Group Mobility Makes Ad Hoc Networks Having Small-World Characteristics

Yan Chen, Jian-ping An

School of Information Technology

Beijing Institute of Technology

Beijing, P.R.C

Email: chenyan_cindy@yahoo.com.cn, an@bit.edu.cn

Abstract: In wireless ad hoc networks, topology change would occur unexpectedly and disrupt the on-going routing paths as well as application connections. But in many real networks, especially in military scenarios, mobile nodes are divided into different mobile groups according to different tasks, moving patterns and roles. The mobile nodes on the edge of each group can get more routing information to introduces ‘long-rang’ connections with the nodes in different groups, which makes on-demand routing perform more desirable initial latency for interactive traffic, and enable the whole network have 'small world' characteristics. In this paper, after the analysis of the behavior of mobile ad hoc networks when group mobility is involved, we illustrated how to get and choose routing information from the motion of groups. We then proposed a group-id based clustering algorithm, which elects the edge nodes for mobile groups. Finally, we demonstrated that it is possible for groups to efficiently use edge routing information to support their collective movements and help application connections.

Key words: Group Mobility, Small-World, Application Connections