Performance Analysis of Various Transmission Methods in Infrastructure-less Multi-hop Wireless Networks

Infrastructure-less Multi-hop Wireless Networks (IMWNs) are the backbone for mission critical communications in extraordinary situations. These may be scenarios of military operations and calamities such as hurricanes and tornados, where it becomes imperative to provide communication even without any infrastructure-based physical network. IMWNs may be able to offer these services and hence they may be the best solution in such situations. However, interference signals in the wireless channel cause losses to transmission in wireless networks which results in a low network capacity and makes efficient routing very challenging.
In this thesis, performance of IMWNs employing various routing protocols and transmission methods for end-to-end bi-directional data packet exchange is analysed to find the conditions that result in optimal data rates. Further, the network parameters that have the potential to cause a rise in interference levels, thus degradation in a communication stream’s throughput and network capacity of an IMWN, were thoroughly investigated. The extent to which these factors influence the interference levels in IMWNs, and hence the achievable data rates, was determined by analysing simulation results obtained using a MATLAB-based network model. This software tool aided in simulating various operational scenarios of IMWNs offering an in-depth appreciation of all the actors and their roles during the end-to-end transmissions.