Application of sector antennas in ad-hoc topologies

ABSTRACT

Efficient routing in ad-hoc networks requires sparsification of the communication graphs, and many techniques of topology control which are providing such graphs have been developed in last years. Majority of them consider nodes equipped with omni-directional antennas.

This paper describes an application of frequently used sparsification mechanisms, the energy saving sparsification and the XTC algorithm, on the networks consisting of nodes equipped with a system of more sector antennas instead of a single omni-directional one.

The results of our simulation experiments proved effectiveness of the approach. The system of several sector antennas effectively reduces transmission power. Attenuation resulting from the fact that antennas are only approximately directed one to another can be tolerated in the case of four perpendicularly oriented sector antennas.

The fact that the sector antenna directs the wireless signal towards the receiver and reduces its intensity in other directions has the effect on interference as well. Experiments with sector antennas and different definitions of interference is of our permanent research interest.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.5 REGISTER-TRANSFER-LEVEL IMPLEMENTATION

Keywords:
ad-hoc networks, energy-efficient sparsification, sector antennas, topology control