A cross-layer study on multiple-antenna techniques in wireless backhaul networks

Wireless multi-hop, backhaul networks transfer data traffic from access networks to the wired Internet. Scheduling algorithms for wireless backhaul networks activate multiple simultaneous transmissions, which in turn introduce concurrent interference into the network. Although multiple-antenna techniques have been extensively studied in the literature, not much research for multiple antennas has been received in the backhaul context. In this paper, we investigate the cross-layer performance between various multiple-antenna techniques and backhaul schedulers using physical layer abstraction. Simulation results reveal that with multiple antennas the backhaul network can accommodate a higher density of concurrent links, relative to the network with single antenna. Furthermore, simulation results unfold that the dominant eigenmode transmission and the least square interference cancellation schemes are optimized for noise-limited and interference-limited scenarios, respectively.