Characterization of Wireless Multi-hop Paths with High Quality: Toward a Theoretical Framework

In this paper, we consider the quality of communication paths in wireless multi-hop networks. A wireless multi-hop network consists of wireless nodes and wireless links. In this network, there usually exist various candidate paths to connect a source and a destination. We can evaluate the quality of each of the candidate paths by using a metric for link quality, and as a result, we can choose the path with the highest quality (best path). In this paper, we pay attention to characteristics of the best path, and consider how to theoretically characterize the best path and its quality because it is an important issue from the viewpoint of network design. We introduce some recent results on theoretical identification of the best path and theoretical formulas to evaluate the quality of the best path in wireless multi-hop networks with regular structure. We explain how the best path is identified using examples. We also introduce results on theoretical characterization of the best path in random wireless multi-hop networks. Finally, we describe some related issues.