J. Cent. South Univ. (2016) 23: 644−653
DOI: 10.1007/s11771-016-3110-4
Capacity analysis of inhomogeneous hybrid wireless networks using
directional antennas
WU Feng(吴丰)
1
, ZHU Jiang(朱江)
1
, TIAN Yi-long(田毅龙)
2
, ZOU Jian-bin(邹建彬)
1
1. School of Information Science and Engineering, National University of Defense Technology,
Changsha 430074, China;
2. School of Computer, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 430074, China
© Central South University Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016
Abstract: Most of studies on network capacity are based on the assumption that all the nodes are uniformly distributed, which means
that the networks are characterized by homogeneity. However, many realistic networks exhibit inhomogeneity due to natural and
man-made reasons. In this work, the capacity of inhomogeneous hybrid networks with directional antennas for the first time is
studied. By setting different node distribution probabilities, the whole network can be devided into dense cells and sparse cells. On
this basis, an inhomogeneous hybrid network model is proposed. The network can exhibit significant inhomogeneity due to the
coexistence of two types of cells. Then, we derive the network capacity and maximize the capacity under different channel allocation
schemes. Finally, how the network parameters influence the network capacity is analyzed. It is found that if there are plenty of base
stations, the per-node throughput can achieve constant order, and if the beamwidth of directional antenna is small enough, the
network capacity can scale.
Key words: network capacity; hybrid networks; inhomogeneity; directional antennas; infrastructure; ad hoc networks
1 Introduction
Network capacity has been extensively studied in
recent years. There are two obvious reasons explaining
why so many researchers engage in this pursuit. First,
network capacity reflects the asymptotic behavior of the
wireless networks. In face of the emerging large-scale
networks, asymptotic capacity of the networks becomes
more critical. Second, regardless of detailed protocol,
network capacity focuses on the prediction of network
performance as a function of the number of nodes in the
network. In contrast, simulation or numerical results are
deterministic as they can only be obtained for a fixed
number of nodes. Besides, the simulation or numerical
results are available after considering all the details and it
may cost a lot, such as time and computing resource.
Therefore, capacity is one of the most important
properties in wireless networks. Nevertheless, it is also a
challenging work.
In the seminal work, GUPTA and KUMAR [1]
studied the asymptotic capacity of large scale wireless
networks. They proved that the throughput capacity is
which means that the transmission rate
of per-node decreases at the speed of
as the
number of nodes increases, and finally it will decrease to
zero as n goes to infinity, where n is the number of nodes.
Later, extensive studies have been conducted to achieve
a tighter capacity bound [2−6]. FRANCESCHETTI et al
[2] applied percolation theory to obtain a per-node
transmission rate higher than
GROSSGLAUSER and TSE [3] proved that the mobility
of ad hoc nodes can increase the network capacity. They
show that per-node transmission rate of
W
Θ
can be
achieved when ad hoc nodes are mobile, while the
transmission delay will go to infinity.
Hybrid networks, where base stations are added to
help the transmissions of ad hoc nodes, have attracted
many researchers’ attention in recent years [7−10]. LIU
et al [7] studied the capacity of hybrid networks where
base stations are placed in a regular pattern. They
showed that the asymptotic behavior of m makes the
hybrid networks exhibit different capacities, where m
denotes the number of base stations. KO Z AT and
TASSIULAS [8] considered the case that base stations
are randomly deployed. They concluded that base
stations can improve the per-node throughput capacity
significantly. ZEMLIANOV and VECIANA [9]
proposed a hybrid network model where base stations are
arbitrarily placed. They derived the network capacity and
got similar conclusions.
Foundation item: Projects (61401476, 61201166) supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
Received date: 2015−05−26; Accepted date: 2015−09−08
Corresponding author: WU Feng, PhD; Tel: +86−13317376405; E-mail: wufengpaper@163.com