Critical Link Quality for Ad-Hoc Wireless Networks

For a wireless ad hoc network, a crucial performance requirement is its connectivity. Considering the power constraint and the dynamic environment, designers usually would like to keep the network being fully connected as long as possible, so as to ensure a largest possible coverage. On the other hand, the number of nodes and their battery power consumption are also expected to be minimized. These requirements lead to some critical points in the design space. In this paper, we investigate the critical link quality for network connectivity in wireless ad hoc networking scenarios. Our simulation results verify the existence of a critical phase transition of the network connectivity when the link quality varies.