Evaluating connectivity and quality in ad-hoc networks through clustering and trellis algorithms

Recently, wireless networks have become increasingly popular in the computing industry. These networks provide mobile users with ubiquitous computing capability and information access regardless of the location. There are currently two variations of mobile wireless networks - infrastructured (e.g., cellular networks) and infrastructureless networks, called mobile ad-hoc networks. In the latter, the entire network is mobile, and the individual terminals are allowed to move at will, relative to each other, so that they are self-creating, self-organizing, and self-administering. In order to improve the user service, there exist measures, such as connectivity, quality, throughput, etc., to permit evaluation of the network performance. We evaluate connectivity and quality using clustering algorithms, DDCA (distributed dynamic clustering algorithm), and the trellis method to find k-paths to the different users.