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This paper proposes a novel scalable reinforcement learning approach for simultaneous routing and spectrum access in wireless ad-hoc networks. In most previous works on reinforcement learning for network optimization, the network topology is assumed to be fixed, and a different agent is trained for each transmission node—this limits scalability and generalizability. Further, routing and spectrum access are typically treated as separate tasks. Moreover, the optimization objective is usually a cumulative metric along the route, e.g., number of hops or delay. In this paper, we account for the physical-layer signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) in a wireless network and further show that bottleneck objective such as the minimum SINR along the route can also be optimized effectively using reinforcement learning. Specifically, we propose a scalable approach in which a single agent is associated with each flow and makes routing and spectrum access decisions as it moves along the frontier nodes. The agent is trained according to the physical-layer characteristics of the environment using a novel rewarding scheme based on the Monte Carlo estimation of the future bottleneck SINR. It learns to avoid interference by intelligently making joint routing and spectrum allocation decisions based on the geographical location information of the neighbouring nodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aeronautical Ad-hoc Networks (AANETs) have been proposed as the promising complement to terrestrial networks for promoting the global interconnection to provide in-flight network service, emergency communication, vessel traffic service, etc. However, the large network scale of AANETs may induce severe synchronization overhead when the traditional topology-based networking algorithms are adopted. Moreover, the high-dynamic topology and changeable flight routes make the existing position-based routing algorithms suffer loop routing and forwarding failure. Motivated by these problems, this paper aims at developing efficient and low-cost networking and routing algorithms relying on the concept of dynamic virtual topology which organizes the disordered topology of AANETs into a structural and simplified one. The basic idea is that each connected aircraft is assigned with a unique and sequentially increased Virtual Identifier (VID) and thus all the connected aircrafts are organized into a virtual cluster consisting of one trunk and several branches. An event-driven synchronization mechanism is leveraged for maintaining the virtual topology as well as relieving the communication burden imposed by periodical broadcasting. By jointly considering the geographic locations and the virtual locations of aircrafts, we formulate the routing problem in AANETs as a weighted distance minimization problem, and further propose a novel routing algorithm, namely Trunk-Branch Cooperation aided Routing (TBCR) algorithm. Specifically, TBCR employs the geographic greedy forwarding strategy for enhancing its flexibility and boosts the routing efficiency by adopting the loop-free virtual topology based local forwarding. For extending the networking and routing algorithms to the global range, a multi-domain routing solution is also provided. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed Virtual Topology based Networking (VTN) cooperated with TBCR can reduce at least 30% average end-to-end transmission delay in large-scale AANETs and provide more than 90% lower synchronization overhead than the existing solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emergence of various types of wireless applications has brought about fast growing and diversified traffic in cellular networks. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the influences caused by the differentiated and dynamic traffic is vital for the design of the next-generation wireless networks. In this paper, we develop a mathematical framework for meta-distribution analysis by utilizing queueing theory and stochastic geometry to capture the spatial (geographical location) and temporal randomness (queue status) of traffic. We derive the ${k}$ -th moment of the conditional successful transmission probability (STP) and the closed-form expressions of the meta distribution for the cell-center users (CCUs) and the cell-edge users (CEUs), respectively. The results are further extended to obtain the analytical expression of the meta distribution by taking the temporal random arrival of traffic into consideration. Moreover, the mean local delays for the CCUs and CEUs are derived. Finally, the impact of key network parameters on the meta distribution and the corresponding mean local delay is investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the problem of spectrum-aware routing in a multi-hop, multi-channel cognitive radio network when malicious nodes in the secondary network attempt to block the path with mixed attacks. Based on the location and time-variant path delay information, we model the path discovery process as a non-cooperative stochastic game. By exploiting the structure of the underlying Markov Decision Process, we decompose the stochastic routing game into a series of stage games. For each stage game, we propose a distributed strategy learning mechanism based on stochastic fictitious play to learn the equilibrium strategies of joint relay-channel selection in the condition of both limited information exchange and potential routing-toward-primary attacks. We also introduce a trustworthiness evaluation mechanism based on a multi-arm bandit process for normal users to avoid relaying to the sink-hole attackers. Simulation results show that without the need of information flooding, the proposed algorithm is efficient in bypassing the malicious nodes with mixed attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A source coding problem in which a central source has to satisfy the demands of several receivers, with each receiver having some subset of the messages (side-information) held by the source is considered. The source has knowledge of only the cardinality of the side-information at each receiver. The encoding scheme used by the source to transmit at a higher throughput is referred to as an informed source code. A technique to obtain informed source codes by using $\ell $ -th Near Maximum Distance Separable (Near-MDS) Codes is presented. The advantage of using $\ell $ -th Near-MDS codes is the reduction in field size required. For certain informed source coding problems, the code obtained from $\ell $ -th Near-MDS codes is shown to be of the minimum length under certain field size restrictions. The same technique can be used for a given index coding problem to obtain index codes. The index codes obtained through this technique are optimal for, but not limited to, special cases of index coding problems discussed in the paper. Finding an optimal solution to a general index coding problem is NP hard and this technique helps in finding binary suboptimal solutions. Using the Gilbert-Varshamov bound, an upper bound on the lengths of optimal binary informed source codes is obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Deployment of low-cost power beacons (PBs) is a promising solution for dedicated wireless power transfer (WPT) in future wireless networks. In this paper, we present a tractable model for PB-assisted millimeter wave (mmWave) wireless ad hoc networks, where each transmitter (TX) harvests energy from all PBs and then uses the harvested energy to transmit information to its desired receiver. Our model accounts for realistic aspects of WPT and mmWave transmissions, such as power circuit activation threshold, allowed maximum harvested power, maximum transmit power, beamforming, and blockage. Using stochastic geometry, we obtain the Laplace transform of the aggregate received power at the TX to calculate the power coverage probability. We approximate and discretize the transmit power of each TX into a finite number of discrete power levels in log scale to compute the channel and total coverage probability. We compare our analytical predictions to simulations and observe good accuracy. The proposed model allows insights into effect of system parameters, such as transmit power of PBs, PB density, main lobe beamwidth, and power circuit activation threshold on the overall coverage probability. The results confirm that it is feasible and safe to power TXs in an mmWave ad hoc network using PBs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For IEEE 802.11 networks with multiple basic service sets (BSSs), most studies have focused on how to allocate different frequency sub-channels to BSSs for minimizing the co-channel interference. With the significant increase of the sub-channel bandwidth, however, it becomes increasingly important to study the network performance with universal frequency reuse. In this paper, we focus on an uplink $M$ -BSS IEEE 802.11 network, where all the BSSs share the frequency band rather than operate at different sub-channels. By dividing the nodes in each BSS into multiple groups according to the set of access points (APs) they can be heard by, the steady-state points of $M$ BSSs in saturated conditions are obtained as the functions of the number of nodes in each group and the initial backoff window size of nodes of each BSS. The maximum network throughput is further characterized by optimally choosing the initial backoff window sizes of all the nodes and shown to be closely dependent on the percentage of nodes that can be heard by multiple APs. The comparison with orthogonal frequency division reveals that although the maximum network throughput is degraded due to interference among BSSs, a higher network data rate can still be achieved by universal frequency reuse, which makes it a preferable option for multi-BSS IEEE 802.11 networks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper develops a stochastic geometry-based approach for the modeling and analysis of single- and multi-cluster wireless networks. We first define finite homogeneous Poisson point processes to model the number and locations of the transmitters in a confined region as a single-cluster wireless network. We study the coverage probability for a reference receiver for two strategies; closest-selection, where the receiver is served by the closest transmitter among all transmitters, and uniform-selection, where the serving transmitter is selected randomly with uniform distribution. Second, using Matern cluster processes, we extend our model and analysis to multi-cluster wireless networks. Here, two types of receivers are modeled, namely, closed- and open-access receivers. Closed-access receivers are distributed around the cluster centers of the transmitters according to a symmetric normal distribution and can be served only by the transmitters of their corresponding clusters. Open-access receivers, on the other hand, are placed independently of the transmitters and can be served by all transmitters. In all cases, the link distance distribution and the Laplace transform (LT) of the interference are derived. We also derive closed-form lower bounds on the LT of the interference for single-cluster wireless networks. The impact of different parameters on the performance is also investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider the problem of joint secure routing and transmit power optimization for a multi-hop ad-hoc network under the existence of randomly distributed eavesdroppers following a Poisson point process. Secrecy messages are delivered from a source to a destination through a multi-hop route connected by multiple legitimate relays in the network. Our goal is to minimize the end-to-end connection outage probability under the constraint of a secrecy outage probability threshold, by optimizing the routing path and the transmit power of each hop jointly. We show that the globally optimal solution could be obtained by a two-step procedure where the optimal transmit power has a closed-form and the optimal routing path can be found by Dijkstra’s algorithm. Then a friendly jammer with multiple antennas is applied to enhance the secrecy performance further, and the optimal transmit power of the jammer and each hop of the selected route is investigated. This problem can be solved optimally via an iterative outer polyblock approximation with 1-D search algorithm. Furthermore, suboptimal transmit powers can be derived using the successive convex approximation method with a lower complexity. Simulation results show the performance improvement of the proposed algorithms for both non-jamming and jamming scenarios, and also reveal a non-trivial tradeoff between the numbers of hops and the transmit power of each hop for secure routing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The narrow-beam operation in millimeter wave (mmWave) networks minimizes the network interference leading to noise-limited networks in contrast with interference-limited ones. The medium access control (MAC) layer throughput and interference management strategies heavily depend on the noise-limited or interference-limited regime. Yet, these regimes are not considered in recent mmWave MAC layer designs, which can potentially have disastrous consequences on the communication performance. In this paper, we investigate the performance of cache-enabled MAC-based mmWave ad hoc networks, where randomly distributed nodes are supported by a cache. The ad hoc nodes are modeled as homogenous Poisson point processes. Specifically, we study the optimal content placement (or caching placement) at desirable mmWave nodes using a network model that accounts for uncertainties both in node locations and blockages. We propose a contention-based multimedia delivery protocol to avoid collisions among the concurrent transmissions. Subsequently, only the node with smallest back-off timer among its contenders is allowed to transmit. We then characterize the average success probability of content delivery. We also characterize the cache hit ratio probability, and transmission probability of this system under essential factors, such as blockages, node density, path loss, and caching parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the ad-hoc networks consisting of $n$ wireless nodes that are located on the plane. Any two given nodes are called neighbors if they are located within a certain distance (communication range) from one another. A given node can be directly connected to any one of its neighbors, and picks its connections according to a unique topology control algorithm that is available at every node. Given that each node knows only the indices (unique identification numbers) of its one and two-hop neighbors, we identify an algorithm that preserves connectivity and can operate without the need of any synchronization among nodes. Moreover, the algorithm results in a sparse graph with at most $5n$ edges and a maximum node degree of 10. Existing algorithms with the same promises further require neighbor distance and/or direction information at each node. We also evaluate the performance of our algorithm for random networks. In this case, our algorithm provides an asymptotically connected network with $n(1+o(1))$ edges with a degree less than or equal to 6 for $1-o(1)$ fraction of the nodes. We also introduce another asynchronous connectivity-preserving algorithm that can provide an upper bound as well as a lower bound on node degrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite extensive efforts on exploring the asymptotic capacity bounds for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), the general exact capacity study of such networks remains a challenge. As one step to go further in this direction, this paper considers two classes of Aloha MANETs (A-MANETs) \mathcalNA and \mathcalNC that adopt an aggressive traffic-independent Aloha and the conventional traffic-dependent Aloha, respectively. We first define a notation of successful transmission probability (STP) in \mathcalNA, and apply queuing theory analysis to derive a general formula for the capacity evaluation of \mathcalNA. We also prove that \mathcalNC actually leads to the same throughput capacity as \mathcalNA, indicating that the throughput capacity of \mathcalNC can be evaluated based on the STP of \mathcalNA as well. With the help of the capacity formula and stochastic geometry analysis on STP, we then derive closed-form expressions for the throughput capacity of an infinite A-MANET under the nearest neighbor/receiver transmission policies. Our further analysis reveals that although it is highly cumbersome to determine the exact throughput capacity expression for a finite A-MANET, it is possible to have an efficient and closed-form approximation to its throughput capacity. Finally, we explore the capacity maximization and provide extensive simulation/numerical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Content delivery in a multi-user cache-aided broadcast network is studied, where a server holding a database of correlated contents communicates with the users over a Gaussian broadcast channel (BC). The minimum transmission power required to satisfy all possible demand combinations is studied, when the users are equipped with caches of equal size. Two centralized caching schemes are proposed, both of which not only utilize the user’s local caches, but also exploit the correlation among the contents in the database. The first scheme implements uncoded cache placement and delivers coded contents to users using superposition coding. The second scheme, which is proposed for small cache sizes, places coded contents in users’ caches and jointly encodes the cached contents of users and the messages targeted at them. The performance of the proposed schemes, which provide upper bounds on the required transmit power for a given cache capacity, is characterized. The scheme based on coded placement improves upon the first one for small cache sizes, and under certain conditions meets the uncoded placement lower bound. A lower bound on the required transmit power is also presented assuming uncoded cache placement. Our results indicate that exploiting the correlations among the contents in a cache-aided Gaussian BC can provide significant energy savings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the transport capacity of full-duplex ad hoc networks based on stochastic geometry. Unlike the more traditional half duplex nodes, full duplex wireless equipment can exchange data simultaneously over the same spectrum band. While full duplex transmission represents a promising mechanism to improve spectrum efficiency, the inevitable rise of interference from more transmitting nodes can also lower the rate of successful transmissions in ad hoc full duplex networks. We study the transport capacity of ad hoc full duplex networks by analyzing the successful packet decoding rate in both the physical link model and the protocol link model. We derive a new upper bound and a new lower bound for the network transport capacity, which can be used to lower complexity approximate analysis of the network transport capacity. We further determine the optimal transmission probability for maximizing network throughput and quantify the potential benefit of full duplex nodes. In both physical and protocol link models, our analysis shows that full duplex networks can nearly double the transport capacity against half duplex only with relatively small paired link distance. As the paired link distance grows, the transport capacity gain of full duplex networks begins to degrade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new type of architecture for secure wireless key establishment is proposed. A retrodirective array (RDA) that is configured to receive and re-transmit at different frequencies is utilized as a relay node. The RDA is able to respond in “real time,” reducing the required number of time slots to two. More importantly, in this architecture, equivalent reciprocal wireless channels between legitimate keying nodes can be randomly updated within one channel coherence time period, leading to greatly increased key generation rates in slow fading environment. The secrecy performance of this RDA-assisted key generation system is evaluated under several eavesdropping strategies and it is shown that it outperforms previous relay key generation systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The medium access probability (MAP) of a random access protocol can severely impact network throughput especially for delay-sensitive applications, since it determines whether a node should transmit packets in a given slot or not. This paper focuses on network throughput maximization through optimizing the MAPs of all users under delay quality-of-service constraints in wireless interference-limited networks. Specifically, first, the total delay for transmitting one packet for a user is analyzed and derived based on an M/G/1 model. Then, the stochastic property of the aggregated interference is analyzed and its distribution is modeled as a log-normal distribution. Based on the delay and interference models, an optimization problem is formulated to derive the optimal MAPs so that the network throughput is maximized under the delay constraints. Two network traffic scenarios, homogeneous and heterogeneous user traffic, are discussed, respectively. For the case of homogeneous traffic, a closed-form expression of the optimal MAP is derived; for the case of heterogeneous traffic, a global $\epsilon $ -optimal algorithm based on the branch-and-bound framework and convex relaxation technology is proposed with relatively low complexity. Simulations results show that the proposed algorithms can achieve superior network throughput performance over existing schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we study the impact of human mobility on throughput and delay for people-centric applications in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). We consider a general human mobility model for MANETs, which can capture important features of human mobility, such as time correlation, node correlation, location heterogeneity, and node heterogeneity. Multiple unicasts with general arrival processes are delivered, and nodes are equipped with infinite buffers. Under our system model, we first characterize the network stability region in terms of the probability of each node set visiting each location and the amount of transmission resources at each location. We show that the node correlation and heterogeneity of locations' popularity usually decrease the size of the network stability region, whereas the diversity of locations visited by a node usually increases the size of the network stability region. Then, by solving a stability-related optimization problem, we develop a throughput-optimal policy based on the obtained optimal solution. We obtain the upper and lower bounds of the delay performance under the proposed policy. Finally, using simulations based on a theoretical model and some real traces, we verify the analytical results and compare the performance of the proposed policy with some existing policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication systems use a large number of antenna elements that can potentially overcome severe channel attenuation by narrow beamforming. Narrow-beam operation in mmWave networks also reduces multiuser interference, introducing the concept of noise-limited wireless networks as opposed to interference-limited ones. The noise-limited or interference-limited regime heavily reflects on the medium access control (MAC) layer throughput and on proper resource allocation and interference management strategies. Yet, these regimes are ignored in current approaches to mmWave MAC layer design, with the potential disastrous consequences on the communication performance. In this paper, we investigate these regimes in terms of collision probability and throughput. We derive tractable closed-form expressions for the collision probability and MAC layer throughput of mmWave ad hoc networks, operating under slotted ALOHA. The new analysis reveals that mmWave networks may exhibit a non-negligible transitional behavior from a noise-limited regime to an interference-limited one, depending on the density of the transmitters, density and size of obstacles, transmission probability, operating beamwidth, and transmission power. Such transitional behavior necessitates a new framework of adaptive hybrid resource allocation procedure, containing both contention-based and contention-free phases with on-demand realization of the contention-free phase. Moreover, the conventional collision avoidance procedure in the contention-based phase should be revisited, due to the transitional behavior of interference, to maximize throughput/delay performance of mmWave networks. We conclude that, unless proper hybrid schemes are investigated, the severity of the transitional behavior may significantly reduce throughput/delay performance of mmWave networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the throughput and delay in wireless cognitive social networks. Specifically, we consider a common scenario for cognitive radio networks (CRNs) where the primary and secondary networks operate at the same time and space and share the spectrum. On this basis, we integrate a social relationship into the CRN where each source node selects its destination upon a rank-based model, which captures the social characteristic well. By applying a cellular time-division multiple-access scheduling scheme, we first characterize the distinct traffic pattern caused by the social relationships between nodes. Then, we derive the achievable throughput and delay for both primary and secondary networks under the new network setting. In addition, we also study the cognitive social networks with infrastructure where $l=o$ $(n)$ base stations are regularly deployed within the primary network. Given a probabilistic routing strategy, throughput of the proposed network is recalculated. Particularly, due to the social relationships between nodes, we reveal that a larger $l$ is required if we expect a significant capacity gain within the primary network compared with previous works. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Local caching is an effective scheme for leveraging the memory of the mobile terminal (MT) and short range communications to save the bandwidth usage and reduce the download delay in the cellular communication system. In particular, the MTs first cache in their local memories in off-peak hours and then exchange the requested files with each other in the vicinity during peak hours. However, prior works largely overlook MTs’ heterogeneity in file preferences and their selfish behaviors. In this paper, we practically categorize the MTs into different interest groups according to the MTs’ preferences. Each group of MTs aims to increase the probability of successful file discovery from the neighboring MTs (from the same or different groups). Hence, we define the groups’ utilities as the probability of successfully discovering the file in the neighboring MTs, which should be maximized by deciding the caching strategies of different groups. By modeling MTs’ mobilities as homogeneous Poisson point processes, we analytically characterize MTs’ utilities in the closed form. We first consider the fully cooperative case where a centralizer helps all groups to make caching decisions. We formulate the problem as a weighted-sum utility maximization problem, through which the maximum utility tradeoffs of different groups are characterized. Next, we study two benchmark cases under selfish caching, namely, partial and no cooperation, with and without inter-group file sharing, respectively. The optimal caching distributions for these two cases are derived. Finally, numerical examples are presented to compare the utilities under different cases and show the effectiveness of the fully cooperative local caching compared with the two benchmark cases. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the growing interest in providing internet access and cellular connectivity in the commercial aircraft, the compatibility between Air-to-Air (A2A) communications and current Air-to-Ground (A2G) macro-cellular communications is necessary to form an Aeronautical Ad hoc Network (AANet). Due to the typical features of airborne communications, such as high mobility, long transmission range and three-dimensional macro-cells, AANet is affected by intermittent links, which results in variant delayed data transmissions. To this end, we exploit a dynamic graph approach to model such an AANet with rapidly changing topology under a realistic airborne scenario. Targeting the problem of intermittent transmissions, by employing A2A, an AANet can bear three transmission modes: direct transmission, connected relay transmission and opportunistic transmission. To investigate the potential gain of A2A transmissions in terms of the end-to-end data flow transmission delay and the data traffic amount, we formulate an integer non-linear programming problem that minimizes the average end-to-end delay from Internet Gateways (IGWs) on shore to the aircraft receivers through multiple options of the transmission modes. Through solving this minimization problem based on the realistic dynamic graph model, the tradeoffs between the end-to-end transmission delay and other key network factors related to AANet formation and resource allocation can be obtained without much compromise on the transmission delay. The results show that the average end-to-end delay of the AANet is comparable to the direct transmission delay when having a tradeoff with the data traffic amount, buffer size and the spectrum sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the delivery probability performance in a two-hop relay mobile ad hoc network (MANET) with erasure coding. Available works in this line either considered a simple extreme case of achieving the delivery probability 1, or assumed a simple traffic pattern with only one source-destination pair, or studied a very special MANET scenario (i.e., the sparsely distributed MANET) by assuming that whenever two nodes meet together they can transmit to each other. Obviously, such models cannot be applied for an accurate delivery probability analysis in the general MANETs where the interference, medium contention and traffic contention issues are of significant importance. In this paper, a general finite-state absorbing Markov chain theoretical framework is first developed to model the complicated message spreading process in the challenging MANETs. Based on the theoretical framework, closed-form expressions are further derived for the corresponding message delivery probability under any given message lifetime and message size, where all the above important issues in MANETs are carefully incorporated into analysis. As verified through extensive simulation studies, the new framework can be used to accurately predict the message delivery probability behavior and characterize its relationship with the message size, replication factor and node density there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) interference channel where nodes are randomly distributed on a plane as a spatial Poisson cluster point process. A Poisson cluster point process consists of clusters with fixed number of points randomly distributed as with the cluster centers distributed randomly on the plane. The nodes in each cluster use interference alignment (IA) to suppress intra-cluster interference but unlike most work on IA, we do not neglect inter-cluster interference. We also connect the accuracy of channel state information to the distance between the nodes, i.e., the quality of CSI degrades with increasing distance. Accounting for the training and feedback overhead, we derive the transmission capacity of this MIMO IA ad hoc network and then compare it to open-loop (interference-blind) spatial multiplexing. Finally, we present exemplary system setups where spatial multiplexing outperforms IA due to the imperfect channel state information or the non-aligned inter-cluster interference. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In an underlay cognitive radio network (CRN), in order to guarantee that all primary users (PUs) achieve their target-signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratios (target-SINRs), the interference caused by all secondary users (SUs) to the primary receiving-points should be controlled. To do so, the feasible cognitive interference region (FCIR), i.e., the region for allowable values of interference at all of the primary receiving-points, which guarantee the protection of the PUs, needs to be formally characterized. In the state-of-the-art interference management schemes for underlay CRNs, it is considered that all PUs are protected if the cognitive interference for each primary receiving-point is lower than a maximum threshold, the so called interference temperature limit (ITL) for the corresponding receiving-point. This is assumed to be fixed and independent of ITL values for other primary receiving-points, which corresponds to a box-like FCIR. In this paper, we characterize the FCIR for uplink transmissions in cellular CRNs and for direct transmissions in ad-hoc CRNs. We show that the FCIR is in fact a polyhedron (i.e., the maximum feasible cognitive interference threshold for each primary receiving-point is not a constant, and it depends on that for the other primary receiving-points). Therefore, in practical interference management algorithms, it is not proper to consider a constant and independent ITL value for each of the primary receiving-points. This finding would significantly affect the design of practical interference management schemes for CRNs. To demonstrate this, based on the characterized FCIR, we propose two power control algorithms to find the maximum number of admitted SUs and the maximum aggregate throughput of the SUs in infeasible and feasible CRNs, respectively. For two distinct objectives, our proposed interference management schemes outperform the existing ones. The numerical results also demonstrate how the assumption of fixed ITL values leads to poor performance measures in CRNs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we study the problem of secure routing in a multihop wireless ad-hoc network in the presence of randomly distributed eavesdroppers. Specifically, the locations of the eavesdroppers are modeled as a homogeneous Poisson point process (PPP) and the source-destination pair is assisted by intermediate relays using the decode-and-forward (DF) strategy. We analytically characterize the physical layer security performance of any chosen multihop path using the end-to-end secure connection probability (SCP) for both colluding and noncolluding eavesdroppers. To facilitate finding an efficient solution to secure routing, we derive accurate approximations of the SCP. Based on the SCP approximations, we study the secure routing problem, which is defined as finding the multihop path having the highest SCP. A revised Bellman–Ford algorithm is adopted to find the optimal path in a distributed manner. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed secure routing scheme achieves nearly the same performance as exhaustive search. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We propose a Context-aware Smallworld routing protocol for wireless ad-hoc networks which finds efficient routes to the destination nodes often through a very short chain of intermediate nodes, without using any routing table. This protocol exploits the “small-world” phenomenon of social networks where source-destination pairs typically get connected through few intermediate friends and the individuals can collectively discover such short paths. The key idea behind our routing protocol is that for forwarding an incoming packet to the destination, a node picks the next hop from among the one-hop neighbor from its one-hop neighborhood that is closest to the destination, and multiple randomly selected long-distance neighbor(s), i.e., from outside of its one-hop neighborhood, based on which of these neighbors is closest to the destination. The long-distance neighbors are selected by using their contextual information through a probabilistic mapping. We provide the theoretical foundations behind our protocol. This simple but effective algorithm can meet performance objectives for most scenarios by reducing loss and latency. Simulation results, using synthetic network topologies, have demonstrated that the routing performance of context-aware Smallworld is better than geographical (distance-based) Smallworld and other standard proactive routing protocols (e.g., OLSRv2) when metrics, such as packet losses, end-to-end delays, hop-counts, connectivity drops, and control traffic generated, are used as the key performance indicators. We also show that the proposed protocol is resilient to dynamic topology changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multibeam antenna arrays (MBAAs) have the capability to improve the capacity of a wireless network by facilitating simultaneous transmissions to multiple users. However, in practical deployments of wireless personal or local area networks (WPANs/WLANs) where piconet coordinators or access points (PNCs/APs) are deployed with MBAAs, it is quite likely to observe non-uniform node densities in various regions. To optimally utilize MBAAs in such scenarios, concurrent transmission scheduling in WPANs/WLANs is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem. Then, a practical heuristic transmission scheduler that aims to maximize the number of concurrent communications by dynamically configuring the directions of beams is proposed. In addition, a service tag based fair scheduler is also proposed to achieve weighted fairness in WPANs/WLANs with MBAAs. Our results show that the performance improvements provided by the proposed heuristic scheduler are higher for antennas with lower beamwidths, and as the non-uniformity in the network increases, the traffic supported in the network increases in the range 24–41%, compared to the existing methods. The proposed service tag based scheduler can further improve the network throughput and achieve better fairness at the cost of a few beam direction reconfigurations, as compared to the existing methods and our heuristic scheduler. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opportunistic Spectrum Access (OSA) in distributed cognitive radio networks (CRNs) has been well studied in the literature from a theoretical perspective. However, such theoretically-optimized distributed OSA approaches are challenged by several practical implementation issues. In this paper, we design a custom cross-layer framework that enables the: (i) clean-slate implementation of a wide variety of OSA mechanisms; (ii) experimental evaluation of the individual practical OSA components of the Rate-Adaptive Probabilistic (RAP) framework; and (iii) detailed comparison of the performance of such a practical OSA approach against theoretical OSA approaches developed for fully-capable CRNs. Our evaluation reveals the multi-fold goodput improvement and remarkable fairness characteristics of the practical RAP OSA approach compared to the OSA approaches that overlook the OSA and CR practical limitations. However, the superior performance of practical OSA comes at the expense of more outages to the primary licensed networks but within the permissible bounds. Another key finding is that the wide family of existing theoretically-optimized OSA protocols can benefit from the gains available to the individual components of the practical RAP approach, namely, the random spectrum sensing and the probabilistic non-greedy access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we investigate ad hoc networks based on impulse radio ultra wideband. Due to multiple access, the interference distribution is not Gaussian. One important reason for errors is the presence of close interferers generating pulse collision. However such events are rare and we propose an α-stable model compatible with this fact due to its heavy tailed distribution. We derive the analytical expression of the two significant parameters. They depend on the attenuation coefficient, the users' density, the pulse collision probability and the pulse shape. We finally propose receiver strategies (Cauchy receiver and p-norm) that outperforms the classical Gaussian receiver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The widespread of smart phones has brought new social-aware features to wireless networks. Users prefer to forward traffic to their social contacts in social-aware networks, which is highly different from the traditional uniform traffic pattern. To this end, we analyze a social-aware wireless network, which is modeled by the social contacts between nodes, and explore its impact on network throughput capacity. We present that it can refine social contacts, thus improving the network capacity. Moreover, directional antennas are applied to further enhance the capacity performance, which can reduce the interference brought by other simultaneous communications. We derive the throughput capacity for social-aware networks with single-beam and multi-beam directional antenna, respectively. For single-beam directional antenna, we prove that when wireless networks are dominated by traffics of short-distance social contact, the throughput capacity can be promoted from order of (\Theta (1/\theta ^2n\,\text log\,n)^1/2) to \Theta (1/\theta ^2 \text log\,n) . In addition, when the beamwidth \theta is at order of \Omega ({1}/{({\log {n}})^{1/2}}) , the throughput capacity is a constant. Thus, the wireless network is scalable. For multi-beam antennas, we prove that when sidelobe gain G_{s} is at order of o(Gm) , where Gm is main lobe gain, compared with the single-beam case, the network capacity can achieve the order of \Theta (1/\theta ^2\text log\,n) . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We establish a novel link-state regime result for a composite decode-forward (DF) two-way relaying scheme with a direct link. During transmission, our scheme combines block Markov coding and an independent coding scheme that resembles network coding at the relay. A developed novel approach optimizes the composite technique by analyzing the dual variable space to identify link-state regimes in which a particular combination of transmission techniques is optimal. Our results expose an interesting trend: when the user-to-relay link is marginally stronger than the direct link, independent coding is optimal and the relay can conserve power. However, for larger user-to-relay link gains, the relay must use full power and supplement independent coding with block Markov coding to achieve the largest rate region. For Rayleigh fading links, we demonstrate that relay power savings are achievable in most node configurations. The link-state regimes are further applied to perform link adaptation in fading to illustrate significant data rate gains over direct transmission even under a more practical, long-term link state information. These link-state regime results are useful for the application of two-way DF relaying in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on the common interest of mobile users (MUs) in a social group, the dissemination of content across the social group is studied as a powerful supplement to conventional cellular communication with the goal of improving the delay performance of the content dissemination process. The content popularity is modeled by a Zipf distribution to characterize the MUs’ different interests in different contents. The factor of altruism (FA) terminology is introduced for quantifying the willingness of content owners to share their content. We model the dissemination process of a specific packet by a pure-birth-based Markov chain and evaluate the statistical properties of both the network’s dissemination delay as well as of the individual user-delay. Compared to the conventional base station (BS)-aided multicast, our scheme is capable of reducing the average dissemination delay by about 56.5%. Moreover, in contrast to the BS-aided multicast, increasing the number of MUs in the target social group is capable of reducing the average individual user-delay by 44.1% relying on our scheme. Furthermore, our scheme is more suitable for disseminating a popular piece of content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, altruistic coalition formation in cooperative relay networks is studied. The communication is performed over two phases, the broadcasting phase and the cooperation phase. In the broadcasting phase, each node broadcasts its signal in its time-slot, while in the cooperation phase, all the nodes within their coalitions simultaneously relay each others' signals. A distributed merge-and-split algorithm is proposed to allow nodes to form coalitions and improve their total achievable rate. Moreover, the impact of different power allocation criteria is studied, where the sum-of-rates maximizing power allocation is shown to promote altruistic coalition formation and results in the largest coalitions among the different power allocation criteria. Finally, the proposed algorithm is compared with centralized power allocation and coalition formation, and shown to yield a good tradeoff between network sum-rate and computational complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local (single-hop) broadcasting is widely employed in distributed protocols (e.g., neighbor discovery, local information exchange in distributed network optimization and gossip-based algorithms) in wireless ad hoc networks. The performance of local broadcasting is characterized by the mean number of neighbors and the probability distribution of the number of neighbors of a broadcasting node. In this paper, we study the performance of local broadcasting in heterogeneous wireless ad hoc networks in which inter-system interference dominates signal reception quality, considering general fading distributions of both the desired signal and the interfering signals. In addition, we investigate the impacts of different error control techniques (e.g., simple retransmission, Chase combining, and incremental redundancy) on the performance of local broadcasting. The increase in the mean number of neighbors of a broadcasting node with respect to the number of retransmissions of a message is clarified, facilitating QoS provisioning in reliable local broadcasting in interference-limited heterogeneous wireless ad hoc networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cooperative techniques have been shown to significantly improve the performance of wireless networks. Despite being a mature technology in single communication link scenarios, their implementation in wider, and practical, networks poses several challenges which have not been fully identified and understood so far. In this paper, the implementation of cooperative communications in non-centralized ad hoc networks with sensing-based channel access is extensively discussed. Both analysis and simulation are employed to provide a clear understanding of the mutual influence between the link layer contention mechanism and relaying protocols. Results show that sensing-based channel access significantly hampers the effectiveness of cooperation by biasing the spatial distribution of available relays, and by inducing a level of spatial and temporal correlation of interference that diminishes the diversity improvement on which cooperative gains are founded. Moreover, the efficiency reduction entailed by several practical protocol issues related to carrier sense multiple access which are typically neglected in the literature is thoroughly investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We compute the throughput capacity of random dense wireless ad hoc networks for multi-pair unicast traffic in which nodes are endowed with multi-packet reception (MPR) capabilities. We show that ϴ(...) and ϴ(R(n)) bits per second constitute tight bounds for the throughput capacity under the physical and protocol model assumptions, respectively, where n is the total number of nodes in the network, α > 2 is the path-loss parameter in the physical model, and R(n) is the MPR communication range. In so doing, we close the gap between the lower and upper bounds of throughput capacity in the physical model. Compared to the capacity of point-topoint communication reported by Gupta and Kumar [1], MPR increases the order capacity of random wireless ad hoc networks under both protocol and physical models by at least ϴ(log n) and ϴ(...), respectively. We address the cost incurred in increasing the throughput capacity of wireless ad hoc networks over what can be attained when sources and destinations communicate over multi-hop paths under the physical model assumption. We define the power efficiency η(n) as the bits of information transferred per unit time (second) in the network for each unit power, and compute such power efficiency for different techniques. We show that a lower power efficiency is attained in order to achieve higher throughput capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the capacity of a large clustered wireless ad hoc network in which clusters of nodes are scattered in a sea of relatively low-density nodes. We fix the density of nodes and clusters and study behavior as we increase the total network area (or, equivalently, the total number of nodes), which we call the network size. The main result is that the capacity switches behavior at a critical network size, which depends on the cluster size and the density of clusters within the network. Thus, the clustering parameters of the network allow us to quantify the meaning of a ‘large’ network, i.e., such that further size increase entails degradation of throughput capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the problem of throughput modeling of wireless multihop packet CDMA networks with cellular overlay using simple forwarding strategies in the upstream. Considering the effect of shadowing and distance-dependent path loss, we approximate the probability density of interference at each base station (BS) and compare numerical and simulation results for different path-loss parameters. We derive the probability density of the received power at each BS due to transmission of one packet from a random node, as well as the probability distribution of the number of packets received at each node per time slot. Subsequently, we use the above results to approximate the probability density of the total received power at each BS based on calculations of moments. We observe that the probability density of intercell interference due to transmissions from terminals and routers may be approximated by normal and log-normal densities, respectively. We quantify the network performance based on throughput, total consumed power, and outage probability for different system parameters. For homogeneous link efficiencies, introducing routers into the network while reducing the transmission power increases the mean and variance of interference to the desired signal, hence higher outage probability. However, there are ample opportunities inherent to multihop structure, applicable to any of the physical, data link, and network layers, which help increase the overall achievable network throughput. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a novel spreading code scheme, transmitter-receiver-based code, for wireless ad hoc networks. The design facilitates collision resolution using multiuser detection at each node, and is more bandwidth efficient than creating orthogonal channels in time or frequency. A subspace-based receiver structure is introduced, which identifies users of interest, or "active" users, with minimal prior information on the spreading code ensemble. A subspace-based blind multiuser detector can then be implemented to suppress multiaccess interference. The performance of the proposed active user identifier is studied by investigating its false alarm rate Pf and miss rate Pm. Tradeoffs between Pf and Pm are discussed, and a graphical method to determine the threshold value dth of the decision statistic used in discriminating between active and inactive channels is introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The connectivity properties of nanonetworks that employ free diffusion-based molecular communication are analyzed by constructing a model based on Gilbert’s disk graph. In free diffusion-based molecular communication, “path loss” has a different functional form compared with wireless propagation and the scenarios under consideration are not generally limited to 2-D environments as in the case of wireless networks. Hence, the constructed model takes into account the peculiarities of diffusion-based communication in 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D scenarios. The model incorporates particle-counting noise and is independent of the signaling mechanism employed. Analytical formulas are derived for the critical values of the signal strength-to-detection threshold ratio and the number of nodes that are required to achieve a connected or an almost-connected network. Monte Carlo simulations are used to validate model predictions and to suggest design guidelines for deploying nanonetworks. An empirical study is also conducted to evaluate the time required to broadcast an alarm in a connected nanonetwork of various sizes. The time to broadcast as a function of the number of nodes in a fixed region is observed to follow a power law, where the exponent depends on the dimensionality of the medium. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Routing strategies deeply affect the performance of wireless ad hoc networks, in terms of coverage, interference, and delay. In this work, we investigate the impact of different routing strategies on the overall amount of interference generated in a distributed ad hoc network with power control. To this end, we derive an analytical model for the evaluation of the performance in terms of mean value and variance of the interference when signal level power control is adopted and different routing strategies, based on long-hop and short-hop relay selections schemes, are considered. This model allows us to quantify the performance of the overall network in terms of interference, average number of hops and path efficiency. Numerical results have been also verified by simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An ad hoc network with a finite spatial extent and number of nodes or mobiles is analyzed. The mobile locations may be drawn from any spatial distribution, and interference-avoidance protocols or protection against physical collisions among the mobiles may be modeled by placing an exclusion zone around each radio. The channel model accounts for the path loss, Nakagami fading, and shadowing of each received signal. The Nakagami m-parameter can vary among the mobiles, taking any positive value for each of the interference signals and any positive integer value for the desired signal. The analysis is governed by a new exact expression for the outage probability, defined to be the probability that the signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) drops below a threshold, and is conditioned on the network geometry and shadowing factors, which have dynamics over much slower timescales than the fading. By averaging over many network and shadowing realizations, the average outage probability and transmission capacity are computed. Using the analysis, many aspects of the network performance are illuminated. For example, one can determine the influence of the choice of spreading factors, the effect of the receiver location within the finite network region, and the impact of both the fading parameters and the attenuation power laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a network with an arbitrary number of nodes, where transmission of data packet is enhanced by a medium access control protocol that allows cooperation among nodes and solves transmission failures by an automatic repeat request (ARQ) protocol. Nodes operate in half-duplex mode and may interfere with each other as no coordination is assumed. In this scenario, we first derive the outage probability for a given number of interfering nodes and then relate the interference level to the single node behavior. We analyze the network behavior with a steady state analysis that matches the number of interfering nodes with the number of ARQ retransmissions. Two alternatives for cooperation are considered: decode and forward (DF) cooperation and multiple input-single output (MISO) cooperation, where for each packet transmission either one node transmits at a given time or two cooperating nodes transmit simultaneously. In our steady state analysis we also include an opportunistic version of DF, where cooperation is activated only when the quality of the cooperator-destination link is better than that of the source-destination link. Moreover, we investigate cooperator selection based on its distance to the destination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The delay-limited throughput of an ad hoc wireless network confined to a finite region is investigated. An approximate expression for the achievable throughput as a function of the maximum allowable delay is obtained. It is found that: 1) for moderate values of the delay d, the throughput that can be achieved by taking advantage of the motion increases as d⅔ and 2) for a fixed value of d, the dependence of the achievable throughput on the number of nodes n is n-⅓. A transmission and relaying strategy ensuring continuous information flow is constructed. It is shown that there exists a critical value of the delay such that: 1) for values of the delay d below the critical delay, the throughput does not benefit appreciably from the motion and 2) the dependence of the critical delay on the number of nodes is a very slowly increasing function (n¼). Finally, asymptotic optimality of the proposed strategy in a certain class is shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we address the problem of packet forwarding in multi-hop wireless networks of nodes equipped with multiple antennas. Through the use of MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) technology, the physical layer is able to superimpose multiple concurrent information flows, thereby increasing the communications parallelism in the network. We propose a cooperative cross-layer scheme that integrates distributed incremental redundancy hybrid automatic retransmission request (HARQ) error control with routing in order to increase the efficiency of the transmissions and decrease the interference load in the network. In the proposed scheme, next hop relays are opportunistically selected during the HARQ process in order to avoid overloaded receivers and guarantee the geographical advancement of the packets. Thus, cooperation is used to both strengthen weak links and select the path to the destination. Numerical results are presented for a specific instantiation where a layered space-time multiuser detection (LASTMUD) transmitter-receiver architecture with spread-spectrum signals is implemented at the physical layer and packets are encoded with a linear erasure code (LEC). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, a low-complexity routing strategy is introduced for a hybrid network in which n wireless nodes are randomly located and multiple base stations (BSs) are used. We allow different transmission rates according to the geographic location of each source in the network. Our achievable scheme consists of the following two routing schemes: a BS-based single-hop (SH) routing in the up/downlink and conventional multi-hop transmission. Specifically, in the proposed BS-based scheme, when a source-destination (S-D) pair is inside the center region with respect to its BS, the source is allowed to transmit data to its closest BS via SH. Our results indicate that a logarithmic boost (i.e., power gain) is provided in the throughput scaling law, compared to the conventional schemes, as the number of BSs is greater than a certain threshold. The gain comes from the fact that S-D pairs in their center regions can exploit per-node transmission rates log n due to the increased received signal power from/to their closest BS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, game theory is exploited to derive a novel solution to manage virtual antenna array based transmissions in an ad hoc wireless network consisting of selfish nodes. In the proposed strategy each node decides, in an autonomous fashion, whether and when transmitting data packets over a shared wireless channel. The resulting transmission scheme results to be functionally equivalent to a distributed transmission selection scheme, managed, however, in a fully distributed fashion. This approach offers an higher throughput level and an higher efficiency than other communication protocols implementing selection diversity in distributed multi-antenna systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The radio link between a pair of wireless nodes is determined by radio channels, transmission range, node mobility and node-pair distance, which form a set of random factors in multihop wireless networks. The properties of such radio links can be characterized by link lifetime, residual link lifetime and link change rate, which, in fact, have been widely used for network design and performance evaluation. In this paper, we take a new modeling approach that captures the dynamics of radio channels and node movements in small-scale. More specifically, distance transition probability matrix is designed in order to describe the joint effects of dynamic transmission range due to radio channel fading and relative distance of a node-pair resulting from random movements. We find that the PDF of link lifetime can be approximated by an exponential distribution with parameter characterized by the ratio of average node speed \barV to effective transmission range R_e. To further understand the implication of link properties, analytical results are used to investigate the upper bound of network connectivity and the associated network performance is evaluated by extensive simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a network with n nodes distributed uniformly in a unit square. We show that, under the protocol model, when n_s = Ω (log(n)^1+α ) out of the n nodes, each act as source of independent information for a multicast group consisting of m randomly chosen destinations, the per-session capacity in the presence of network coding (NC) has a tight bound of Θ(\frac\sqrtnn_s\sqrtmlog(n)) when m = O(\fracnlog(n)) and Θ(\frac1n_s) when m = Ω(\fracnlog(n)). In the case of the physical model, we consider n_s = n and show that the per-session capacity under the physical model has a tight bound of Θ(\frac1\sqrtmn) when m = O(\fracn(log(n))^3), and Θ(\frac1n) when m = Ω(\fracnlog(n)). Prior work has shown that these same order bounds are achievable utilizing only traditional store-and-forward methods. Consequently, our work implies that the network coding gain is bounded by a constant for all values of m. For the physical model we have an exception to the above conclusion when m is bounded by O(\fracn(log(n))^3) and Ω(\fracnlog(n)). In this range, the network coding gain is bounded by O((log(n))^\frac12 ). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a model to analyze the performance of three transmission strategies with smart antennas, i.e. directional antennas with adjustable transmission power. Generally, a larger transmission radius contributes a greater progress if a transmission is successful. However, it has a higher probability of collision with other concurrent transmissions. Smart antennas mitigate collisions with sectorized transmission ranges. They also extend the transmission radii. By modelling three transmission strategies, namely, Nearest with Forward Progress (NFP), Most Forward with Fixed Radius (MFR), and Most Forward with Variable Radius (MVR), our analysis illustrates that the use of smart antennas can greatly reduce the possibility of conflicts. The model considers the interference range and computes the interference probability for each transmission strategy. We have analyzed two Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols using our interference model, namely, the slotted ALOHA protocol and the slotted CSMA/CA-like protocol. The result shows that, for slotted ALOHA, NFP yields the best one-hop throughput, whereas MVR provides the best average forward progress. The overall performance is substantially improved with the slotted CSMA/CA-like protocol, and the network becomes more resilient. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]