Abstract
Link stability is an important metric for the routing issue in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). In order to establish and maintain a reliable route for multi-hop routing in MANETs, the prediction of the link stability in future states is essential and advantageous. In this paper, we propose a new link stability pre-diction method based on current link-related or user-related information in shadowed environments. A more realistic user mobility model and a realistic propagation model are taken into consideration. According to the numerical and simulation results, it is found that the proposed method can accurately predict the link stability for different environment and mobility conditions. The prediction results can be regarded as a measure of the link stability, and can be applied to the applications, such as link performance prediction, system performance analysis, service quality prediction and route search. Furthermore, the impact of different mobility information on the accuracy of link stability prediction is also evaluated to assess the importance of the knowledge of mobility information. © 2006 IEEE.