Increasing capacity in ad-hoc networks

Abstract

This paper shows that although simultaneous transmissions on the same frequency can cause interference to one another, they may still benefit network capacity if adequate separation conditions between nodes are met. We define this separation and show that it decreases as the number of simultaneous transmissions increases. We further show, through an example of three simultaneous transmissions, that optimisation of network capacity is dependent on this separation and path loss exponent. The findings are verified through simulations which demonstrate how separation can be utilised to simultaneously increase the capacity and power efficiency of military ad-hoc networks. It is also shown through optimisation that the use of additional nodes can increase these benefits.