Experimental Evaluation of Multihop Cellular Networks using Mobile Relays

Future wireless networks are expected to provide high bandwidth multimedia services in extended areas with homogeneous Quality of Service (QoS) levels. Conventional cellular architectures might not be able to satisfy these requirements due to the effect of surrounding obstacles and the signal attenuation with distance, in particular under Non Line of Sight (NLOS) propagation conditions. Recent studies have investigated the potential of Multi-hop Cellular Networks (MCNs) to overcome the traditional cellular architecture limitations through the integration of cellular and ad-hoc networking technologies. However, these studies are generally analytical or simulation-based. On the other hand, this paper reports the first experimental field tests that validate and quantify the benefits that MCNs using mobile relays can provide over traditional cellular systems.