Capacity of interference-limited ad hoc networks with infrastructure support

Abstract

In this letter, we consider the capacity of ad hoc networks with infrastructure support. Although Grossglauser-Tse mobile network model enables Theta(1) per-node throughput scaling, the mobility assumption may be too unrealistic to be accepted in some practical situations. One of the key observations we acquired is that the infrastructure support plays the same role played by the mobility in the Grossglauser-Tse model. We show that nodes can utilize the randomly located infrastructure support instead of mobility when nodes are nearly static. In this case, we show that the per-node throughput of Theta(1) is still achievable when the number of access points grows linearly with respect to the number of nodes.