HAP: a heterogeneous ad hoc protocol

Ad hoc wireless networks are becoming an important infrastructure for developing networking applications due to their decentralized nature, improved scalability as compared to wireless managed networks, minimal configuration and fast deployment. However, such networks show several limitations regarding their capacity and are, in general, impractical for stand alone commercial applications; in fact, such networks are mostly used for emergency applications. However, the features of ad hoc networks can be useful to extend the connectivity of wireless networks, while taking into account node mobility. In this paper we propose a Heterogeneous Ad hoc Protocol (HAP), which aims to extend the connectivity of a wireless networks. HAP is a cross layer protocol that operates on the link, MAC, and network layers, which takes into account the impact of the mobility on each of these layers. The objective of HAP is thus to overcome limitations of existing protocols, especially regarding mobility. HAP can be useful for developing applications in pedestrian and community networks.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Scaling Laws of Cognitive Networks

We consider a cognitive network consisting of n random pairs of cognitive transmitters and receivers communicating simultaneously in the presence of multiple primary users. Of interest is how the maximum throughput achieved by the cognitive users scales with n. Furthermore, how far these users must be from a primary user to guarantee a given primary outage. Two scenarios are considered for the network scaling law: (i) when each cognitive transmitter uses constant power to communicate with a cognitive receiver at a bounded distance away, and (ii) when each cognitive transmitter scales its power according to the distance to a considered primary user, allowing the cognitive transmitter-receiver distances to grow. Using single-hop transmission, suitable for cognitive devices of opportunistic nature, we show that, in both scenarios, with path loss larger than 2, the cognitive network throughput scales linearly with the number of cognitive users. We then explore the radius of a primary exclusive region void of cognitive transmitters. We obtain bounds on this radius for a given primary outage constraint. These bounds can help in the design of a primary network with exclusive regions, outside of which cognitive users may transmit freely. Our results show that opportunistic secondary spectrum access using single-hop transmission is promising.Comment: significantly revised and extended, 30 pages, 13 figures, submitted to IEEE Journal of Special Topics in Signal Processin

Capacity of Hybrid Wireless Networks with Long-Range Social Contacts Behavior

Hybrid wireless network is composed of both ad hoc transmissions and cellular transmissions. Under the L-maximum-hop routing policy, flow is transmitted in the ad hoc mode if its source and destination are within L hops away; otherwise, it is transmitted in the cellular mode. Existing works study the hybrid wireless network capacity as a function of L so as to find the optimal L to maximize the network capacity. In this paper, we consider two more factors: traffic model and base station access mode. Different from existing works, which only consider the uniform traffic model, we consider a traffic model with social behavior. We study the impact of traffic model on the optimal routing policy. Moreover, we consider two different access modes: one-hop access (each node directly communicates with base station) and multi-hop access (node may access base station through multiple hops due to power constraint). We study the impact of access mode on the optimal routing policy. Our results show that: 1) the optimal L does not only depend on traffic pattern, but also the access mode; 2) one-hop access provides higher network capacity than multi-hop access at the cost of increasing transmitting power; and 3) under the one-hop access mode, network capacity grows linearly with the number of base stations; however, it does not hold with the multi-hop access mode, and the number of base stations has different effects on network capacity for different traffic models.postprin