Toward robust multi-hop data forwarding in large scale wireless networks

1389-1286/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier B.V doi:10.1016/j.comnet.2011.04.014 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 4088535356. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (F. Xing), w Wang). Design of robust network topology is an essential issue in large-scalemulti-hopwireless networks since data packets are forwarded through intermediate nodes between source and destination, especially in the presence of non-cooperative nodes. Traditionally, topology design aims at generating network topology with high node degree, maximum throughput, and mitigation of malicious attacks. In this paper, we formulate a novel topology control problem as achieving optimal topology which maximizes network robustness against data forwarding distortion (DFD) in which a relay node may be compliant in route discovery, but dropor delay packets as non-cooperative nodes. Suchnodemisbehavior candegrade network performance dramatically, without being detected by routing protocols and countermeasures. Therefore, we propose to design a network topology and data forwarding algorithms, namely PROACtive, in order to distribute data packets among cooperative nodes only, subject to k-connectivity constraint. Through analysis and simulations, we show that there exists a trade-off between achieving network robustness and k-connected with high probability (w.h.p.). By using distributed measurement schemes, data packets can be forwarded with low message complexity H(N), and improves network goodput significantly in different network scenarios. 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.