Full Duplexity in Beamforming-Based Multi-Hop Relay Networks

Abstract

This work investigates the effects of full duplexity on delay and throughput in interference-limited multi-hop networks. It is assumed that channel state information is not available at transmitters and beamforming is employed as the transmission scheme. A closed-form expression is developed for hop success probability in networks of this type. The delay and throughput of multi-hop networks employing full duplex and half duplex beamforming are than compared. The delay and throughput are studied in two cases: when full duplexity is used for full duplex relay (FDR), and bi-directional beamforming (BBF). For FDR, employing full duplex beamforming is more beneficial if a low rate constraint is required or if interferers are rare. However, this benefit diminishes as the required data rate or the interferer density increases. For BBF, the use of full duplex beamforming is always more beneficial because it leads to a reduction in the required rate constraint. Specifically, this benefit becomes more significant as the required rate rises and interferers become rarer.