# Topology Discovery Using Path Interference

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a method for inferring network topology by analyzing path interference at end nodes, providing algorithms for specific topologies and a heuristic for general cases, with improved performance over existing methods.

## Contribution

It presents a novel approach to topology inference using path interference measurements and develops polynomial algorithms for trees and rings, plus a heuristic for general networks.

## Key findings

- Algorithms for tree and ring topologies are optimal.
- The heuristic outperforms existing distance-based algorithms.
- Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

## Abstract

We consider the problem of inferring the topology of a network using the measurements available at the end nodes, without cooperation from the internal nodes. To this end, we provide a simple method to obtain path interference which identifies whether two paths in the network intersect with each other. Using this information, we formulate the topology inference problem as an integer program and develop polynomial time algorithms to solve it optimally for networks with tree and ring topologies. Finally, we use the insight developed from these algorithms to develop a heuristic for identifying general topologies. Simulation results show that our heuristic outperforms a recently proposed algorithm that uses distance measurements for topology discovery.