Traffic self-similarity in mobile ad hoc networks

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) have received continuous attention in recent years. The efforts of this paper are revealing the characteristics of MANET traffic. We have designed and built a testbed, which consists of 20 computers running ad hoc on-demand distance vector routing protocol on Linux operation system to collect traffic data. Through the experiment and statistical analysis, we find that mobile ad hoc networks have the characteristic of traffic self-similarity as most of other communication networks do. Only fact gathering is not enough to support the self-similar nature of mobile ad hoc networks traffic; it needs to be proved from the theoretical perspective, too. In order to better explain this phenomenon, we establish a mathematical model, proving that it is a definite character of mobile ad hoc networks other than a strange coincidence.