In recent work, Ozgur, Leveque, and Tse (2007) obtained a complete scaling characterization of throughput scaling for random extended wireless networks (i.e., n nodes are placed uniformly at random in a square region of area n). They showed that for small path-loss exponents alpha isin (2,3], cooperative communication is order optimal, and for large path-loss exponents alpha > 3, multihop communication is order optimal. However, their results (both the communication scheme and the proof technique) are strongly dependent on the regularity induced with high probability by the random node placement. In this paper, we consider the problem of characterizing the throughput scaling in extended wireless networks with arbitrary node placement. As a main result, we propose a more general novel cooperative communication scheme that works for arbitrarily placed nodes. For small path-loss exponents alpha isin (2,3], we show that our scheme is order optimal for all node placements, and achieves exactly the same throughput scaling as in Ozgur. This shows that the regularity of the node placement does not affect the scaling of the achievable rates for alpha isin (2,3]. The situation is, however, markedly different for large path-loss exponents alpha > 3. We show that in this regime the scaling of the achievable per-node rates depends crucially on the regularity of the node placement. We then present a family of schemes that smoothly ldquointerpolaterdquo between multihop and cooperative communication, depending upon the level of regularity in the node placement. We establish order optimality of these schemes under adversarial node placement for alpha > 3.
@cite_6: This paper deals with throughput scaling laws for random ad hoc wireless networks in a rich scattering environment. We develop schemes to optimize the ratio lambda(n) of achievable network sum capacity to the sum of the point-to-point capacities of source-destinations (S-D) pairs operating in isolation. Our focus in this paper is on fixed signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) networks, i.e., networks where the worst case SNR over the S-D pairs is fixed independent of n. For such fixed SNR networks, which include fixed area networks as a special case, we show that collaborative strategies yield a scaling law of lambda(n)=Omega(1 n1 3) in contrast to multihop strategies which yield a scaling law of lambda(n)=Theta(1 radicn). While networks where worst case SNR goes to zero do not preclude the possibility of collaboration, multihop strategies achieve optimal throughput. The plausible reason is that the gains due to collaboration cannot offset the effect of vanishing receive SNR. This suggests that for fixed SNR networks, a network designer should look for network protocols that exploit collaboration
@cite_0: We study communication networks of arbitrary size and topology and communicating over a general vector discrete memoryless channel (DMC). We propose an information-theoretic constructive scheme for obtaining an achievable rate region in such networks. Many well-known capacity-defining achievable rate regions can be derived as special cases of the proposed scheme. A few such examples are the physically degraded and reversely degraded relay channels, the Gaussian multiple-access channel, and the Gaussian broadcast channel. The proposed scheme also leads to inner bounds for the multicast and allcast capacities. Applying the proposed scheme to a specific wireless network of n nodes located in a region of unit area, we show that a transport capacity of spl Theta (n) bit-meters per second (bit-meters s) is feasible in a certain family of networks, as compared to the best possible transport capacity of spl Theta ( spl radic n) bit-meters s in (2000), where the receiver capabilities were limited. Even though the improvement is shown for a specific class of networks, a clear implication is that designing and employing more sophisticated multiuser coding schemes can provide sizable gains in at least some large wireless networks.
@cite_2: For the multiple-level relay channel, an achievable rate formula, and a simple coding scheme to achieve it, are presented. Generally, higher rates can be achieved with this coding scheme in the multiple-level relay case than previously known. For a class of degraded channels, this achievable rate is shown to be the exact capacity. An application of the coding scheme to the allcast problem is also discussed.
@cite_15: Coding strategies that exploit node cooperation are developed for relay networks. Two basic schemes are studied: the relays decode-and-forward the source message to the destination, or they compress-and-forward their channel outputs to the destination. The decode-and-forward scheme is a variant of multihopping, but in addition to having the relays successively decode the message, the transmitters cooperate and each receiver uses several or all of its past channel output blocks to decode. For the compress-and-forward scheme, the relays take advantage of the statistical dependence between their channel outputs and the destination's channel output. The strategies are applied to wireless channels, and it is shown that decode-and-forward achieves the ergodic capacity with phase fading if phase information is available only locally, and if the relays are near the source node. The ergodic capacity coincides with the rate of a distributed antenna array with full cooperation even though the transmitting antennas are not colocated. The capacity results generalize broadly, including to multiantenna transmission with Rayleigh fading, single-bounce fading, certain quasi-static fading problems, cases where partial channel knowledge is available at the transmitters, and cases where local user cooperation is permitted. The results further extend to multisource and multidestination networks such as multiaccess and broadcast relay channels.
@cite_11: n source and destination pairs randomly located in an area want to communicate with each other. Signals transmitted from one user to another at distance r apart are subject to a power loss of r-alpha as well as a random phase. We identify the scaling laws of the information-theoretic capacity of the network when nodes can relay information for each other. In the case of dense networks, where the area is fixed and the density of nodes increasing, we show that the total capacity of the network scales linearly with n. This improves on the best known achievability result of n2 3 of Aeron and Saligrama. In the case of extended networks, where the density of nodes is fixed and the area increasing linearly with n, we show that this capacity scales as n2-alpha 2 for 2lesalpha 4. Thus, much better scaling than multihop can be achieved in dense networks, as well as in extended networks with low attenuation. The performance gain is achieved by intelligent node cooperation and distributed multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication. The key ingredient is a hierarchical and digital architecture for nodal exchange of information for realizing the cooperation.
Another stream of work @cite_0 @cite_2 @cite_15 @cite_6 @cite_11 has proposed progressively refined multi-user cooperative schemes, which have been shown to significantly out-perform multi-hop communication in certain environments. In an exciting recent work, "O zg "u @cite_11 have shown that with nodes placed uniformly at random, and with signal attenuation @math , a cooperative communication scheme can perform significantly better than multi-hop communication. More precisely, they show that for @math , the best achievable per-node rate for random source-destination pairing scales as @math and cooperative communication achieves a per-node rate of @math (here, @math is an arbitrary but fixed constant). That is, cooperative communication is essentially order optimal in the attenuation regime @math .