Abstract: Software-defined networking (SDN) is developing rapidly in a variety of network scenarios, including wired networks and data center networks. However, the use of SDN in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANET) is still in its infancy. Due to the frequent topology changes, limited resources, and the use of distributed networking in MANET networks, applying SDN in MANET becomes more challenging. To this end, this paper proposes a Software-defined Mobile Ad Hoc Networks （SDMANET） networking method based on multi-mode radios. This method uses the dominating set algorithm to calculate the backbone nodes. The backbone nodes use out-of-band channels to communicate with the SDN controller, and perform dynamical allocation of TDMA time slots based on the backbone nodes at the MAC layer. Experimental results show that compared with OLSR protocol and direct out-of-band control method, this method has lower network control overhead and channel access delay, and has better performance in large-scale MANET networks.

Key words: mobile Ad Hoc networks (MANET), software-defined network (SDN), multi-mode radio, backbone network, dynamic slot allocation