Analytical Throughput Evaluation of Wireless Networks Using Multibeam Antennas

In a wireless network, concurrent communications between a node and multiple neighboring nodes through the use of multibeam antenna (MBA) has been shown effective to utilize the spatial dimensionality. As a result, the network throughput and quality-of-service (QoS) can be improved. MBAs can be implemented using multiple fixed-beam antennas (MFBAs) or multi-channel smart antennas (MCSAs). In this paper, the one-hop throughput performance of a node equipped with MBA is evaluated in an analytical framework. Both MFBA and MCSA are considered by using an equivalent antenna beam model. It becomes clear that the use of MFBA is the pessimistic case of MCSA as the normalized beamwidth reaches the maximum value. The upper bound of throughput is achieved in the presence of idealized collision avoidance schemes, whereas the lower bound is reached in the absence of collision avoidance schemes.