Antenna beamforming for infrastructureless wireless networks

Abstract

Our work studies the impact of antenna beamforming on the performance of infrastructureless wireless networks. Based on examination of the beampattern for a uniform circular antenna array (UCAA) utilizing beamforming under a constraint on maximum average transmit power, we approximate achievable user data rates as a function of the number of antenna elements, and we examine the behavior of these rates in a simple network with varying noise power and interference and with different scheduling of user transmissions. We find that user data rates increase with the number of antenna elements up to a point of saturation determined by the antenna size and carrier wavelength. Moreover, in some cases that we outline, judicious scheduling of user transmissions can increase achievable data rates.