Selection diversity forwarding in a multihop packet radio network with fading channel and capture

Recent and increased interest of wireless mobile ad hoc networking motivates detailed examination of routing schemes specifically targeted for the demanding constraints that an unreliable, time varying and broadcast like wireless medium imposes. Incorporation and exploitation of radio characteristics are fundamental keys to successful and near optimal operation of routing schemes in a wireless environment. In this paper, forwarding methods for wireless mobile multihop networking in Rayleigh fading and non-fading channels are examined. An adaptive forwarding scheme denoted Selection Diversity Forwarding (SDF) is introduced and compared with two classical forwarding methods. It is shown that SDF presents significant performance improvements. In particular and in contrast to the reference methods NFP and MFR, the performance of SDF is enhanced under fading channel conditions. It is found that local path adaptation has potential to perform better than routing approaches along a single path.