An optimal link layer model for multi-hop MIMO networks

The rapid advances of MIMO to date have mainly stayed at the physical layer. Such fruits have not been fully benefited at the network layer mainly due to the computational complexity associated with the matrix-based model that MIMO involves. Recently, there are some efforts to simplify link layer model for MIMO so as to ease research for the upper layers. These models only require numeric computations on MIMO´s degrees-of-freedom (DoFs) for spatial multiplexing (SM) and interference cancellation (IC) to obtain a feasible rate region. Thus, these models are much simpler than the original matrix-based model from the communications world. However, none of these DoF-based models is shown to achieve the same rate region as that by the matrix-based model. In this paper, we re-visit this important problem of MIMO modeling. Based on accurate accounting of how DoFs are consumed, we develop a simple link layer model for multi-hop MIMO networks. We show that this model is optimal in the sense of achieving the same rate region as that by the matrix-based model under SM and IC for any network topology. This work offers an important building block for theoretical research on multi-hop MIMO networks.