TCP Throughput Measurements and Analysis in Wireless Multi-Hop Networks

Multi-hop relay is essential for ad-hoc networking in order to interconnect remote communication devices. This enables information exchange in areas without a pre-deployed communications infrastructure, making it an appealing technology for the military community. The focus of this article is on TCP throughput measurements for multi-hop networking based on WLAN technology using COTS devices. The present study shows that the throughput as well as the stability of the routing topology for ad-hoc multi-hop communications do not always meet military requirements, and that special-purpose solutions and implementations are hence needed. Indoor as well as outdoor measurements are presented and compared with existing analytical research on throughput degradation in wireless multi-hop links. While results from multi-hop indoor measurements with MAC address filtering where generally in-line with analytical throughput curves, outdoor measurements indicate link instabilities for connections involving three hops or more as well as lower throughput. The article hence points to the need for "real-life" experiments in addition to existing network analysis and simulations.