Abstract-We study the throughput capacity of hybrid wireless networks. A hybrid network is formed by placing a sparse network of base stations in an ad hoc network. These base stations are assumed to be connected by a high-bandwidth wired network and act as relays for wireless nodes. They are not data sources nor data receivers. Hybrid networks present a tradeoff between traditional cellular networks and pure ad hoc networks in that data may be forwarded in a multi-hop fashion or through the infrastructure. It has been shown that the capacity of a random ad hoc network does not scale well with the number of nodes in the system [1]. In this work, we consider two different routing strategies and study the scaling behavior of the throughput capacity of a hybrid network. Analytical expressions of the throughput capacity are obtained. For a hybrid network of n nodes and m base stations, the results show that if m grows asymptotically slower than √ n, the benefit of adding base stations on capacity is insignificant. However, if m grows faster than √ n, the throughput capacity increases linearly with the number of base stations, providing an effective improvement over a pure ad hoc network. Therefore, in order to achieve non-negligible capacity gain, the investment in the wired infrastructure should be high enough.
Liu et al. REF studied scaling behavior of the throughput capacity with the number of gateways and nodes.
On the capacity of hybrid wireless networks
IEEE INFOCOM 2003. Twenty-second Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37428)
IEEE INFOCOM 2003. Twenty-second Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37428)
Computer Science