Optimality Bounds of the Connectivity of Adhoc Networks with Beamforming Antennas

Future wireless networks will be characterized by heterogeneous network architectures, with multihop communication as an important aspect. It is not clear yet how much multihop communication can benefit from the use of beamforming antennas. Heuristic approaches to control the direction of the antenna pattern to improve the connectivity exist, however it remains unclear how far they are away from an optimal solution. Employing the widely used "keyhole" antenna model, we develop a Mixed Integer Program (MIP) in order to find the optimal pathprobability in a given scenario and therebey acquire provable bounds for comparison with the heuristic approaches, which we present in a computational study.