Many-to-One Throughput Capacity of IEEE 802.11 Multi-Hop Wireless Networks

This paper investigates the many-to-one throughput capacity (and by symmetry, one-to-many throughput capacity) of IEEE 802.11 multi-hop networks. It has generally been assumed in prior studies that the many-to-one throughput capacity is upper-bounded by the link capacity L. Throughput capacity L is not achievable under 802.11. This paper introduces the notion of "Canonical Networks", which is a class of regularly-structured networks whose capacities can be analyzed more easily than unstructured networks. The authors show that the throughput capacity of canonical networks under 802.11 has an analytical upper bound of 3L/4 when the source nodes are two or more hops away from the sink; and simulated throughputs of 0.690L (0.740L) when the source nodes are many hops away.