Achievable capacity limit of high performance nodes for wireless mesh networks

Abstract

Next generation fixed wireless broadband networks have immensely been deployed as mesh networks in order to provide and extend access to the internet. These networks are characterised by the use of multiple orthogonal channels. Nodes in the network have the ability to simultaneously communicate with many neighbours using multiple radios over orthogonal channels thereby improving effective and "online" channel utilisation. Many such networks emerging from standards such as IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n and 802.16 are already in use, ranging from prototype test-beds to complete solutions. The increasing question is how the theoretical capacity of such static multi-radio multi-channel (MRMC) network scales with the number of nodes and the irregularity of the deployment terrain. In their seminal work, Gupta and Kumar (2000) determined the capacity of single radio single channel in arbitrary networks. Their findings have been later extended to derive the capacity bounds of the MRMC configurations by Kyasanur and Vaidya (2005).