On the Capacity of Wireless Sensor Networks with Omnidirectional Antennas

81 Abstract We establish some new results on the capacity of wireless sensor networks that employ single-userdetection, and we present the implications of our results on the scalability of such networks. In particular, we find bounds on the maximum achievable per-sensor end-to-end throughput, λe, and the maximum number of simultaneously successful wireless transmissions, Nt , under a more general network scenario than previously considered. Furthermore, in the derivation of our results, we make no restrictions on the mobility pattern of the sensor and the destination nodes or on the number simultaneous transmissions and/or receptions that the nodes are capable of maintaining. In our derivation, we also analyze the effect of parameters such as the area of the network domain, A, the path loss exponent, γ, the processing gain, G, and the SINR threshold, β. Specifically, we prove the following results for a wireless sensor network of N sensor nodes and M destination nodes that are equipped with omnidirectional antennas: