Optimising the design of mobile, directed antenna wireless networks with uncertain movement patterns

摘要

While mobile, ad hoc networks conventionally use omni-directional antennae, recent research has shown that significant advantages can be achieved using directional antennae, including reduced radio interference and a higher signal-to-noise ratio. We investigate the design of mobile ad hoc networks in which each node is equipped with a finite number of high gain (narrow beam) steerable directional antennae. This restricts the number of links that a node can simultaneously support, and our first design objective is to select a feasible subset of the potential links such that network connectivity is maximised. A further objective is to select a subset of the nodes to host servers for the network in such a way that the associated network traffic overheads are minimised. Although we assume no prior knowledge of the network's future mobility pattern, our final objective is to maximise the survivability of the network in the sense that its performance is maintained at an adequate level for as long as possible under the influence of mobility. We present a detailed model and optimisation framework, and evaluate our methodology using a simple mobility simulator.