On Connectivity Limits in Ad Hoc Networks with Beamforming Antennas
Moritz Kiese, Christian Hartmann, Julian Lamberty, Robert Vilzmann · EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking · 2009
Multihop wireless networks will play an important role in future communication networks. Beamforming antennas have shown great potential to improve the connectivity in these networks; however only heuristic approaches exist to assess the benefits of this technology. Using the popular "keyhole" antenna model, we formulate a Mixed Integer Program (MIP) capable of acquiring optimal antenna configurations for path probability with various auxiliary constraints, node degree, and k-connectivity. We employ a problem-specific large-scale optimization approach named "column generation" to be able to cope with realistic scenario sizes without sacrificing optimality. In a case study, we show the feasibility of our optimization approach and demonstrate that "smarter" beamforming heuristics would still have plenty of room to improve the connectivity of such a network.