Bits-per-joule capacity of energy-limited wireless ad hoc networks

We develop a framework to evaluate the capacity of wireless ad hoc networks in which the energy supply of the nodes is the primary resource constraint. The measure of capacity in such networks is the "bits-perJoule capacity" that specifies the maximum number of bits that the network can deliver per Joule of energy in the network. First, for the one-to-one traffic model in which each node generates traffic for exactly one other randomly picked node, we demonstrate that the bits-per-Joule capacity grows with the number of nodes. Second, we demonstrate that sparse and locally-computed network topologies can approximate this capacity. Third, for ad hoc-cellular "hybrid" networks in which the node set is partitioned between an ad hoc part and a cellular part, we demonstrate under three representative traffic models, that the ad hoc topology performs far better than the cellular topology.