Throughput Region of Spatially Correlated Interference Packet Networks

In multi-user wireless packet networks, interference, typically modeled as packet collision, is the throughput bottleneck. Users become aware of the interference pattern via feedback and use this information for contention resolution and packet retransmission. Conventional random access protocols interrupt communication to resolve contention, which reduces network throughput and increases latency and power consumption. In this paper, we take a different approach, and we develop opportunistic random access protocols rather than pursuing conventional methods. We allow wireless nodes to communicate without interruption and to observe the interference pattern. We then use this interference pattern knowledge and channel statistics to counter the negative impact of interference. We prove the optimality of our protocols using an extremal rank-ratio inequality. An important part of our contributions is the integration of spatial correlation in our assumptions and results. We identify spatial correlation regimes in which inherently outdated feedback becomes as good as idealized instantaneous feedback and correlation regimes in which feedback does not provide any throughput gain. To better illustrate the results, and as an intermediate step, we characterize the capacity region of finite-field spatially correlated interference channels with delayed channel state information at the transmitters.