The Capacity of Wireless Ad Hoc Networks with Power Control

Power control is an efficient way to save energy in wireless ad hoc networks. However, as the size of networks grows, the losing from using smaller nodal transmit power may exceed the benefit from it. In this paper, the impact of power control on wireless ad hoc network capacity is discussed. An ad hoc network with n nodes which are uniformly distributed in 2-dimensional space with density p and each node can communicate with each other in a common shared channel is considered in this paper. The interference area caused by hidden nodes with different nodal transmit power is analyzed and we find that the interference is lessen by increasing nodal transmit power. The special reuse factor of ad hoc networks is defined as the number of successful transmission and receiving in a unit area. We find that the special reuse factor increases as the nodal transmit power grows. And the mathematical analysis is illustrated that as the effect of hidden nodes, the network capacity in ad hot-networks is degenerated and has Theta(1/N²). The results also imply that using larger transmit power can improve the network capacity. Finally simulation experiments are implemented to verify our results.