Erez Kantor: "The Topology of Wireless Communications"

The rules governing the availability and quality of connections in a wireless network are described by physical models such as the signal-to-interference & noise ratio (SINR) model, which compares the received power of a signal at a receiver against the sum of strengths of other interfering signals plus background noise. For a collection of simultaneously transmitting stations, it is possible to identify a reception zone for each station, consisting of the points where its transmission is received correctly. The resulting SINR diagram partitions the plane into a reception zone per station and the remaining plane where no station can be heard.

In this talk, I will present topological properties of the SINR diagrams for uniform power networks (in which all stations transmit with the same power) and non-uniform power networks. Such properties are used to devise efficient algorithms for fundamental problems such as point location and other applications (power control; reception testing count holes; and etc.). If time permitted, I will also discuss the SINR diagrams with the coding (Interference Cancelation) techniques.