Localized spanner construction for ad hoc networks with variable transmission range

This article presents an algorithm for constructing a spanner for ad hoc networks whose nodes have variable transmission range. Almost all previous spanner constructions for ad hoc networks assumed that all nodes in the network have the same transmission range. This allowed a succinct representation of the network as a unit disk graph, serving as the basis for the construction. In contrast, when nodes have variable transmission range, the ad hoc network must be modeled by a general disk graph. Whereas unit disk graphs are undirected, general disk graphs are directed. This complicates the construction of a spanner for the network, since currently there are no efficient constructions of low-stretch spanners for general directed graphs. Nevertheless, in this article it is shown that the class of disk graphs enjoys (efficiently constructible) spanners of quality similar to that of unit disk graph spanners. Moreover, it is shown that the new construction can be performed in a localized fashion. Our results use only simple packing arguments, hence all algorithms work for every metric space of constant doubling dimension.