Socially-Inspired Topology Improvements in Wireless Multi-Hop Networks

Abstract

Several graph structures have emerged for describing different network types and the interactions among their entities. Various properties have been identified in each of these network graphs, with no single structure bearing all the desired features that would constitute it an optimal network graph. This work aims for the first time at infusing the desired properties of a small-world network into the core structure of a wireless multi-hop network, thus embedding social structure on an artificial network that emerges in the development of wireless communication services. In this paper, topology control based approaches are proposed, serving the purpose of adding communication links in a multi-hop network in an intelligent and effective manner. Through analysis and simulation, we demonstrate how the proposed methods decrease the average path length between randomly selected node pairs and properly scale the clustering coefficient of a multi-hop network, by exploiting social structure characteristics of small-world networks, thus allowing the development of more demanding services on top of wireless multi- hop networks.