Multiuser diversity in wireless ad hoc networks

This work studies the throughput scaling in the limit of large networks for a previously published two-hop opportunistic relaying protocol [1] for more general fading conditions. In the Rayleigh fading environment, the throughput scaling was obtained directly from the closed-form throughput expression of the finite network [1]. For other fading channels, unfortunately, the exact closed-form throughput analysis turns out to be intractable. Inspired by the multiuser diversity interpretation of the throughput scaling in the Rayleigh case, we introduce the conjecture that for general fading channels, the throughput scaling of the opportunistic scheme is of the same order as the multiuser diversity of the underlying fading model. While the rigorous proof of the conjecture is still ongoing, in this paper, we make two observations that shed additional light on the throughput of wireless networks.