Cooperation in Carrier Sense Based Wireless Ad Hoc Networks - Part I: Reactive Schemes

TL;DR

This paper examines how reactive cooperative communication schemes in wireless ad hoc networks are affected by sensing-based channel access, revealing that such access reduces cooperation effectiveness due to interference correlation and relay distribution biases.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the challenges and limitations of implementing reactive cooperation in non-centralized, sensing-based wireless ad hoc networks.

Findings

Sensing-based channel access biases relay spatial distribution.

Interference correlation diminishes cooperative diversity gains.

Practical protocol issues further reduce cooperation efficiency.

Abstract

Cooperative techniques have been shown to significantly improve the performance of wireless systems. 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 two-part 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 collaborative protocols. Part I of this work focuses on reactive cooperation, in which relaying is triggered by packet delivery failure events, while Part II addresses proactive approaches, preemptively initiated by the source based on channel state information. 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 the 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.