AbstractWe develop an on‐demand, multipath distance vector routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks. Specifically, we propose multipath extensions to a well‐studied single path routing protocol known as ad hoc on‐demand distance vector (AODV). The resulting protocol is referred to as ad hoc on‐demand multipath distance vector (AOMDV). The protocol guarantees loop freedom and disjointness of alternate paths. Performance comparison of AOMDV with AODV using ns‐2 simulations shows that AOMDV is able to effectively cope with mobility‐induced route failures. In particular, it reduces the packet loss by up to 40% and achieves a remarkable improvement in the end‐to‐end delay (often more than a factor of two). AOMDV also reduces routing overhead by about 30% by reducing the frequency of route discovery operations. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.