Self-organized network design by link survivals and shortcuts

TL;DR

This paper introduces a self-organized network design method that enhances efficiency and robustness by using link survival and shortcuts, applicable to wireless and urban networks.

Contribution

It presents a novel mechanism for self-organized geographical networks that improves robustness and small-world properties through link survival and shortcut addition.

Findings

Adding shortcuts induces small-world effects.

Networks become more robust with shortcut addition.

The mechanism is applicable to various real-world networks.

Abstract

One of the challenges for future infrastructures is how to design a network with high efficiency and strong connectivity at low cost. We propose self-organized geographical networks beyond the vulnerable scale-free structure found in many real systems. The networks with spatially concentrated nodes emerge through link survival and path reinforcement on routing flows in a wireless environment with a constant transmission range of a node. In particular, we show that adding some shortcuts induces both the small-world effect and a significant improvement of the robustness to the same level as in the optimal bimodal networks. Such a simple universal mechanism will open prospective ways for several applications in wide-area ad hoc networks, smart grids, and urban planning.