A MANET is a set of wireless hosts that form a temporary network without the use of a dedicated infrastructure or centralised management. Since the nodes in the network are mobile, they self-organize and configure themselves. They send and receive data from other nodes in the network. To find unique paths between the source and the destination in MANETs, route protocols are needed. In which sensor node can moves freely as well as each node acts as the host node or router. In this paper, the best path with efficient Ad-Hoc on Demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol is selected as the routing approach. Firefly algorithm is discovered as a metaheuristic algorithm which is inspired by the flashing behaviour of fireflies and the bioluminescent communication approach to get the optimized route. The Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is used to identify and detect the black hole node inside the network so that the data transmitted from source to destination in secured manner.

Keywords : AODV, MANET, Firefly, ANN, Black Hole Attack.