Efficient Mobile WiMAX Capacity Estimations in a Multihop Environment

The1new relay-based architecture for Mobile WiMAX that will allow multi-hop communication imposes a demanding performance requirement on relay stations. The frame structure used for transmission plays an important role in the design of multi-hop networks as it manages the channel access and therefore determines the resulting network capacity. In this paper, the authors firstly propose a new simple and flexible concept to integrate multi-hop communications into the mobile WiMAX frame structure and compare this method with other basic concepts already proposed for the upcoming IEEE 802.16j release of the standard. Secondly, they introduce efficient capacity calculations that will allow intensive system level simulations in a mobile WiMAX multi-hop environment for the purpose of network design.