Realization of dual-hop networks in Wi-Fi direct and performance evaluation

Abstract

Wireless LANs are used as a common choice of Internet access at homes, offices, campuses and public areas such as airports and supermarkets. Wireless LANs support device-to-device (D2D) communication using ad-hoc mode, however the ad-hoc mode was not widely adopted in real implementations. Wi-Fi Alliance released a standard for D2D communication called Wi-Fi Direct (formerly known as Wi-Fi P2P). Wi-Fi Direct works on the client-server model, where a single device called P2P group owner manages the communication between client devices. The basic entity of Wi-Fi Direct architecture is called a P2P group which is a single-hop network. However dual-hop and multi-hop networks can be established in Wi-Fi Direct. In this paper, we present the formation of such dual-hop and multi-hop links using Wi-Fi Direct. A review of several physical layer models to evaluate the performance of dual-hop networks is presented. In addition, the performance of the dual-hop network model over Rayleigh fading channel is compared with the direct link.