale behind this research project stems from the lack of sufficiently effective solutions for wireless networks deployed in large areas where the node's mobility creates what is called the Loosely Coupled Nodes Problem. Therefore, this gap in knowledge needs to be addressed by developing a novel and scalable routing protocol, which can utilise application characteristics to stabilise routing between loosely coupled nodes in a large deployment area. This research proposes a new routing protocol to address this gap by increasing the number of packets delivered to their final destinations in an Ad-hoc networks. As another gap, very few current approaches deal with realistic situations, based on real-life case scenarios, in order to evaluate and enhance the accuracy of their Ad-hoc network protocols, and thus they cannot accurately approximate common real world environments [1]. Therefore, this project addresses research issues directly linked to evaluation of protocols and architectures in use cases and applications in real life scenarios. The novel routing algorithm, Ferry-Assisted Greedy Perimeter Stateless Routing (FA-GPSR), proposed in this thesis demonstrates the benefits of extracting information from the application to support communication between the nodes in the network topology. In addition, this approach highlights the advantages and disadvantages of the efficiency and reliability of communication in open large areas of deployment. A simulation model of the proposed algorithm has been implemented and its features investigated through simulation runs. The communication between nodes in the topology show that FA-GPSR outperforms the other routings in terms of packet delivery ratio, especially in sparse networks, where the density of nodes is low. The mobility of the destination nodes affected the packets delivery ratio by decreasing the ratio, compared to other cases because of the changes in the location and node velocity. By increasing the number of packets and source nodes, FA-GPSR outperformed the other algorithms because of the efficient use of the patrol node (ferry). Thus, the comparison of FA-GPSR to these algorithms supports the conclusion that FA-GPSR is suitable for use in large open areas with the effect of node density and packet load
