Neighbor selection and progress rate in multi-channel MIMO wireless networks: The two antenna case

With multiple antennas equipped at mobile nodes, we consider two types of antenna configurations: one MIMO radio or multiple SISO radios. In this work, we compare these two antenna configurations in terms of neighbor discovery and selection in multi-channel networks. For each antenna configuration, two neighbor selection schemes are studied. In the scheme of first forward neighbor selection (FFNS), the neighbor probing procedure stops as soon as a neighbor with forward progress is discovered on a certain channel. In the scheme of Optimal Stopping Neighbor Selection (OSNS), optimal stopping theory is employed to decide whether the neighbor probing should stop at each stage. As expected, OSNS always achieves better progress rate than FFNS with both antenna configurations. For the comparison between antenna configurations, we show that the configuration of one MIMO radio achieves better progress rate when the node density is low, while the configuration of multiple SISO radios gets better progress rate as node density increases. Our numerical examples corroborate the analysis.