WSN08-6: Simplified Analysis and Design of MIMO Ad Hoc Networks

The simple, yet powerful concept of an ldquoerristorrdquo and its ldquoerristancerdquo has recently been introduced for ad hoc networks and applied to scenarios such as retransmission (time diversity), path diversity, or a combination thereof. We extend this formalism to the case of spatial diversity, realized by employing multiple antennas at each node. Based on this framework, one can efficiently analyze and design Rayleigh-faded MIMO ad hoc networks that employ selection combining. The mathematically tractable definition of the erristor term greatly simplifies the study of a multiple-antenna network and helps solve problems based on end-to-end reliability or resource allocation easily, which we illustrate in an example. Moreover, this technique demonstrates the superiority in performance of MIMO over single-antenna routing schemes, particularly at high SNR.