Evaluation of Connectivity Reliability for Heterogeneous Functional Chain Networks Considering Dynamic Reconfiguration

The increasing diversity and complexity of modern mission scenarios have led to growing heterogeneity among nodes in mobile ad hoc networks: node functions, onboard devices, and operational parameters are becoming more diverse, and inter-node links are correspondingly no longer homogeneous. Such networks, termed heterogeneous functional chain networks, orchestrate nodes with distinct functions into multiple functional chains that cooperate to accomplish the overall mission. Accordingly, the evaluation of connectivity reliability in these networks has shifted from a topology-oriented paradigm to a functional structure-oriented one. This paper investigates the impact of dynamic reconfiguration mechanisms on the connectivity reliability of heterogeneous functional chain networks, accounting for node failures, node mobility, and link reliability. A Dynamic Reconfiguration Scheme (DRS) is designed based on the principles of minimum movement and minimum-ordinal decision node, and a suite of evaluation metrics—including normalized connectivity reliability, network quality, and connectivity reliability—is proposed together with a Monte Carlo simulation algorithm. The proposed approach is validated via MATLAB simulations involving 210 heterogeneous nodes organized into 70 functional chains. Results demonstrate that dynamic reconfiguration increases the terminal number of functional chains by 170.83% (from 12.10 ± 0.673 to 32.77 ± 2.241), improves normalized connectivity reliability by 170.73% (from 0.1729 ± 0.010 to 0.4681 ± 0.032), and enhances network quality by 82.96%. The connectivity reliability is further shown to evolve through three distinct temporal stages: an initial stable period where functional chains remain largely intact, a mid-stage fluctuation period characterized by iterative destruction–reconfiguration dynamics, and a late-stage degradation period triggered by candidate node pool depletion.