A. L. Moustakas, P. Mertikopoulos, Z. Zhou, and N. Bambos. In PIMRC '17: Proceedings of the 28th annual IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications, 2017.
Consider a dense wireless network of nodes, which can be used to transfer data between arbitrary sources and destinations. In this paper, we develop a methodology based on variational calculus to optimize a number of path metrics, such as the success probability or the total power consumed of a packet delivery in the presence of external interference. We then extend the approach to a two-packet transmission, in which the relaying of each packet causes interference to the other. In both cases, we show that the optimal path may differ significantly from a straight line. We then discuss the consequences of these deviations in the context of network design.