Capacity scaling of wireless ad hoc networks: Effect of finite wavelength

In this paper, we study the capacity scaling of wireless ad hoc networks considering the effect of a finite wavelength, which gives a unified view on two seemingly contradictory results on the capacity scaling. Recently, it was shown that the order-optimal linear throughput scaling is achievable for some networks using hierarchical cooperation (HC) by Özgür et al., but later it was proved to violate the physical limit by Franceschetti et al. The cause of such a contradiction is the idealized channel model in the former that does not capture the channel correlation due to the finite wavelength. Taking into account such an effect of the finite wavelength, we construct a modified HC scheme and analyze its throughput scaling in terms of both the number of nodes and wavelength. Our result is consistent with the physical limit while recovering the linear throughput scaling asymptotically as the wavelength tends to zero.