Mitigating the stochastic effects of fading in mobile wireless ad-hoc networks

Abstract

This research considers the impact of fast fading effects on the discovery and maintenance of communication routes in mobile wireless ad-hoc networks. Moreover, it is a upon this consideration that fast fading directly impacts the performance of the underlying communication protocols for such networks. It is illustrated herein that protocol design should be based upon the consideration of the operating environments to which such networks are deployed. This research provides a statistical interpretation of link quality based on the instantaneous received power under various multi-path fading models, for which associated Type 1 and 2 errors are defined. Based on this viewpoint, this document proposes the embedding GPS information into a protocol in order to block the inclusion of unreliable links within the route of communication. This implementation results in a dramatic enhancement of the end-to-end performance of the mobile wireless ad-hoc communication network. Thus, this dissertation presents a general introduction to wireless communication networks and their inherent issues, and elaborates in detail this new statistical interpretation of fast fading and the results obtained from employing GPS information to realize an efficient protocol design methodology