The impact of mobility on Mobile Ad Hoc Networks through the perspective of complex networks

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) are wireless networks where nodes’ exchange of messages does not rely on any previously deployed infrastructure. Portable devices that are capable of wireless communication have become extremely popular making possible the establishment of wide ubiquitous networks. Users connected to such networks can access the provided services anywhere and anytime.Nevertheless, this architecture suffers from a highly unstable topology since links between nodes break constantly due to users’ movement. Mobility has a paramount influence on the network topology. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to understand the impact of mobility in MANETs. In this work, we perform a thorough analysis on how mobility shape the behavior of MANETs. Our range of observation varies from general MANETs composed of walking users to a next generation of MANETs formed by vehicles moving either in a city environment or in a highway scenario, namely Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs). Our analyses are performed observing the networks through the perspective of complex networks. We were able to identify underlying characteristics of these networks and showed how these observations can be used to improve the performance of MANETs.