Scenario Standards for Rigorous MANET Routing Protocol Evaluation*

In this paper we look at issues with the simulation of generic Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) routing protocols. MANET simulation-based research is an involved process driven by the scenarios used in the simulations. Scenarios must be properly constructed in order to be effective in evaluating the performance of generic MANET routing protocols. For example, in scenarios with a low average hop count, little routing is needed, and poor protocols might appear successful. On the other hand, in scenarios with a high degree of partitioning, many pairs of nodes have no usable route between them, and good protocols might appear unsuccessful. Many standards are needed to establish rigorous evaluations for MANET simulation research, from simulation scenario standards to random number generator standards to results analysis standards. We do not attempt to standardize all of these areas. We do, however, propose two standards that should be employed to ensure long routes are available and used in the evaluation of generic MANET routing protocols. That is, we qualify a simulation scenario to be used for rigorous generic MANET routing protocol evaluation, based on the values of two metrics: the scenario’s average shortest-path hop count and its amount of network partitioning. We explore the relationship between average shortest-path hop count and network partitioning. We show that our algorithms can be used to generate scenarios with any values for the metrics that a researcher finds appropriate. See http://toilers.mines.edu for information on obtaining code used in this study.