Relays for Interference Mitigation in Wireless Networks

Wireless links play an important role in the last mile network connectivity. In contrast to the strictly centralized approach of today's wireless systems, the future promises decentralization of network management. Nodes potentially engage in localized grouping and organization based on their neighborhood to carry out complex goals such as end-to-end communication. The quadratic energy dissipation of the wireless medium necessitates the presence of certain relay nodes in the network. Conventionally, the role of such relays is limited to passing messages in a chain in a point-point hopping architecture. With the decentralization, multiple nodes could potentially interfere with each other. This work proposes a technique to exploit the presence of relays in a way that mitigates interference between the network nodes. Optimal spatial locations and transmission schemes which enhance this gain are identified