SER-based connectivity of fading ad-hoc networks

Received signal strength has been widely used as the main criterion of connectivity between wireless nodes. We investigate the connectivity of fading wireless ad-hoc networks with a novel connectivity metric. Our metric of connectivity considers realistic effects of the characteristics of the utilized wireless nodes such as modulation and symbol error rate. We assume a pair of nodes are connected if the bi-directional symbol error rate on their direct connecting link is below a given threshold. Our treatment of the problem relies on a probabilistic approach describing the quantities of interest in the form of random variables. Our simulation results over sample ad-hoc topologies support the fact that depending on the characteristics of the wireless nodes, different connectivity results may be observed for the same signal strength.