Minimum energy path planning for ad hoc networks

We introduce the minimum energy path planning (MEPP) problem of finding a path for a mobile node traveling from a source to a destination while communicating with at least one node from a set of stationary nodes in such a way that minimizes the transmission energy used in communication. We characterize this problem and introduce the discretized graph algorithm that finds an approximate path by discretizing the problem space to form a graph and performing a shortest path search from source to destination. We find algorithm parameters that allow energy efficient paths to be found in suitable time. Finally, we discuss how this algorithm can be extended to facilitate other considerations in the problem