On the behavior of communication links of a node in a multi-hop mobile environment

Abstract

In this work, we develop an analytical framework to investigate the behavior of the communication links of a node in a random mobility environment. Analytical expressions characterizing various properties related to the formation, lifetime and expiration of links are derived. The derived framework can be used to design efficient algorithms for medium access, routing and transport control, or to analyze and optimize the performance of existing network protocols. A number of applications of the characteristics investigated, such as selection of stable routes, route cache lifetime optimization, providing Quality-of-Service (QoS) data communication and analysis of route lifetime are discussed. In particular, we focus on designing an efficient updating strategy for proactive routing protocols based on the derived statistics. Using simulations, we show that the proposed strategy can lead to significant performance improvements in terms of reduction in routing overhead, while maintaining high data packet delivery ratio and acceptable latency.