Throughput capacity of two-hop relay MANETs under finite buffers

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the throughput capacity of two-hop relay MANETs considering realistic finite buffer sizes, providing a comprehensive theoretical framework and validating it through extensive simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel Markov chain-based framework to exactly characterize throughput capacity with finite buffers, addressing a key gap in prior infinite-buffer assumptions.

Findings

Throughput capacity decreases as buffer size reduces.

The framework accurately predicts capacity for various network sizes.

Simulation results confirm theoretical predictions.

Abstract

Since the seminal work of Grossglauser and Tse [1], the two-hop relay algorithm and its variants have been attractive for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) due to their simplicity and efficiency. However, most literature assumed an infinite buffer size for each node, which is obviously not applicable to a realistic MANET. In this paper, we focus on the exact throughput capacity study of two-hop relay MANETs under the practical finite relay buffer scenario. The arrival process and departure process of the relay queue are fully characterized, and an ergodic Markov chain-based framework is also provided. With this framework, we obtain the limiting distribution of the relay queue and derive the throughput capacity under any relay buffer size. Extensive simulation results are provided to validate our theoretical framework and explore the relationship among the throughput capacity, the relay buffer size and the number of nodes.