MANET stands for

A dynamically self-organizing wireless network of mobile devices, in which nodes establish direct links with each other and each node also relays traffic for other nodes, is described as an ad-hoc network. Because no fixed base station, access point, or central controller is required, such a network can reconfigure itself on the fly as devices move, join, or leave.

The acronym MANET names exactly this kind of network — a mobile network organized on an ad-hoc basis — so it expands to "Mobile Ad-Hoc Network".

Why the other expansions do not fit:

• "Mobile Area Network" is a coverage-area-based description, not a recognised standard networking classification, and it does not capture the self-organizing, infrastructure-less character that "ad-hoc" specifically conveys.

• "Managed Access Network" implies a central authority managing device access through fixed access points, the opposite of a MANET's decentralized, infrastructure-less operation.

• "Multiple Access Node" belongs to medium-access concepts — how multiple senders share one communication channel — not to a category of network architecture.

Hence, MANET stands for Mobile Ad-Hoc Network.