Effect of multiple antennas on the transport capacity in large-scale ad hoc networks

A one-dimensional ad hoc network with a single active source-destination pair is analyzed in terms of transport capacity, where each node uses multiple antennas. The analysis is based on using a multihop opportunistic routing transmission in the presence of fading. Specifically, the lower and upper bounds on the transport capacity are derived and their scaling law is analyzed as the node density, λ, is assumed to be infinitely large. The lower and upper bounds are shown to have the same scaling (ln λ)^1/α, where α denotes the path-loss exponent. We also show that using multiple antennas at each node does not fundamentally change the scaling law.