Minimalhop

Minimalhop is a routing concept used in computer networks and graph theory that describes strategies prioritizing the fewest hops from a source to a destination. In many networks, each hop represents a traversal from one node to a neighbor and incurs processing, queuing, and potential delay. Minimalhop routing aims to minimize hop count, often at the expense of other metrics such as link reliability, bandwidth, or latency.

In unweighted networks, minimalhop can be achieved with breadth-first search or by using a hop-count distance metric in routing tables. In practice, protocols implement minimalhop by assigning a hop count as the primary distance metric and updating routes to converge toward paths with the smallest number of intermediaries. Some variants combine hop count with additional metrics to avoid consistently choosing extremely long, low-quality links.

Applications of minimalhop include mobile ad hoc networks, sensor networks, and mesh networks where fast convergence and low control overhead are advantageous. It is commonly contrasted with shortest-path routing, where the objective is the minimal total path cost, which may involve more complex computation or lead to variable delays.

Advantages of minimalhop include simplicity, fast convergence, and reduced control overhead, especially in highly dynamic topologies. Limitations include the potential neglect of link quality or bandwidth, which can yield suboptimal end-to-end performance, and the risk of routing loops without appropriate loop prevention mechanisms.

See also: hop count, shortest path routing, breadth-first search, energy-aware routing.