In indoor areas such as homes and offices, high throughput communication for multiple devices is quickly becoming a necessity. Even though an access point (AP) mounted with an omni-directional antenna can cover a whole room, it cannot provide connections with high throughput throughout the room. Therefore, we propose, \emph DiRF, a directional antenna based wireless home network designed to achieve high throughput in indoor areas with densely deployed directional APs. \emph DiRF consists of a position based AP selection algorithm which can decrease latency accumulation caused by frequent AP switching, and a downlink packet scheduler which can reduce the downlink packet retransmissions during AP switching. We implement and evaluate \emph DiRF with six commercial APs, each connects with a single directional antenna. Our experiments show that \emph DiRF achieves a $3.16\times$ TCP throughput improvement, compared to the conventional scheme that only uses one AP mounted with one omni-directional antenna.
In cognitive radio networks (CRNs), the connectivity of secondary users (SUs) is difficult to be guaranteed due to the existence of primary users (PUs). Most prior studies only consider cognitive radio networks equipped with omni-directional antennas causing high interference at SUs. We name such CRNs with omni-directional antennas as Omn-CRNs. Compared with an omni-directional antenna, a directional antenna can concentrate the transmitting/receiving capability at a certain direction, consequently resulting in less interference. In this paper, we investigate the connectivity of SUs in CRNs wit…
In IEEE 802.11 based wireless networks adding more access points does not always guarantee an increase of network capacity. In some cases, additional access points may contribute to degrade the aggregated network throughput as more interference is introduced. This paper characterizes the power interference in CSMA/CA based networks consisting of nodes using directional antenna. The severity of the interference is quantized via an improved form of the Attacking Case metric as the original form of this metric was developed for nodes using omnidirectional antenna. The proposed metric is attractiv…
Dynamic Position Location and Tracking (PL&T) is proposed deploying the integrated approach of zone finding and triangulation using two friendly nodes equipped with Steered Directional Antenna (DA) in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANET). This approach allows the system to use only two references instead of a typical 3 references for a straight triangulation. Moreover, the performance of the proposed algorithm with references using directional antennas shows significant improvement over triangulation using references with Omnidirectional antennas as the beam power is concentrated. However, dynamic s…
To achieve high-speed (giga-bit) connectivity for short-range wireless multimedia applications, the millimeter-wave (mmWave) wireless personal area networks with directional antennas are gaining increased interest. Due to the use of directional antennas and mmWave communications, the probability of non-interfering transmissions increases in a localized region. Network throughput can be increased immensely by the concurrent time allocation of non-interfering transmissions. The problem of finding optimum time allocation for concurrent transmissions is an NP-hard problem. In this paper, we propos…
Transceiver impairments, including phase noise, residual frequency offset, and imperfect channel estimation, significantly affect the performance of Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) system. However, these impairments are not well addressed when analyzing the throughput performance of MIMO Ad Hoc networks. In this paper, we present an analytical framework to evaluate the throughput of MIMO OFDM system under the impairments of phase noise, residual frequency offset, and imperfect channel estimation. Using this framework, we evaluate the Maximum Sum Throughput (MST) in Ad Hoc networks by opt…
Thanks to the availability of large bandwidth and high-gain directional antennas at the millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands, mmWave communications have been considered as one of the primary solutions to meet the high data rates needs in vehicular networks. Unicast in mmWave vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications has been well-studied, but much less attention has been paid to V2V broadcast which is required by many V2V applications such as active safety. To fill the gap, this paper systematically investigates mmWave V2V broadcast by considering the unique properties of mmWave signal propagation in …
Recently, applications of millimeter (mm) waves for high-speed broadband wireless local area network communication systems in indoor environment are increasingly gaining recognition as it provides gigabit-speed wireless communications with carrier-class performances over distances of a mile or more due to spectrum availability and wider bandwidth requirements. Collectively referred to as E-Band, the millimeter wave wireless technology present the potential to offer bandwidth delivery comparable to that of fiber optic, but without the financial and logistic challenges of deploying fiber. This p…
To achieve high rate of Multi-Giga-bits-per-second for multimedia applications at personal area level, 60 GHz communication technologies are most potential candidates. Due to some special characteristics of 60 GHz band of frequencies and use of multiple directional antennas,the network level and user level throughput can be increased tremendously by identifying and scheduling the non interfering transmission requests for concurrent transmissions. Instead of direct communication between source and destination, by traversing the traffic flow on optimum path (consists of light weight multiple-rel…
This paper presents switched Multi- Element Antennas (MEAs) as a simple, yet effective, method of enhancing the performance of small cell heterogeneous networks and compensating for the small cell base station sub-optimal placement. The switched MEA system is a low-cost system which enables the small cell to dynamically direct its transmission power toward locations of high user density, in other words demand hotspots. Our simulation results show that small cell base stations equipped with switched MEA systems offer greater performance than base stations equipped with omni-directional antennas…
This radio channel measurement campaign characterizes the propagation conditions experienced in a dense urban environment over fixed backhaul links between wireless devices that are mounted on utility or traffic light poles. The measurements characterize the 2x1 multiple input single output channel in the 2.45 GHz band for both spatially separated omni antennas and cross polarized directional antennas. Results presented include both small and large scale channel statistics, antenna correlation coefficient values and the off-broadside rejection achieved with the directional antennas.
In this paper, we present a directional antenna-based leader-follower robotic relay system capable of building end-to-end communication in complicated and dynamically changing environments. The proposed system consists of multiple networked robots - one is a mobile end node and the others are leaders or followers acting as radio relays. Every follower uses directional antennas to relay a communication radio and to estimate the location of the leader robot as a sensory device. For bearing estimation, we employ a weight centroid algorithm (WCA) and present a theoretical analysis of the use of WC…
This letter proposes an analytical framework to evaluate the coverage performance of a cellular-connected unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) network in which UAV user equipments (UAV-UEs) are equipped with directional antennas and move according to a three-dimensional (3D) mobility model. The ground base stations (GBSs) equipped with practical down-tilted antennas are distributed according to a Poisson point process (PPP). With tools from stochastic geometry, we derive the handover probability and coverage probability of a random UAV-UE under the strongest average received signal strength (RSS) ass…
The maximum traffic arrival rate at the network for a given delay guarantee (delay constrained throughput) has been well studied for wired channels. However, few results are available for wireless channels, especially when multiple antennas are employed at the transmitter and receiver. In this work, we analyze the network delay constrained throughput of a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) wireless channel with time-varying spatial correlation. The MIMO channel is modeled via its virtual representation, where the individual spatial paths between the antenna pairs are Gilbert-Elliot channels…
Directional antennas and beamforming can significantly improve point-to-point wireless links when perfectly aligned. In this letter we investigate the extreme opposite where antenna orientations and positions are chosen at random in the presence of Rayleigh fading. We show that while the 1-hop network connectivity is deteriorated, the multihop routes improve, especially in the dense regime. We derive closed form expressions for the expectation of the $1$-hop and $2$-hop degree which are verified through computer simulations. We conclude that node density does not greatly affect the number of h…
In this paper, we consider a wireless powered communication network (WPCN) consisting of a multi-antenna hybrid access point (HAP) that transfers wireless energy to and receives sensing data from a cluster of low-power wireless devices (WDs). To enhance the throughput performance of some far-away WDs, we allow one of the WDs to act as the cluster head (CH) that helps forward the messages of the other cluster members (CMs). However, the performance of the proposed cluster-based cooperation is fundamentally limited by the high energy consumption of the CH, who needs to transmit all the WDs' mess…
WiMAX technology is based on the IEEE 802.16 specification of which IEEE 802.16-2004 and 802.16e amendment are Physical (PHY) layer specifications. IEEE 802.16-2004 currently supports several multiple-antenna options including Space-Time Codes (STC), Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna systems and Adaptive Antenna Systems (AAS). The most recent WiMAX standard (802.16e) supports broadband applications to mobile terminals and laptops. Using Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) we analyze the performance of OFDM physical layer in WiMAX based on the simulation results of Bit Error Rate (…
Recent advances in antenna technology have made the design of multi-beam antennas (MBA) feasible. Compared to an omni-directional or a single beam directional antenna, an MBA equipped node can achieve a throughput of up to m times, by simultaneously communicating on its m non-interfering beams. As a result, a few multi-beam directional medium access control (MAC) schemes have been proposed in the literature recently, which are implemented mostly on the in-house simulation setups in Matlab or C/C++. These implementations make many assumptions to simplify their design, without a thorough impleme…
We investigate a cognitive radio scenario involving a single cognitive transmitter equipped with $\mathcal{K}$ antennas sharing the spectrum with $\mathcal{M}$ primary users (PUs) transmitting over orthogonal bands. Each terminal has a queue to store its incoming traffic. We propose a novel protocol where the cognitive user transmits its packet over a channel formed by the aggregate of the inactive primary bands. We study the impact of the number of PUs, sensing errors, and the number of antennas on the maximum secondary stable throughput.
We introduce a model for capturing the effects of beam misdirection on coverage and throughput in a directional wireless network using stochastic geometry. In networks employing ideal sector antennas without sidelobes, we find that concavity of the orientation error distribution is sufficient to prove monotonicity and quasi-concavity (both with respect to antenna beamwidth) of spatial throughput and transmission capacity, respectively. Additionally, we identify network conditions that produce opposite extremal choices in beamwidth (absolutely directed versus omni-directional) that maximize the…
We study wireless ad hoc networks in the absence of any channel contention or transmit power control and ask how antenna directivity affects network connectivity in the interference limited regime. We answer this question by deriving closed-form expressions for the outage probability, capacity and mean node degree of the network using tools from stochastic geometry. These novel results provide valuable insights for the design of future ad hoc networks. Significantly, our results suggest that the more directional the interfering transmitters are, the less detrimental are the effects of interfer…
Long Range (LoRa) is a popular technology used to construct Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) networks. Given the popularity of LoRa it is likely that multiple independent LoRa networks are deployed in close proximity. In this situation, neighbouring networks interfere and methods have to be found to combat this interference. In this paper we investigate the use of directional antennae and the use of multiple base stations as methods of dealing with inter-network interference. Directional antennae increase signal strength at receivers without increasing transmission energy cost. Thus, the pr…
Large available bandwidth in 60\,GHz band promises very high data rates -- in the order of Gb/s. However, high free-space path loss makes it necessary to employ beamforming capable directional antennas. When beamforming is used, the links are sensitive to misalignment in antenna directionality because of movement of devices. To identify and circumvent the misalignments, we propose to use the motion sensors (i.e., accelerometer and gyroscope) which are already present in most of the modern mobile devices. By finding the extent of misaligned beams, corrective actions are carried out to reconfigu…
This paper reports our work on extending the Omnet INET Framework with a directional radio model, putting a special emphasis on the implementation of asymmetrical communications. We first analyze the original INET radio model, focusing on its design and components. Then we discuss the modifications that have been done to support directional communications. Our preliminary results show that the new model is flexible enough to allow the user to provide any antenna pattern shape, with only an additional reasonable computational cost.
Wireless rechargeable sensor networks (WRSNs) consisting of sensor nodes with batteries have been at the forefront of sensing and communication technologies in the last few years. Sensor networks with different missions are being massively rolled out, particularly in the internet-of-things commercial market. To ensure sustainable operation of WRSNs, charging in a timely fashion is very important, since lack of energy of even a single sensor node could result in serious outcomes. With the large number of WRSNs existing and to be existed, energy-efficient charging schemes are becoming indispensa…
In past 802.11 systems there is a single Radio Frequency (RF) chain on the Wi-Fi device. Multiple antennas use the same hardware to process the radio signal. So only one antenna can transmit or receive at a time as all radio signals need to go through the single RF chain. In MIMO there can be a separate RF chain for each antenna allowing multiple RF chains to coexist. MIMO technology has attracted attention in wireless communications, because it offers significant increases in data throughput and link range without additional bandwidth or increased transmit power. It achieves this goal by spre…
We propose a novel paradigm for spectrum sensing in cognitive radio networks that provides diversity and capacity benefits using a single antenna at the Secondary User (SU) receiver. The proposed scheme is based on a reconfigurable antenna: an antenna that is capable of altering its radiation characteristics by changing its geometric configuration. Each configuration is designated as an antenna mode or state and corresponds to a distinct channel realization. Based on an abstract model for the reconfigurable antenna, we tackle two different settings for the cognitive radio problem and present f…
Loop interference (LI) in wireless communications, is a notion resulting from the full-duplex (FD) operation. In a large-scale network, FD also increases the multiuser interference due to the large number of active wireless links that exist. Hence, in order to realize the FD potentials, this interference needs to be restricted. This paper presents a stochastic geometry model of FD cellular networks where the users and base stations employ directional antennas. Based on previous experimental results, we model the passive suppression of the LI at each FD terminal as a function of the angle betwe…
Nodes in ad hoc networks with randomly oriented directional antenna patterns typically have fewer short links and more long links which can bridge together otherwise isolated subnetworks. This network feature is known to improve overall connectivity in 2D random networks operating at low channel path loss. To this end, we advance recently established results to obtain analytic expressions for the mean degree of 3D networks for simple but practical anisotropic gain profiles, including those of patch, dipole and end-fire array antennas. Our analysis reveals that for homogeneous systems (i.e. neg…
