Improving Network Reachability and Data Rate in Tactical Wireless Networks via Collaborative Communications

In this paper, we study simple collaborative communication schemes and evaluate how they can increase the reachability and data rate of a wireless network in a tactical environment. Often nodes employed in such an environment are constrained by transmitting power, range, and dead zones. As such, maintaining network connectivity in a tactical environment presents many challenges. Collaborative power combining schemes can overcome power and range constraints. This is done by exploiting the broadcast nature of signals - collaborating nodes first listen to the transmitted data packets and then constructively combine transmissions to increase radiated energy to the receiver. As a consequence, range and SNR increase. Using analysis and simulation, we demonstrate that, by utilizing such techniques, an increase in both network reachability and data rates is possible, even in the presence of detrimental environmental conditions. Our analysis shows that these schemes not only are useful in low SNR regimes and power constrained environments, but also can improve the variance of system performance.