A Study of the Connectivity Over Time Behavior of On-Demand Ad Hoc Path Selection Schemes

Selecting the most appropriate path between each pair of nodes in an ad hoc network is an issue with major impact on network performance. Many schemes were proposed and compared in the literature, using various criteria. However, the connectivity over time behavior of these schemes, which is important to some practical applications, was not well studied, especially with regards to the terrain type. In this work we use simulation to study this aspect of network performance. We demonstrate that a different connectivity requirement and a different time horizon may dictate a different scheme to use. We also demonstrate that path selection schemes are not equally sensitive to the terrain.