Opportunistic and cooperative spatial multiplexing in MIMO ad hoc networks

It is important and challenging to develop efficient schemes to coordinate node transmissions in a MIMO-based ad hoc network. In this work, we propose a scheme to fully exploit the multiuser diversity and spatial diversity by taking advantage of the meshed topology, while also supporting user transmission quality requirement. We formulate a concrete physical model, and present cross-layer algorithms which take advantage of physical layer channel information to opportunistically schedule cooperative spatial multiplexed transmissions between nodes, so that the data rate of the network can be maximized. The performance of our algorithm is studied by extensive simulations and the results demonstrate that our algorithm is very effective and can significantly increase the throughput while reducing the transmission delay.