Enhancing traffic capacity of scale-free networks by employing structural hole theory

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a Structural Hole Routing (SHR) strategy based on the structural hole theory for scale-free networks. The performance of routing strategies on scale-free networks can be measured by two indicators, i.e. the traffic capacity and the average path length. With the SHR strategy, the packets can bypass those center nodes to enhance the traffic capacity of scale-free networks. The simulation results show that our SHR strategy can achieve approximately 6% higher traffic capacity than the efficient routing (ER) strategy. Moreover, the average path length of the SHR strategy is a little higher than that of the ER strategy. Therefore, our SHR routing strategy is preferable to other routing strategies and can be easily implemented through software method.