Fractional Power Control for Decentralized Wireless Networks

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Abstract
We propose and analyze a new paradigm for power control in decentralized wireless networks, termed fractional power control. Transmission power is chosen as the current channel quality raised to an exponent -s, where s is a constant between 0 and 1. Choosing s = 1 and s = 0 correspond to the familiar cases of channel inversion and constant power transmission, respectively. Choosing s in (0, 1) allows all intermediate policies between these two extremes to be evaluated, and we see that neither extreme is ideal. We prove that using an exponent of s = 1/2 optimizes the transmission capacity of an ad hoc network, meaning that the inverse square root of the channel strength is the optimal transmit power scaling. Intuitively, this choice achieves the optimal balance between helping disadvantaged users while making sure they do not flood the network with interference.

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