Reliability Assessment for Wireless Mesh Networks Under Probabilistic Region Failure Model

Wireless networks in an open environment are exposed to various large region threats, e.g., natural disasters and malicious attacks. Available works with regard to region failures generally adopt a kind of “deterministic” failure models, which failed to reflect some key features of a real region failure. In this paper, we provide a more general “probabilistic” region failure model to capture the key features of a region failure and apply it for the reliability assessment of wireless mesh networks. To facilitate such an assessment, we develop a grid-partition-based scheme to estimate the expected flow capacity degradation from a random region failure. We then establish a theoretical framework to determine a suitable grid partition such that a specified estimation error requirement is satisfied. The grid partition technique is also useful for identifying the vulnerable zones of a network, which can guide network designers to initiate proper network protection against such failures. This paper helps us understand the network reliability under a region failure and facilitates the design and maintenance of future highly survivable wireless networks.