Characterizing and Exploiting Partial Interference in Wireless Mesh Networks

In evaluating the performance of a wireless network, the interference between wireless links plays a key role. In previous works, interference was assumed to be a binary phenomenon, i.e., either the links mutually interfere with each other, or they do not interfere. However, there were experimental results contradicting this binary assumption. We term this as partial interference. In this paper, we present an analytical framework to characterize partial interference in a single-channel wireless network under unsaturated traffic conditions, and use 802.11b with basic access scheme and differential binary phase shift keying as an illustration. An analogy is drawn between partial interference and code division multiple access to demonstrate their similarities. The gain in capacity across unit cut by exploiting partial interference can be as high as 67% under scheduling in a modified Manhattan network.