Interference Protection Versus Spatial Reuse in Wireless Networks

In this paper the capacity of decentralized wireless networks is addressed. An exclusion region is introduced that protects active receivers from destructive interference of nearby transmitters. An exclusion range imposes an upper bound on the interference that a transmitter may cause to receivers of competing links. While an exclusion region avoids excessive interference and thus improves capacity per link, the spatial reuse in terms of concurrently served links is compromised. The resulting trade-off is elaborated by computer simulations, so to optimize the exclusion range as a function of the user density and maximum transmit power. We demonstrate that by an appropriately specified exclusion range, the network capacity is substantially enhanced. In this context, it has been found that the exclusion range that maximizes the system capacity does not vary greatly when changing the a priori user density. In addition, the trade-off between maximizing the system capacity and maintaining fairness is investigated.