Performance evaluation of wireless networks exploiting multi-beam antennas in multipath environments

The use of multi-beam antennas has been shown to significantly enhance the network throughput by improving the spatial reuse and coverage. In this paper, we consider both the multi-channel smart antenna (MCSA) and the multiple fixed-beam antennas (MFBA) and evaluate their node throughput performance in a multipath propagation environment based on the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). Realistic array beams, rather than the idealized sector-based models, are used in the performance evaluation. Simulation results show that, in a multipath propagation environment, MFBA suffers from significant node throughput reduction, whereas MCSA benefits from path combining gain and, as such, has a clear advantage over MFBA.