Performance of Cooperative Ad-Hoc Networks with Position Estimation Errors

In this paper, we investigate the throughput performance of cooperative Medium-Access-Control (MAC) protocol in interference limited ad hoc networks and in the presence of position estimation errors. The throughput performance of the cooperative MAC protocol is analyzed using a random structured network where relay nodes are equipped with adaptive antennas to relay the received signal from the source node to the destination node. In the literature, a perfect position estimation of all nodes is commonly assumed. Here, we focus on the throughput performance of the cooperative network when taking into consideration the effect of directional-of-arrival (DOA) error caused by imperfect global-positioning system (GPS) position estimation. Our results show that using adaptive antennas at the relay becomes advantageous when the DOA error is less than 20 degrees. We noted that increasing the number of antennas (at the relay station) can improve the throughput performance but, on the other hand, the effect of node position error becomes more substantial.