Finding the Fastest Path in Wireless Networks

The timeliness of packet delivery is an important performance measure in wireless networks, especially when urgent messages need to be transported through a network. This paper investigates the fastest packet transportation in light-loaded wireless networks. We show that the end-to-end packet delay depends largely on the locations of the relay nodes that forward the packet and there exists a shortest-delay path theoretically. We also propose a routing algorithm to locate a fast relay path in actual networks to achieve the near-shortest packet delay.