In recent years, the world has seen an increase in interest and in research in the field of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), more specifically, in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), or rapidly self-organizing MANETs specialized for the purpose of dynamically linking nearby vehicles via wireless radio access. Such technology can aid in diminishing the amount of accidents occurring on the roads today.

This type of wireless network does not exist in the current marketplace due to the complicated design of this network, specifically the rapidly-changing topology. Due to similar design that both VANETs and MANETs share, the purpose of this thesis is to evaluate pre-existing routing and media access control protocols, built on the basis for providing a functional MANET. By evaluating such protocols, the two most fundamental mechanisms of an ad hoc network, an implementation for a VANET will be proposed and simulated.