Use of Smart Antennas in AD HOC Networks

The capacity of ad hoc networks can be severely limited due to interference constraints. One way of using improving the overall capacity of ad hoc networks is by the use of smart antennas. Smart antennas allow the energy to be transmitted or received in a particular direction as opposed to disseminating energy in all directions. This helps in achieving significant spatial re-use and thereby increasing the capacity of the network. However, the use of smart antennas presents significant challenges at the higher layers of the protocol stack. In particular, the medium access control and the routing layers will have to be modified and made aware of the presence of such antennas in order to exploit their use. In this paper we examine the various challenges that arise when deploying such antennas in ad hoc networks and the solutions proposed thus far in order to overcome them. The current state of the art seems to suggest that the deployment of such antennas can have a tremendous impact in terms of increasing the capacity of ad hoc networks.