PHY and MAC Design for Distributed Tx-Rx beamforming in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

This paper studies physical (PHY) and MAC layer design for multi-antenna based mobile ad hoc networks (MANET). The central piece of the PHY layer design is a distributed transmit-receive (Tx-Rx) beam forming algorithm named the minimum interference leakage (MIL) beam former. With this algorithm, each pair of Tx-Rx nodes aims at maximizing the throughput of their own link while minimizing the interference leakage to the unintended ones. Besides the beam forming algorithm are other PHY functions, such as link selection and adaptation, and closed-loop power control (CLPC). To enable such a PHY design, we propose a slotted ALOHA-like MAC frame structure, based on which the PHY functional blocks can work in synergy to dramatically improve the network spectral efficiency. The simulation results show that the proposed design has nearly 100x gain over the single antenna baseline system using TDMA with QPSK rate 1/2, measured by the network area spectral efficiency.