Link Selection for Point-to-Point 60GHz Networks

60GHz is well-suited for device-to-device communication and for general in-home applications due to its huge available bandwidth. However, links at this frequency are easily degraded by environmental conditions. Indeed, the poor multipath makes it necessary to maintain good LoS (Line of Sight) paths between communicating pairs of nodes. In this paper we analyze the problem of link breakage and degradation in point-to-point 60GHz networks. We propose using repeaters to provide alternate paths between communicating nodes when the direct path degrades. The decision on which path to use is driven by the goal of maximizing data rate per connection as well as overall throughput in the network. Using extensive simulations we show that by carefully using repeaters, we can maintain Gbps rates for each pair of communicating nodes in indoor spaces. We develop an efficient distributed algorithm for allocating repeaters to links as needed and explicitly deal with the problem of interference caused by the repeaters themselves. Finally, we study the scalability of the solution with increasing numbers of communicating pairs and show that Gbps rates can be maintained even when there are as many as eight communicating pairs in a small 10m×10m room.