Literature Review 2: Performance analysis of wireless networks

Jeffrey Mehlman, Arun Miduthuri, Adithya Rao Electrical Engineering Department, Stanford University Stanford, California 94305 jmehlman, arunm7, adithyar at stanford dot edu
Abstract In this literature review, we provide a brief summary of how some specially defined capacity and delay metrics have been used to analyze the performance of wireless networks with increasing number of nodes and varying mobility.

I. TOWARDS AN INFORMATION THEORY OF LARGE NETWORKS: AN ACHIEVABLE RATE REGION This paper [1] aims to define an achievable rate region for a general network structure. The exact information theoretic capacity region is not known even for simple channels. The networks have arbitrary size and topology, and the channel is assumed to be a discrete memoryless Gaussian channel. The scheme is essentially a successive decoding scheme. The analysis of the paper relies on constructing a feedforward flowgraph, where nodes are grouped into level sets relative to a source and destination node. Per-node rate bounds will be classified according to the level each node belongs to. The source and destination are designated level numbers 0 and M+1 respectively. Nodes in level k can receive information from all nodes at levels 1 through k-1, and transmit to all nodes in level k+1 to M+1. Such a graph is constructed for U source-destination pairs. Then an achievable rate-vector region is given by the convex hull of all rate vectors (R1, R2 RU), where each rate vectors elements are the rates at each level. The constrai nts for the rates at each level, described in Theorems 2.1, 3.1, and 4.1 in the paper, have the following intuition behind them. Level Lm can send information at rate Rm to each node at higher levels if a node at the next level can receive information at rate Rm from the component of its received signal that is correlated with the transmitted signals from level m (hence the mutual information between the these two signals constrains the rate Rm from above), and at each subsequent level, nodes can receive additional information at rate Rm Rm-1 from the component of its received signal that is correlated with the transmitted signal from the mth level node (mutual information between these two signals thus again forming an upper constraint).

The paper first presents an example that applies the theorem to find the capacity-achieving rate region of the two-level relay channel. It is shown that for the single-level relay channel, the maximum rate is exactly that found in the paper by Cover and El Gamal [4]. It then goes on to present more advanced versions of the theorem for a single user and multiuser Gaussian channel and considers the effect of availability of channel gains from each node in the network to receiving nodes alone, or to all nodes, under fading conditions. A nice outcome of the authors scheme is that the rate regions achieved for the physically degraded and reversely degraded relay channels, the Gaussian multiple-access channel, and the Gaussian broadcast channel are capacity-achieving rate regions. One interesting point to note is that in their single-user scheme, they assume the same information that was sent from source s reaches not just the destination, but also all the nodes in the intermediate levels, thus giving an achievable bound on multicast capacity. However, this may also be seen as a drawback, as the ability to send different information across different paths is not being exploited. A limitation in their multi-user scheme is the lack of network coding, which has been shown in [5] to increase the achievable multicasting rate, and may well do so in this case. Finally, the paper proposes a network of n nodes, where n/2 source nodes are placed around one center, and n/2 nodes placed around a center 1m away. Under these conditions, information exchange between sources, or between destinations, takes place in a short time. Hence they act as n/2 transmit and receive antennas. Noting that the S-D distance is of constant order,

the paper uses the rate-constraints of the multiuser, AWGN, CSIRT version of its theorem to obtain a (n) bound on transport capacity. A node in the source cluster is assumed to send independent information to each node in the destination cluster, using zero-forcing beamforming. This is an improvement over the previous (n1/2) bound derived in [6]. The obvious limitation of this favorable scaling law is that the location of the nodes is not random. In summary, the paper provides an achievable rate region that, for some channels, achieves rate regions previously shown to be equal to their capacity regions. A separate result derived from this region is a more feasible transport capacity for a specific wireless topology and more advanced receiver operations. However, even though the authors consider a special case, the implication is that using smarter multiuser coding schemes in some large wireless network settings can increase transport capacity. Finally, although the paper does not address the challenging derivation of the capacity achieving regions in a general network setting, it certainly opens the door. II. THROUGHPUT-DELAY TRADE-OFF IN WIRELESS NETWORKS

This paper [2] characterizes the delay and determines the throughput-delay trade-off for both fixed and mobile ad hoc networks. It builds on the work of Gupta and Kumar (2000), where a random network model was introduced to observe throughput scaling in wireless networks for fixed nodes, and also on the work of Grossglauser and Tse (2001) who showed that with mobile nodes it is possible to have constant throughput scaling per source-destination pair. This paper describes a scheme that achieves for any given throughput, the optimal order of delay. One of the main contributions of this paper is that it gives a meaningful definition of delay that makes derivations possible for ad-hoc networks. This work primarily focuses on the network delay and assumes the Relaxed Protocol model. The proofs presented here also use simpler tools and a more unified framework as compared to previous work. The results are derived for a unit torus but hold for a unit square as well. Some of the observations from this work are: (i) In a fixed random network, multi-hopping leads to high delays (ii) Mobility allows nodes to approach one another closely, and the delay then depends on the node velocity. For a mobile wireless network, this paper describes a scheme that varies the number of hops, the transmission range, and the degree of node mobility to achieve the optimal throughput-delay trade-off. This paper introduces three schemes for fixed and mobile random networks: 1. The first scheme considers the Gupta-Kumar fixed random network model [6] and bounds the average number of hops. The time spent in each hop is shown to be constant, independent of n, and the dependence of the optimal delay on throughput is shown to be D ( n ) ( nT ( n )), for T ( n ) O (1 /
n log n ) . In this case, increasing the transmission range reduces the

number of hops and delay, but increases interference and reduces the throughput as well. This scheme provides the optimal throughput-delay trade-off for a fixed wireless network. 2. The second scheme considers nodes moving according to independent Brownian motions and using a single relay as in [7]. In the cellular setting with n cells, this model on a torus yields a symmetric random walk. The delay is shown to have two components: (i) hop-delay, constant and independent of n, and (ii) mobile-delay, the time a packet spends at a relay while it is moving. The queues are modeled and the inter arrival and inter departure times are characterized to get a bound on the average delay. The delay, D(n), due to node mobility and queuing at the relay is shown to be:
D ( n ) O ( n / v ( n )), fo r T ( n ) (1) , and v ( n ) denotes the scaling of velocity with nodes.

3. The third scheme achieves throughput delay tradeoff for a mobile network, parameterized by the average distance per hop, a ( n ) . By using an adaptation of the first scheme, delay can be decreased by increasing the size of the neighborhood of each node. A larger neighborhood increases interference and results in lower throughput leading to a tradeoff. Another variation of the scheme is presented, which uses mobility to increase throughput and uses multiple hops cleverly to obtain lower delay. This scheme uses hops along sub-cells and mobile relay nodes chosen at random to achieve the optimal throughput. The throughput and delay in this case are given by T ( n ) (1 / .
na ( n ) log n ), and D (n ) (1 / v (n ) a (n ) ):

Figure 1 summarizes these tradeoffs. The point Q where a(n) = (1) corresponds to the model in [6], while the point R where a(n) = ((log n)/n) corresponds to the model in [7], the tradeoff being the line segment QR. The work in this paper was the first that considered the delay in random networks and is therefore important for a practical implementation. It also built on previous work and provided a simpler framework to characterize delay and throughput. The work in this paper can be further extended by considering constraints in terms of queuing delay, and also by combining these results with other metrics such as those described in [1] and [3]. III.
Fig. 1. Throughput-delay scaling trade-off for a wireless network assuming v(n) = (n1/2). The marks on the axes represent the orders asymptotically in n.

CAPACITY REGIONS FOR WIRELESS AD HOC NETWORKS

In this paper [3], the authors develop achievable rate regions for wireless ad hoc networks in arbitrary topologies and number of nodes, based on a variety of different assumptions regarding the communication system itself. There are a number of basic assumptions made across all of the models. Nodes are considered half-duplex at any point in time, every communication is unicast (no broadcasts), all communications utilize the entire system bandwidth, and the underlying scheme is TDMA. Noise is modeled as AWGN, and interference is considered for all nodes which transmit simultaneously. One important assumption is that all nodes are considered to be omniscient at all times. They know the channel gain matrix, noise, and power vectors for the entire system, as well as the transmission schedule. In this way, communication overhead for this exchange is entirely ignored. Next, the authors formally introduce the concept of rate matrices and transmission schemes. A transmission scheme is described by a rate matrix, which describes the complete information flow at any point in time. For their system, the rate matrices are determined by the channel gain and power vectors through Shannon capacity. Each node is capable of transmitting with a continuous-rate adaptation scheme. Schemes can be scheduled, such that their fractional use-time adds up to 1 over the entire course of communication. Additionally, the rate matrices, weighted by their use-times, can be added up to yield the entire throughput for a given schedule. Additionally, the authors define the central metric for this paper, uniform capacity. It is the maximum aggregate communication rate for which all nodes transmit at the same rate. With these tools in hand, they review a number of different transmission protocols and assumptions, and their impact on rate regions. They consider a number of different communication protocols: single-hop routing without spatial reuse, multi-hop routing without spatial reuse, and multi-hop routing with spatial reuse. Additionally, for the latter case, they also consider systems where the nodes can control their output power and have the complexity required to perform successive interference cancellation. Finally, they restrict the nodes to have only the ability to transmit with discrete rate adaptation schemes. Each protocol is tested on a five-node testbed where the nodes are randomly distributed over a 20m x 20m box.
Fig. 2. Capacity region slices of the example ad hoc network along the plane R 12 R34 plane. (a) Single hop routing, no spatial reuse. (b) Multihop routing, no spatial reuse. (c) Multihop routing with spatial reuse. (d) Two level power control added to (c). (e) Successive interference cancellation added to (c).

The results from these tests can be partially summarized with figure 2. This shows a 2 dimensional rate region slice for the rates from node 1 to 2 and from 3 to 4 with all other links given zero rate. We see that as the protocols get more complex, the rate region is expanded. One interesting point is that power control, in the presence of continuous-rate adaptation does not yield

any significant gains. It is also interesting to note that with SIC, the rate region resembles the shape of the Gaussian MAC channel capacity with SIC. The next portion of the paper considers mobility and time-varying fading channels. These two cases can be considered very similarly. The authors make a very important assumption for this calculation: nodes do not care about delay. In fact, this assumption is made through the entire paper but is of greater impact for time-varying channel gains. With no delay constraint, one would expect that time varying channel gain would increase capacity, since nodes can utilize the channel only when its very good and send a lot of data at a high rate. Providing that the nodes know the entire schedule and channel gains, the capacity region can be increased significantly. In the mobility example, the uniform capacity increased from 3.7MBps to 11.1Mbps. Finally, the authors show that energy constrained networks can be considered in this framework. By adding the appropriate mathematical assumptions which demand that each nodes energy consumption remain below some total energy value, one can derive achievable rate regions under these schemes. They consider only the case where a single node is the data sink (i.e. a basestation). It would be interesting to consider what kinds of real-world protocol design hints we can gain from this paper. The authors also discuss the fact that calculation of every single rate matrix is a computationally complex task which gets harder as the number of nodes increase. In order to study larger node populations, they discuss the idea of finding a subset of rate matrices which approximate the entire capacity region. This would be an interesting avenue for research. A major assumption in this paper was that end-to-end delay was of no concern. In not taking delay into consideration, their rate regions are inherently larger for every case. As discussed in the Gupta/Kumar paper, throughput scales with allowable delay, in general. It would be interesting to see if we could somehow accommodate delay in this framework, though it is not clear if that would be possible. The authors note that with an appropriately simple rate-matrix determination scheme, they could possibly extend this framework to deal with MAC and routing protocol designs as well. Discussion The above papers are typical of the many different techniques proposed in characterizing network performance and capacity. Among the three, [1] and [2] are more theoretical, while [3] has some focus on simulation results. The metrics used vary from [2]s asymptotic bounds on throughput, delay, and their constraints under asymptotic node velocity, to protocol specific capacity regions in [3] to rate regions in the information theoretic sense in [1]. One common thread joining them is the description of behavior these metrics exhibit under different network topologies and sizes. Note that these metrics are relatively new, and all different from the Shannon capacity definition. [1] uses the the notion of transport capacity introduced in [6], the sum of products of bits and the distances over which they are carried. The asymptotic analysis of this quantity provides a better idea than throughput of how multihop routing can improve performance in carrying bits to further destinations. [2] discussed delay as a function of node velocity and as a tradeoff against throughput. [3] introduced rate matrices defined under a specific transmission scheme. The authors of [3] also defined uniform capacity under time division routing and a given transmission protocol as the maximum aggregate of equal rates at which nodes communicate if all the nodes wish to communicate with all other nodes. Both [1] and [3] describe achievable rate regions which are possibly suboptimal. [1] tried a formal information theoretic approach to a general network setting by slicing the network into various layers of node interaction and finding rate constraints along those slices. Some of the limitations preventing this scheme from being capacity achieving in a general network setting may have involved the lack of network coding and the redundancy of sending the same information to different nodes all finally sending back the information to the same destination. [3] analyzed a specific time-division multiple access scenario, where full CSI knowledge is assumed at all nodes, and no broadcast is allowed. The three papers also exhibit a progression wherein [1] analyzes only fixed networks, and [3] and [2] characterize the behavior of their respective capacity metrics as nodes become mobile. [3] assumes no delay constraints and a Brownian motion model for simulating mobility instead of directly incorporating node velocity. Its findings do however show that if nodes are willing to tolerate large delay, changing the scheduling across spatial configurations causes an increase in throughput. However, [2] goes further by using node velocity as a parameter of mobility, and examining the tradeoff between delay and throughput. Further work would hopefully incorporate more complex network structures and node cooperation.

References [1] P. Gupta, P.R. Kumar, Towards an Information Theory of Large Networks, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Vol. 49, No. 8, August 2003 [2] A. El Gamal et al., Throughput-Delay Trade-off in Wireless Networks, IEEE Infocom, 2004. [3] S. Toumpis, A. Goldsmith, Capacity Regions for Wireless Networks, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 2003, pp. 736-748. [4] T.M. Cover and A. El Gamal, Capacity Theorems for the relay channel, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol IT-25, pp. 572-584, Sept 1979. [5] R. Ahlswede, N. Cai, S. R. Li, R. Yeung, Network information flow, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 46, pp. 1204-1216, July 2000. [6] P. Gupta, P.R. Kumar, The capacity of wireless networks, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory , vol. 46, pp. 388404, Mar. 2000. [7] Matthias Grossglauser and David N. C. Tse, Mobility Increases the Capacity of Ad Hoc Wireless Networks, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 10, No. 4, August 2002.