Feasibility of the Receiver Capacity Model for Multi-Hop Wireless Networks

The receiver capacity model is a simple model to capture flow dynamics in a multi-hop wireless network, by presenting linear constraints to define the feasible rate region of the network, taking into account interference. The model associates with each receiver in the network a notion of constant receiver capacity. Receiver capacity is defined as the maximum possible sum rate of all flows that the receiver can send, receive, and overhear. As has been shown in prior work by the authors, the linear constraints presented by this model make it particularly useful in approximating the true rate region, and designing distributed protocols for multi-hop wireless networks. It is well known that if we use only local constraints to define the rate region, the constraints have to be bounded by some fraction of the interference free link rate, in order to ensure that the rate satisfying these constraints can be feasibly scheduled in any graph. The key challenge in using this model is therefore to estimate the fraction of the link rate that the receiver capacity should be set to, in order to present a feasible rate vector. In this work we answer this question from a theoretical standpoint, and show that as long as the receiver capacity is set to 1/3 the interference free link rate, all rate vectors that satisfy the constraints of the receiver capacity model can be feasibly scheduled.