A framework for connectivity in inter-working multi-hop wireless networks

Abstract

Establishing connectivity between node pairs in inter-working multi-hop wireless networks is a challenge. Although connectivity in multi-hop wireless networks has been studied yet these analyses focused mainly on ad-hoc networks. Since the next generation of wireless networks will be inter-working, an understanding of connectivity as it applies to such networks is needed. Specifically, this research emphasizes that the connectivity between any node pair in an inter-working multi-hop wireless network should be estimated with the availability of links and the level of interference on the available links that form the communication route between the nodes. Interference is a major factor that inhibits connectivity as it can cause wasteful transmissions over low quality links. Therefore this paper presents a framework for connectivity in inter-working multi-hop wireless networks. In addition a connectivity aware routing technique is proposed. Simulation results of the performance of the proposed routing technique in comparison with other routing scheme are presented.