Ad hoc network metrics: Which is best?

The area of wireless ad hoc networks has attracted much attention and gained great popularity in the last few years. Yet researchers are still investigating several metrics to evaluate ad hoc network performance. Furthermore, to our knowledge, no work has been published to address the comparison of different network metrics. In this paper, we analyze and compare several distinct network metrics including transport capacity, transmission capacity and network diameter, which quantify ad hoc network performance from different perspectives. We also evaluate the network metrics via simulation for two “extreme” routing strategies: “nearest neighbor” (NN) and “shortest path” (SP). Main conclusions are that the transport capacity and the transmission capacity are generally inversely related in ad hoc networks; SP routing can achieve larger transport capacity and smaller network diameter than NN routing, whereas NN routing results in larger transmission capacity than SP routing. Ultimately, the best network metric among these three depends upon application; more research is needed in this important area.