MobileGrid: capacity-aware topology control in mobile ad hoc networks

Since wireless mobile ad hoc networks are arbitrarily and dynamically deployed, the network performance may be affected by many unpredictable factors such as the total number of nodes, physical area of deployment, and transmission range on each node. Previous research results only focus on maximizing power efficiency through dynamically adjusting the transmission range on each node. Via extensive performance evaluations, we have observed that the network performance is linked with a single parameter, the network contention index, which each node may estimate in a fully distributed fashion. This paper introduces the definition of such a parameter, which is derived from relevant parameters such as the number of nodes and the transmission range on each node. With the presence of node mobility, we present a detailed study of the effects of contention index on the network performance, with respect to network capacity and power efficiency. We have observed that the capacity is a concave function of the contention index. We further show that the impact of node mobility is minimal on the network performance when the contention index is high. Based on these important observations, we present MobileGrid, a fully distributed topology control algorithm that attempts to achieve the best possible network capacity, by maintaining optimal contention index via dynamically adjusting the transmission range on each of the nodes in the network.