The performance investigation of hybrid wireless ad hoc networks

Mobile ad-hoc networking (MANET) facilitates wireless devices to communicate with each other directly or via multiple hops without utilising existing infrastructure. Due to mobility of the nodes, possible sparse population, limited transmission power, and node failure, ad hoc networks are prone to performance degradation. To address the potential performance degradation non-randomness was introduced by means of static nodes into a dynamic MANET. In the simulations, a network with all dynamic nodes and networks with a mixture of dynamic and static nodes were examined. The performances of the different networks were compared based on packet delivery ratio (PDR), routing load (RL), end to end (E2E) delay and throughput. Network simulator-2 (NS2) has been the tool of choice for this research. The PDR and RL did not show significant change in performance with the creation of static nodes. However, E2E delay and throughput confirmed that the introduction of non-access point static nodes into a MANET reduced the non-randomness of the network by means of improved performance. The greatest reduction in E2E delay and the highest increase in throughput came from the network model with maximum number of static nodes. The creation of any number of static nodes saw network models with lowest mobility levels having the greatest impact in the reduction of the E2E delay. While network models with the highest mobility levels benefited the most by means of increased throughput