Throughput Scaling of Primary and Secondary Ad Hoc Networks With Same-Order Dimensions

In this paper, the scaling law of the network throughput of a special type of heterogeneous networks is studied, where a secondary network composed of cognitive users shares the same resources opportunistically with a primary network of licensed users. Some pioneering works in this area showed that this type of heterogeneous networks performs as well as two stand-alone networks under the dense network model. A key assumption behind this conclusion is that the density of the secondary network is higher than that of the primary network in the order sense, which essentially decouples the two overlaid networks as the secondary network dominates asymptotically. In this paper, we endeavor to investigate this problem with a weaker condition that the dimensions of the two overlaid networks are on the same order, under the extended network model. Our analysis shows that, with the ratio of the two network sizes larger than a threshold, this weaker (and arguably more practical) condition does not degrade either network throughput scaling. Our result further reveals the potential of cognitive radio (CR) technology in real applications.