Hop distances and flooding in wireless multihop networks with randomized beamforming

Abstract
We show that randomized beamforming is a simple yet efficient communication strategy in wireless multihop networks if no neighbor location information is at hand. Already small antenna arrays reduce the hop distance between nodes and speed up the flooding of messages. This result is obtained in different scenarios, using accurate models for circular antenna arrays and a line-of-sight link model between randomly placed nodes.