Opportunistic Relay Placement in Mobile Multihop Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

In this paper, we study the effects of opportunistic relay placement on the performance of multihop ad hoc networks. It has been previously shown that multihop mesh networks can aid in enhanced network performance by optimally utilizing power and bandwidth resources. We propose a placement scheme to introduce relay nodes in the network at critical locations that can significantly improve the throughput and link connectivity of the network. The placement algorithm uses a linear program formulation and takes into consideration the data rate and power availability of the surrounding nodes, network density, etc. However, these improvements can come at the cost of a few additional nodes and higher energy expenditure. We demonstrate through extensive simulations that placing minimal additional relay nodes can be worthwhile in improving the performance in a multihop network.