Multihop connectivity of ad hoc networks with randomly oriented directional antennas

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how randomly oriented directional antennas affect multihop connectivity in ad hoc networks, revealing that while 1-hop links suffer, multihop routes improve, especially in dense networks, due to shorter paths.

Contribution

It provides the first analytical expressions for 1-hop and 2-hop degrees in networks with random antenna orientations, highlighting the impact on multihop connectivity.

Findings

1-hop connectivity decreases with random orientations

Multihop routes become shorter and more efficient in dense networks

Node density has little effect on the number of hops needed

Abstract

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 hops required between stations whilst simple random beamforming schemes do, thus returning substantial network performance benefits due to the existence of shorter multi-hop paths.