Improved capacity scaling in wireless networks with infrastructure

Abstract—This paper analyzes the impact and benefits of infra-structure support in improving the throughput scaling in networks of randomly located wireless nodes. The infrastructure uses multiantenna base stations (BSs), in which the number of BSs and the number of antennas at each BS can scale at arbitrary rates rel-ative to . Under the model, capacity scaling laws are analyzed for both dense and extended networks. Two BS-based routing schemes are first introduced in this study: an infrastructure-supported single-hop (ISH) routing protocol with multiple-access uplink and broadcast downlink and an infrastructure-supported mul-tihop (IMH) routing protocol. Then, their achievable throughput scalings are analyzed. These schemes are compared against two conventional schemes without BSs: the multihop (MH) transmis-sion and hierarchical cooperation (HC) schemes. It is shown that a linear throughput scaling is achieved in dense networks, as i