Transmission capacity of multi-antenna ad hoc networks with CSMA

Multiple antennas have become a common component of wireless networks, improving range, throughput, and spatial reuse, both at the link and network levels. At the same time, carrier sensing is a widely used method of improving spatial reuse in distributed wireless networks, especially when there is limited coordination among non-communicating nodes. While the combination of carrier sensing and multiple antennas has been considered in the literature, physical layer spatial models and the attendant consequences have not been included. The primary reason for this has been the difficulty of analyzing functionals of interacting point processes. Having developed new methods of quantifying physical layer performance with robust spatial network models, we use these techniques to address the following questions: What multiple antenna techniques produce the best network performance, and what is the performance gain? And, how should multiple antennas interact with carrier sensing parameters? Overall, the analysis confirms the significant benefit of multiple antennas in distributed wireless networks.