The Effect of Transmission Range in Multi-hop Wireless Networks

Transmission or communication range is an important factor for successful data delivery in wireless communications including multi-hop wireless networks. Typically, transmission range can be technically adjustable by configuring the transmitting power (Tx Power) or changing the antenna height. For the same antenna height, if transmission range is minimized or adjusted to be shorter by lowering Tx power, there is less energy consumption but the networks are likely to be unconnected which consequently degrades the network performance such as throughput and delivery ratio. In the case that range of nodes is maximized or extended for connectivity by increasing Tx power, networks become connected and a node may reach the others by using just a hop. This beneficially affects network performance but these nodes with range extension consume more energy for data transmission. Hence, there is trade-off between energy consumption and network performance when adjusting transmission range. In addition, in multi-hop wireless networks where nodes are usually mobile and network topology are highly dynamic, transmission range has lots of impact on network performance. Hence, to study the effect of transmission range is very important and required. In this work, various scenarios (i.e. load-, speed- and density-varying scenarios) are constructed to investigate both energy consumption and network performance with different transmission ranges.