Throughput scaling laws for dual-radio random wireless networks

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the throughput scaling laws for the dual-radio random wireless networks under the well-known protocol model[4]. The dual-radio network is one kind of heterogeneous wireless network, where some among the n nodes in the network are equipped with a secondary wireless interface, which has stronger connectivity and larger data transmission capability than the first normal wireless interface. The dual-radio networks provide a tradeoff and optimization between the hybrid wireless networks with wired infrastructure assistance (e.g., cellular networks) and the pure ad hoc wireless networks (e.g., sensor networks). Our analysis leads to improved results with a much finer lower bound on the throughput compared with the one shown in [1] using the max-flow min-cut theorem. The main results provide the throughput scaling laws, which bridge over the gap of throughput between the ad hoc networks and the hybrid networks. It is shown that the expected throughput increment of the dual-radio networks over the ad hoc networks by the additional wireless interfaces is mainly determined and dominated by the the capacity of the per pair dual-radio nodes, which form the congestion points.