Network Discovery with Directional Antennas

The use of directional antennas in place of traditional omni-directional antennas in a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) can improve system capacity with spatial reuse, reduce interference and noise from neighboring nodes, and mitigate inter-symbol interference (ISI) due to multipath fading. Since making connections and connection times in a MANET will ultimately drive the network utility, the design of an optimal and efficient network discovery scheme is paramount. The discovery schemes used by other networks (commercial cell phone and Bluetooth) are considered in a comparative study that highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each scheme. Specifically, this paper addresses the issues of network discovery, examines the use of directional antennas in mobile ad hoc networks, and proposes a new methodology of network discovery.