Uncertainty Mitigation for Utility-Oriented Routing in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Link and node reliability are important metrics in wireless ad hoc networks. Therefore, evaluating and quantifying reliability has become the cornerstone of research in this field. Many existing wireless ad hoc network routing algorithms assume the availability of precise reliability information. This, however, is an unrealistic assumption given the dynamics of wireless ad hoc networks. Also, due to frequent changes in topology, reliability information is hard to collect, and oftentimes, inaccuracies can creep in. Therefore, a realistic method is needed to evaluate reliability by mitigating uncertainty in the estimation process. In this paper, we propose a novel reliability estimation model, account for uncertainty in the estimation, and design an uncertainty mitigation scheme. We then illustrate the effectiveness of our scheme in estimating reliability under various levels of uncertainty using a utility-oriented routing algorithm as a sample application. An extensive simulation study shows that the mitigation scheme significantly increases path stability and the long-term total benefit of the system.