Infection spread in wireless networks with random and adversarial node mobilities.

ABSTRACTWe study the process of the spread of an infection among mobile nodes moving on a finite, grid based map. A random walk and a novel adversarial model are considered as two extreme cases of node mobility. With N nodes, we present analytical and simulation results for both mobility models for a square grid map with size √G × √G. A key finding is that with random mobility the total time to infect all nodes decreases with N while with an adversarial model we observe a reverse trend. Specifically, the random case results in a total infection time of Θ(GlogGlogN/(N) as opposed to the adversarial case where the total infection time is found to be Θ(√(Glog(N). We also explore the possibility of emulating such an infection process as a mobile interaction game with wireless sensor motes, and the above results are complimented by traces obtained from an empirical study with humans as players in an outdoor field.