Throughput Scaling Laws for Wireless Networks with Fading Channels

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how the maximum throughput of wireless networks with fading channels scales with the number of links, showing it grows logarithmically and can be achieved in a distributed manner.

Contribution

It derives tight bounds on throughput scaling for fading channels and proposes a decentralized link activation strategy to achieve optimal throughput.

Findings

Maximum throughput scales like log n under Rayleigh fading

Distributed strategies can achieve this maximum throughput

Upper and lower bounds are established using probabilistic methods

Abstract

A network of n communication links, operating over a shared wireless channel, is considered. Fading is assumed to be the dominant factor affecting the strength of the channels between transmitter and receiver terminals. It is assumed that each link can be active and transmit with a constant power P or remain silent. The objective is to maximize the throughput over the selection of active links. By deriving an upper bound and a lower bound, it is shown that in the case of Rayleigh fading (i) the maximum throughput scales like $\log n$ (ii) the maximum throughput is achievable in a distributed fashion. The upper bound is obtained using probabilistic methods, where the key point is to upper bound the throughput of any random set of active links by a chi-squared random variable. To obtain the lower bound, a decentralized link activation strategy is proposed and analyzed.