Stronger wireless signals appear more Poisson
Abstract
Keeler, Ross and Xia (2016) recently derived approximation and convergence results, which imply that the point process formed from the signal strengths received by an observer in a wireless network under a general statistical propagation model can be modeled by an inhomogeneous Poisson point process on the positive real line. The basic requirement for the results to apply is that there must be a large number of transmitters with a small proportion having a strong signal. The aim of this note is to apply some of the main results of Keeler, Ross and Xia (2016) in a less general but more easily applicable form, to illustrate how the results can apply to functions of the point process of signal strengths, and to gain intuition on when the Poisson model for transmitter locations is appropriate. A new and useful observation is that it is the stronger signals that behave more Poisson, which supports recent experimental work.