Power-aware Small World Topology in Ad Hoc Networks

Ad hoc network is a popular research topic in wireless network recently. It has good performance on the robustness and dynamics, such as minimal configuration and quick deployment for emergency situations. However, the ad hoc network also suffers from the limited power source provision because of its fundamental architecture. Therefore, the power issue becomes one of the most important concerns in ad hoc networks. In this paper, we propose to build a small world topology in the ad hoc networks as a topology control method to solve the power issues. Following the rule of small world topology, we manually construct a self-adjust power-aware small world network by implementing the decision method for random probability and action protocols to decrease the power consumption. Although this work is not the optimal solution to save power consumption in ad hoc networks, it can achieve a tradeoff between transmission efficiency and power consumption. And the self-adjustment feature of the small world topology can also facilitate the performance to prolong the lifetime of whole ad hoc network.