Multi-hop Connected Probability Based on Dependence among Consecutive Links in VANETs

Vehicular Ad hoc NETworks (VANETs) distinguish from traditional Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs), because VANETs are aimed at constructing wireless connection among highly dynamic vehicles. The majority of research concentrates on multi-hop connectivity assuming that the links have independent and identical distribution as well as without taking the dependence among several consecutive links into consideration. The authors also obtain the distribution of multi-hop path lifetime using the similar assumption. However, when an intermediate vehicle moves to other location or leaves the road abruptly, the change can directly influence at least two consecutive links. This simultaneous change is the essential issue that our work deals with. In this paper, we make use of the mobility model to derive the vehicles´ appearing distribution based on the relative distance to the reference vehicle. Besides, incorporating the geographical distribution of all potential intermediate vehicles, we propose an improved algorithm for multi-hop connected probability that contains the dependent correlation among consecutive links instead of independent link assumption. The performance of our analysis is evaluated by comparing to the simulation results.