Distributed Coordination with Deaf Neighbors: Efficient Medium Access for 60 GHz Mesh Networks

Multi-gigabit outdoor mesh networks operating in the unlicensed 60 GHz "millimeter (mm) wave" band, offer the possibility of a quickly deployable broadband extension of the Internet. We consider mesh nodes with electronically steerable antenna arrays, with both the transmitter and receiver synthesizing narrow beams that compensate for the higher path loss at mm-wave frequencies, achieving ranges on the order of 100 meters using the relatively low transmit powers attainable with low-cost silicon implementations. Such highly directional networking differs from WiFi networks at lower carrier frequencies in two ways that have a crucial impact on protocol design: (1) directionality drastically reduces spatial interference, so that red link abstractions form an excellent basis for protocol design; (2) directionality induces deafness, which makes medium access control (MAC) based on carrier sensing infeasible. Interference analysis in our prior work shows that, in such a setting, co...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: INFOCOM
• Authors: Sumit Singh, Raghuraman Mudumbai, Upamanyu Madhow
• Keywords: Communications, INFOCOM 2010, Multi-gigabit Outdoor Mesh, Protocol Design, Unlicensed 60 Ghz