Modeling Terrain Impact on MANET Connectivity

Terrain affects connectivity in mobile ad hoc networks (MANET). Both average pair wise link closure and the rate at which the link-state changes when nodes move depend on the characteristics of the intervening terrain. Even though these key parameters depend only mildly on inter node distances in common real-world terrains, empirical analysis finds that the number of connected components in the network and the probability of being fully-connected are not well-predicted by the average link probability in some terrains. This finding has implications for the limits of ad hoc connectivity under unconstrained maneuver.