Opportunistic Routing in Ad Hoc Networks: How many relays should there be? What rate should nodes use?

TL;DR

This paper investigates optimal relay density and transmission rate in blind opportunistic routing for ad hoc networks to maximize end-to-end performance, providing approximate solutions based on system parameters.

Contribution

It introduces an approximation approach to optimize transmission probability and spectral efficiency in blind opportunistic routing, considering key system parameters.

Findings

Optimal parameters depend on path loss and noise levels.

Approximate solutions effectively guide relay density and rate selection.

Results improve understanding of routing performance trade-offs.

Abstract

Opportunistic routing is a multi-hop routing scheme which allows for selection of the best immediately available relay. In blind opportunistic routing protocols, where transmitters blindly broadcast without knowledge of the surrounding nodes, two fundamental design parameters are the node transmission probability and the transmission spectral efficiency. In this paper these parameters are selected to maximize end-to-end performance, characterized by the product of transmitter density, hop distance and rate. Due to the intractability of the problem as stated, an approximation function is examined which proves reasonably accurate. Our results show how the above design parameters should be selected based on inherent system parameters such as the path loss exponent and the noise level.