Inquiring the Potential of Evoking Small-World Properties for Self-Organizing Communication Networks

Mobile multi-hop ad hoc networks allow establishing local groups of communicating devices in a self-organizing way. However, in a global setting such networks fail to work properly due to network partitioning. Providing that devices are capable of communicating both locally-e.g. using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth-and additionally also with arbitrary remote devices-e.g. using GSM/UMTS links-the objective is to find efficient ways of inter-linking multiple network partitions. Tackling this problem of topology control, we focus on the class of small-world networks that obey two distinguishing characteristics: they have a strong local clustering while still retaining a small average distance between two nodes. This paper reports on results gained investigating the question if small-world properties are indicative for an efficient link management in multiple multi-hop ad hoc network partitions.