The capacity of three-dimensional wireless ad hoc networks

Network capacity investigation has been intensive in the past few years. A large body of work has appeared in the literature. However, so far most of the effort has been made on two-dimensional wireless networks only. With the great development of wireless technologies, wireless networks are envisioned to extend from two-dimensional space to three-dimensional space. In this paper, we investigate for the first time the throughput capacity of 3D regular ad hoc networks (RANETs) and of 3D heterogeneous ad hoc networks (HANETs), respectively, by employing a generalized physical model. In 3D RANETs, we assume that the nodes are regularly placed, while in 3D HANETs, we consider that the nodes are distributed according to a general Nonhomogeneous Poisson Process (NPP). We find both lower and upper bounds in both types of networks in a broad power propagation regime, i.e., when the path loss exponent is no less than 2.