Tradeoff between Area Spectral Efficiency and End-to-End Throughput in Rate-Adaptive Multihop Radio Networks

We investigate the impact of symbol rate control, modulation level control, and the number of hops on the area spectral efficiency of interference-limited multihop radio networks. By controlling symbol rate and modulation level, data rate can be adapted according to received power. In addition, varying the number of hops can control received power. First, we evaluate the achievable end-to-end throughput of multihop transmission assuming symbol rate and modulation level control. Numerical results reveal that by controlling symbol rate or using multihop transmission, the end-to-end communication range can be extended at the cost of end-to-end throughput, and this may result in lower area spectral efficiency. Next, an expression for the area spectral efficiency of multihop radio networks is derived as a function of the number of hops and the end-to-end throughput. Numerical results also reveal that the resulting area spectral efficiency depends on the specific circumstances, which, however, can be increased only by using multihop transmission.