Connectivity-driven attachment in mobile cellular ad hoc networks

Abstract

Cellular wireless technologies (e.g. LTE) can be used to build cellular ad hoc networks. In this new class of ad hoc networks, nodes are equipped with two radio interfaces: one being a terminal, the other one being an access point. The nodes can initiate only one outgoing attachment towards a neighbor using their terminal interface, while they can receive multiple incoming attachments through their access point. In this context, attachment decisions based on traditional criteria (e.g. signal quality) may lead to network partitions or suboptimal path lengths, thus making access point selection critical to ensure efficient network connectivity. This paper proposes a distributed greedy attachment strategy to reach near optimal network connectivity. Through simulations, we show that our strategy leads to network connectivity almost as good as in pure ad hoc networks, with small impact on path length. We also study the impact of thresholds to avoid low value attachments. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.