Performance evaluation of differential evolution based topology control method for autonomous MANET nodes

We present a differential evolution based topology control mechanism, called TCM-DE, for the decision making process of evolutionary and autonomous systems that adaptively reconfigures spatial configuration in MANETs. We introduce quantitative metrics to evaluate performance of our TCM-DE with respect to uniform distribution, total terrain covered by communication areas of all nodes, and distance traveled by each node until a desired network topology is reached. Voronoi tessellation for configurations of mobile nodes is used to create two uniformity metrics. Physical relocation of mobile nodes is a power consuming task. Therefore, minimizing the average distance each node travels (ADT) until the network reaches a desired distribution is an important indicator for the performance of MANET nodes. Another important performance metric is the network area coverage (NAC) achieved by all nodes. NAC is used to measure the speed of network convergence and the efficiency of node deployment. Experimental results from our simulation software shows that TCM-DE performs well with respect to NAC, ADT, and Voronoi-based uniformity evaluation techniques.