On the optimum number of hops in a multi-hop linear network with randomly located nodes

In this paper, we propose a novel linear network model to characterize the randomness in the node locations. Unlike most previous work which usually assumes that the nodes are uniformly distributed on a line, we consider a linear network with randomly located nodes. We model the randomness in distance and show that the proposed model is a reasonable approximation. We evaluate a performance bound on spectral efficiency, and then calculate the optimum number of hops. Simulation results verify the model.