On Capacity Scaling in Arbitrary Wireless Networks

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 $\alpha\in(2,3]$ cooperative communication is order optimal, and for large path-loss exponents $\alpha > 3$ multi-hop 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 $\alpha \in (2,3]$, we show that our scheme is order optimal for all node placements, and achieves exactly the same throughput scaling as in Ozgur et al. This shows that the regularity of the node placement does not affect the scaling of the achievable rates for $\alpha\in (2,3]$. 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 "interpolate" between multi-hop 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 $\alpha > 3$.Comment: 38 pages, 6 figures, to appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

Information Theoretic Operating Regimes of Large Wireless Networks

In analyzing the point-to-point wireless channel, insights about two qualitatively different operating regimes--bandwidth- and power-limited--have proven indispensable in the design of good communication schemes. In this paper, we propose a new scaling law formulation for wireless networks that allows us to develop a theory that is analogous to the point-to-point case. We identify fundamental operating regimes of wireless networks and derive architectural guidelines for the design of optimal schemes. Our analysis shows that in a given wireless network with arbitrary size, area, power, bandwidth, etc., there are three parameters of importance: the short-distance SNR, the long-distance SNR, and the power path loss exponent of the environment. Depending on these parameters we identify four qualitatively different regimes. One of these regimes is especially interesting since it is fundamentally a consequence of the heterogeneous nature of links in a network and does not occur in the point-to-point case; the network capacity is {\em both} power and bandwidth limited. This regime has thus far remained hidden due to the limitations of the existing formulation. Existing schemes, either multihop transmission or hierarchical cooperation, fail to achieve capacity in this regime; we propose a new hybrid scheme that achieves capacity.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, to appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

Product Multicommodity Flow in Wireless Networks

We provide a tight approximate characterization of the $n$-dimensional product multicommodity flow (PMF) region for a wireless network of $n$ nodes. Separate characterizations in terms of the spectral properties of appropriate network graphs are obtained in both an information theoretic sense and for a combinatorial interference model (e.g., Protocol model). These provide an inner approximation to the $n^2$ dimensional capacity region. These results answer the following questions which arise naturally from previous work: (a) What is the significance of $1/\sqrt{n}$ in the scaling laws for the Protocol interference model obtained by Gupta and Kumar (2000)? (b) Can we obtain a tight approximation to the "maximum supportable flow" for node distributions more general than the geometric random distribution, traffic models other than randomly chosen source-destination pairs, and under very general assumptions on the channel fading model? We first establish that the random source-destination model is essentially a one-dimensional approximation to the capacity region, and a special case of product multi-commodity flow. Building on previous results, for a combinatorial interference model given by a network and a conflict graph, we relate the product multicommodity flow to the spectral properties of the underlying graphs resulting in computational upper and lower bounds. For the more interesting random fading model with additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), we show that the scaling laws for PMF can again be tightly characterized by the spectral properties of appropriately defined graphs. As an implication, we obtain computationally efficient upper and lower bounds on the PMF for any wireless network with a guaranteed approximation factor.Comment: Revised version of "Capacity-Delay Scaling in Arbitrary Wireless Networks" submitted to the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. Part of this work appeared in the Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, Monticello, IL, 2005, and the Internation Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), 200