Dynamic Single Frequency Networks in Wireless Multihop Networks - Energy Aware Routing Algorithms with Performance Analysis

A new approach to improving the energy consumption and node reachability of multihop networks is to dynamically combine multihop routing with single-frequency networks (transmitter macrodiversity), i.e. several nodes sending the same signal simultaneously over the same frequency channel. Four routing algorithms are suggested and evaluated for a broadcasting scenario. Simulation results show that the best algorithm reduces the energy consumption by up to 42% in comparison to non-SFN multihop routing for the same node reachability. SFN-based multihop routing improves the reachability by up to 37 percentage points as compared to non-SFN routing. A 3.8 dB diversity gain is observed that allows a 54% higher data rate for the same bit error probability. By restricting the SFN sizes to a maximum number of nodes, the energy efficiency may be improved while the reachability is deteriorated.