Experimental characterization of sectorized antennas in dense 802.11 wireless mesh networks

ABSTRACT

Sectorized antennas can increase wireless network capacity through greater spatial reuse. Despite their increasing popularity, their real-world performance characteristics in dense wireless mesh networks are not well understood. This paper conducts a systematic experimental study on a mesh network testbed using commodity 802.11 hardware and multi-sector antennas.

Our study results in the following main observations. (i) Sector selection should be based on explicit measurement in all sectors, though the measurement overhead can be significantly reduced by exploiting spatio-temporal characteristics of the best sector. (ii) Multi-sector activation typically reduces the signal strength of a link compared to single sector activations due to antenna design constraints. (iii) Spatial reuse is constrained by characteristics of antenna radiation pattern in different sectors (iv) Physical layer capture reduces the effect of directional hidden terminal problem. Finally, we discuss the implications of these observations on the design of practical directional MAC and topology control protocols.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.4 PERFORMANCE OF SYSTEMS
      Subjects: Measurement techniques

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.1 Network Architecture and Design
          Subjects: Wireless communication

General Terms:
Experimentation, Measurement, Performance

Keywords:
dense wireless mesh networks, directional hidden terminal problem, sector selection, sectorized antenna