A Macro Model of Frequently Changing Mobile Networks to Perform Flow and Access Control

The area covered by a mobile ad hoc network consists of obstacles that inhibit transmission and areas where communications can take place. Physical structures, such as buildings, that block transmission, or lakes, where forwarding nodes cannot be located, are permanent obstacles. Temporary obstacles are created as mobile nodes enter or leave an area. Our hypothesis is that the spaces between nearby obstacles are bottlenecks that inhibit the flows in the network. We partition the network into areas that are encompassed by obstacles and bottlenecks. All of the nodes in an area are treated as a single super node, and the bottlenecks between areas are the links between the super nodes. As individual nodes move, the flows and paths in the model change more slowly than the paths and flows between the individual nodes. We apply flow control algorithms to the model and perform admission control within a super node based on the flows that are assigned by the flow control algorithm. We apply the model to the Columbia University campus, and use max–min, fair bottleneck flow control to assign the flows. Our hypothesis is verified for this example.