Impact of Antenna Pattern and Link Model on Directional Neighbor Discovery in 60 GHz Networks

60 GHz radio is a very attractive technology for short-range wireless communication due to its capability to provide Gbps data rate. To address the neighbor discovery (ND) problem in 60 GHz networks, we propose a novel analytical framework to investigate the ND performance. The main difficulty in modeling the ND process in a 60 GHz network is the involvement of the directional antennas with gain differences between the antenna´s main lobe and side lobes. Different antenna modes - directional or omni-directional - coupled with different ND mechanisms make the analytical study demanding. In this article, we propose a comprehensive theoretical model to demonstrate the performance of ND processes using one-way ND and handshake-based ND mechanisms. Moreover, we combine them with different antenna modes, i.e., directional transmitting with omni-directional listening (DO) and directional transmitting with directional listening (DD) modes. The impact of antenna modes on the ND process is analyzed. Since 60 GHz radio is prone to co-channel interference, we examine a realistic interference-aware link model and antenna pattern via simulation studies. Our work is specifically beneficial to provide guidelines for applying directional neighbor discovery process within 60 GHz wireless networks.