Ad hoc network capacity

We study the performance of wireless ad hoc networks in the limit of a large number of nodes. We first define ad hoc networks and their capacity. We then calculate a lower bound on the capacity by constructing a communications scheme that achieves it. We also determine an upper bound on the capacity by investigating the properties of any transmission schedule. Bounds indicate that for a large number of nodes n, the total network capacity increases with a rate between k/sub 1/n/sup 1/3/ and k/sub 2/n/sup 1/2/, while the per-node rate goes to zero.