Beamwidth Trade-offs Analysis of THz MAC Protocols for Wireless Data Center

Terahertz (THz) wireless links have been suggested for wireless data centres for their efficiency, high data rates upto terabits per second, and low latency compared to wired links. However, THz band has extremely high path loss due to which directional antennas (DA) are used. In DAs usage, beamwidth plays an important role in improving the communication establishment and efficiency. More precisely, narrow beam offers more communication distance and robust signal strength whereas wide beamwidth offers high throughput but covers less communication distance and can improve the overall link discovery time. Thus, to ensure reliable communication, the impact of beamwidth needs to be studied in THz MAC protocol, as it directly influences link discovery, throughput and packet loss. In this paper, we perform extensive analysis to understand the effect of antenna beamwidth on the performance of THz MAC protocols in the context of the data center (DC). We used NS3 THz module for the simulation, and our results showed that there are trade-offs involved in the performance of THz MAC protocol due to beamwidth. These trade-offs will provide the basis to develop and design a new THz MAC protocol by taking into consideration the impact of beamwidth and being helpful for optimal selection of beamwidth.