An energy-efficient full-duplex MAC protocol for distributed wireless networks.

In this letter, we present an energy-efficient medium access control (MAC) protocol for distributed full-duplex (FD) wireless network, termed as energy-FDM. The key aspects of the energy-FDM include energy-efficiency, coexistence of distinct types of FD links, throughput improvement, and backward comparability with conventional half-duplex (HD) nodes. Performance evaluation demonstrates the effectiveness of proposed protocol as a viable solution for full-duplex wireless networks

Medium access control for full-duplex in wireless local area networks

Current wireless technologies strive to respond to the arising demand for the increase in mobile traffic. Recently, with the introduction of self-interference (SI) cancellation techniques, wireless full-duplex communication has become an attractive solution that doubles the spectral e ciency and enhances data rates. In this thesis, we present a medium access control (MAC) protocol, named Synchronized Contention Window Full-Duplex (S-CW FD) protocol for enabling full duplex communication in wireless local area networks (WLANs). The proposed S-CW FD protocol can not only work in ad hoc and infrastructure modes of IEEE 802.11 WLANs, but with the legacy nodes as well. In this work, saturated throughput of S-CW FD is derived based on a two dimensional Markov chain model, similar to Bianchi's, and those results are used to validate simulations in OPNET tool. Via detailed simulation experiments, the performance of S-CW FD is evaluated under different self-interference models and wireless network conditions. It is shown that when there are no hidden nodes in the network, the S-CW FD protocol can double the throughput of half-duplex IEEE 802.11, and in the presence of hidden nodes in the network, the throughput gain of full duplex over half-duplex can get as high as ten fold, even for moderate SI cancellation levels and heavy load. Comparisons with existing similar FD MAC protocols also indicate that the proposed S-CW FD protocol performs best under realistic network conditions and residual SI. Hence, S-CW FD stands out as a promising FD MAC protocol with a high chance of application in WLANs, not only for signiffcant performance improvements, but also for its exibility and backwards compatibility

Multipacket reception in the presence of in-band full-duplex communication

In-Band Full-DupleX (IB-FDX) is defined as the ability for nodes to transmit and receive signals simultaneously on the same channel. Conventional digital wireless networks do not implement it, since a node’s own transmission signal causes interference to the signal it is trying to receive. However, recent studies attempt to overcome this obstacle, since it can potentially double the spectral efficiency of current wireless networks. Different mechanisms exist today that are able to reduce a significant part of the Self- Interference (SI), although specially tuned Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols are required to optimize its use. One of IB-FDX’s biggest problems is that the nodes’ interference range is extended, meaning the unusable space for other transmissions and receptions is broader. This dissertation proposes using MultiPacket Reception (MPR) to address this issue and adapts an already existing Single-Carrier with Frequency-Domain Equalization (SC-FDE) receiver to IB-FDX. The performance analysis suggests that MPR and IB-FDX have a strong synergy and are able to achieve higher data rates, when used together. Using analytical models, the optimal transmission patterns and transmission power were identified, which maximize the channel capacity with the minimal energy consumption. This was used to define a new MAC protocol, named Full-duplex Multipacket reception Medium Access Control (FM-MAC). FM-MAC was designed for a single-hop cellular infrastructure, where the Access Point (AP) and the terminals implement both IB-FDX and MPR. It divides the coverage range of the AP into a closer Full-DupleX (FDX) zone and a farther Half-DupleX (HDX) zone and adds a tunable fairness mechanism to avoid terminal starvation. Simulation results show that this protocol provides efficient support for both HDX and FDX terminals, maximizing its capacity when more FDX terminals are used

Analysis of asymmetry of traffic in full-duplex wireless local area network

Mestrado de dupla diplomação com a UTFPR - Universidade Tecnológica Federal do ParanáThe standard commodity wireless hardware is half-duplex because there are challenges in full-duplex wireless that need attention and improvement. The self-interference in radios is one of the big challenges, but, even though there is no standard yet, there are several proposals that cancel enough self-interference that it is possible for communication to be successfully made. The standard half-duplex rules of the media access control (MAC) protocol contained on wireless cards do not accept simultaneous transmissions, because simultaneous transmissions are likely to collide with each other. Therefore, full-duplex wireless networks need a new MAC protocol to be able to handle the different full-duplex transmissions, namely, symmetric and asymmetric. Symmetric full-duplex transmissions ocurr between just two stations, which can be managed trivially by a suitable MAC protocol. On the other hand, asymmetric transmissions occur in communications involving three stations, and those transmissions are likely to produce collisions if one station receives simultaneously signals from the two others. From the different difficulties of each transmission type, emerges the doubt about how many opportunities are there for a full-duplex wireless network to make each type of transmission. With the focus on this question, this research proposes a method to collect traffic data from a real half-duplex wireless local area network (WLAN) to measure the amount of full-duplex symmetric and asymmetric transmission opportunities. The proposed method relies on: the brcmfmac driver, to collect the traffic data in kernel space; the Ftrace tracing utility framework, to send the data from kernel to user space; a Raspberry Pi 3 B+, in which is installed the modified driver and tracing utility; and an estimate of the travel time of frames between the kernel and firmware. The results of this research include a method to collect traffic data with the goal of measuring the amount of full-duplex transmissions opportunities and their types in a real half-duplex WLAN. It is also presented the analysis of a small amount of data collected during four days as an example of the proposed method, which shows that 4.096% of the frames presented the proper conditions to symmetric transmissions, while only 0.025% in the case of asymmetric transmissions.Os dispositivos sem fio padrão são half-duplex, pois o full-duplex sem fio apresenta desafios que precisam receber atenção e melhorias. A auto-interferência presente é um dos desafios, mas, ainda que não haja padrão, existem algumas propostas que cancelam a auto-interferência a ponto de comunicações serem realizadas com sucesso. As regras padrão do protocolo de controle de acesso ao meio (MAC) half-duplex contido nas placas sem fio não permitem transmissões simultâneas, já que são propensas a causar colisões. Portanto, redes full-duplex sem fio precisam de um novo protocolo MAC para que os diferentes tipos de transmissão full-duplex (simétrico e assimétrico) sejam utilizados. As transmissões simétricas ocorrem em comunicações entre apenas duas estações, o que pode ser gerido de forma trivial por um protocolo MAC apropriado. Por outro lado, as transmissões assimétricas envolvem comunicações entre três estações, e estas transmissões são propensas a gerar colisões no caso de uma das estações receber sinal das outras duas, simultaneamente. Devido às diferentes dificuldades de cada tipo de transmissão, surge a dúvida sobre quantas oportunidades existem para comunicação full-duplex de cada tipo de transmissão. Com foco nessa questão, esta pesquisa propõe um método para coleta de dados de tráfego de uma rede de área local sem fio (WLAN) half-duplex com o objetivo de calcular a quantidade de oportunidades de transmissões full-duplex simétricas e assimétricas. O método proposto conta com: o driver brcmfmac, para coleta de dados de tráfego em ambiente de kernel; o Ftrace, ferramenta utilitária de rastreamento, usado para enviar os dados do kernel para o ambiente do usuário; um Raspberry Pi 3 B+, no qual é instalado o driver modificado e o utilitário de rastreamento; e, um cálculo para estimar o tempo de viagem de pacotes entre o kernel e o firmware. Os resultados desta pesquisa incluem um método de coleta de dados de tráfego com o objetivo de quantificar as oportunidades de transmissões full-duplex e seus tipos em uma WLAN real. Também é apresentado uma coleta feita por quatro dias como um exemplo do mesmo. A análise mostra que 4.096% dos pacotes apresentam condições adequadas para transmissões simétricas, e apenas 0.025% para transmissões assimétricas

Design and Implementation of a Full-Duplex Pipelined MAC Protocol for Multihop Wireless Networks

In multihop wireless networks, data packets are forwarded from a source node to a destination node through intermediate relay nodes. With half-duplex relay nodes, the end-to-end delay performance of a multihop network degrades as the number of hops increases, because the relay nodes cannot receive and transmit at the same time. Full-duplex relay nodes can reduce their per-hop delay by starting to forward a packet before the whole packet is received. In this paper, we propose a pipelined medium access control (PiMAC) protocol, which enables the relay nodes on a multihop path to simultaneously transmit and receive packets for full-duplex forwarding. For pipelined transmission over a multihop path, it is important to suppress both the self-interference of each relay node with the full-duplex capability and the intra-flow interference from the next relay nodes on the same path. In the PiMAC protocol, each relay node can suppress both the self- and intra-flow interference for full-duplex relaying on the multihop path by estimating the channel coefficients and delays of the interference during a multihop channel acquisition phase. To evaluate the performance of the PiMAC protocol, we carried out extensive simulations and software-defined radio-based experiments

RCFD: A Novel Channel Access Scheme for Full-Duplex Wireless Networks Based on Contention in Time and Frequency Domains

In the last years, the advancements in signal processing and integrated circuits technology allowed several research groups to develop working prototypes of in-band full-duplex wireless systems. The introduction of such a revolutionary concept is promising in terms of increasing network performance, but at the same time poses several new challenges, especially at the MAC layer. Consequently, innovative channel access strategies are needed to exploit the opportunities provided by full-duplex while dealing with the increased complexity derived from its adoption. In this direction, this paper proposes RTS/CTS in the Frequency Domain (RCFD), a MAC layer scheme for full-duplex ad hoc wireless networks, based on the idea of time-frequency channel contention. According to this approach, different OFDM subcarriers are used to coordinate how nodes access the shared medium. The proposed scheme leads to efficient transmission scheduling with the result of avoiding collisions and exploiting full-duplex opportunities. The considerable performance improvements with respect to standard and state-of-the-art MAC protocols for wireless networks are highlighted through both theoretical analysis and network simulations.Comment: Submitted at IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1605.0971

Design and Optimal Configuration of Full-Duplex MAC Protocol for Cognitive Radio Networks Considering Self-Interference

In this paper, we propose an adaptive Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol for full-duplex (FD) cognitive radio networks in which FD secondary users (SUs) perform channel contention followed by concurrent spectrum sensing and transmission, and transmission only with maximum power in two different stages (called the FD sensing and transmission stages, respectively) in each contention and access cycle. The proposed FD cognitive MAC (FDC-MAC) protocol does not require synchronization among SUs and it efficiently utilizes the spectrum and mitigates the self-interference in the FD transceiver. We then develop a mathematical model to analyze the throughput performance of the FDC-MAC protocol where both half-duplex (HD) transmission (HDTx) and FD transmission (FDTx) modes are considered in the transmission stage. Then, we study the FDC-MAC configuration optimization through adaptively controlling the spectrum sensing duration and transmit power level in the FD sensing stage where we prove that there exists optimal sensing time and transmit power to achieve the maximum throughput and we develop an algorithm to configure the proposed FDC-MAC protocol. Extensive numerical results are presented to illustrate the characteristic of the optimal FDC-MAC configuration and the impacts of protocol parameters and the self-interference cancellation quality on the throughput performance. Moreover, we demonstrate the significant throughput gains of the FDC-MAC protocol with respect to existing half-duplex MAC (HD MAC) and single-stage FD MAC protocols.Comment: To Appear, IEEE Access, 201