338 research outputs found
AirSync: Enabling Distributed Multiuser MIMO with Full Spatial Multiplexing
The enormous success of advanced wireless devices is pushing the demand for
higher wireless data rates. Denser spectrum reuse through the deployment of
more access points per square mile has the potential to successfully meet the
increasing demand for more bandwidth. In theory, the best approach to density
increase is via distributed multiuser MIMO, where several access points are
connected to a central server and operate as a large distributed multi-antenna
access point, ensuring that all transmitted signal power serves the purpose of
data transmission, rather than creating "interference." In practice, while
enterprise networks offer a natural setup in which distributed MIMO might be
possible, there are serious implementation difficulties, the primary one being
the need to eliminate phase and timing offsets between the jointly coordinated
access points.
In this paper we propose AirSync, a novel scheme which provides not only time
but also phase synchronization, thus enabling distributed MIMO with full
spatial multiplexing gains. AirSync locks the phase of all access points using
a common reference broadcasted over the air in conjunction with a Kalman filter
which closely tracks the phase drift. We have implemented AirSync as a digital
circuit in the FPGA of the WARP radio platform. Our experimental testbed,
comprised of two access points and two clients, shows that AirSync is able to
achieve phase synchronization within a few degrees, and allows the system to
nearly achieve the theoretical optimal multiplexing gain. We also discuss MAC
and higher layer aspects of a practical deployment. To the best of our
knowledge, AirSync offers the first ever realization of the full multiuser MIMO
gain, namely the ability to increase the number of wireless clients linearly
with the number of jointly coordinated access points, without reducing the per
client rate.Comment: Submitted to Transactions on Networkin
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On Enabling Concurrent Communications in Wireless Networks
Today innumerable devices use the wireless spectrum for communication, including cell-phones, WiFi devices, military radios, public safety radios, satellite phones etc. This crowding is limiting the experience of each device either through interference or by waiting fortheir turn to communicate. So, how do we allow a limited spectral resource to reliably scale to many more devices? This is possible through concurrent communication where multiple links share the spectrum and communicate simultaneously using multi-antenna techniques. One promising technique is Interference Alignment (IA), that has been shown to be Degrees-of-Freedom optimal under some conditions. Still, IA requires accurate channel knowledge to be effective and its ability to achieve high throughput under time varying wireless conditions is yet unproven. We make progress towards understanding these limitations and provide viable solutions.We study an IA system under different models of the time varying channel and derive expressions for the achieved rate over time and the system throughput. Using these, we can arrive at the optimal duration of the data phase that maximizes throughput. We proposetwo strategies that help to counter the effects of a time varying channel. First, data aided receiver beam-tracking along with link adaptation provides a sizable improvement in the received signal to interference and noise ratio. Second, updating the transmit beams during data transmission using short feedback pilots improves alignment at the receivers. In faster varying channels, we get a more stable achieved rate whereas in slower varying channels, we see additional throughput gains. The conclusion from this work is that an IA system must be trained more frequently than the channel coherence time to ensure high throughput and beam adaptation during the data phase gives significant robustness to the system.Lastly, we present an IA based medium access control (MAC) protocol that outperforms traditional protocols. Our concurrent carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) protocol based on beam-nulling is compatible with CSMA and increases the sum throughput by 2 to 3x.We also show that IA outperforms optimal time division multiple access under time varying conditions. Hence a well-designed IA system can enable reliable concurrent communications in a wireless network
Robust Transceiver Design Based on Interference Alignment for Multi-User Multi-Cell MIMO Networks with Channel Uncertainty
In this paper, we firstly exploit the inter-user interference (IUI) and
inter-cell interference (ICI) as useful references to develop a robust
transceiver design based on interference alignment for a downlink multi-user
multi-cell multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) interference network under
channel estimation error. At transmitters, we propose a two-tier transmit
beamforming strategy, we first achieve the inner beamforming direction and
allocated power by minimizing the interference leakage as well as maximizing
the system energy efficiency, respectively. Then, for the outer beamformer
design, we develop an efficient conjugate gradient Grassmann manifold subspace
tracking algorithm to minimize the distances between the subspace spanned by
interference and the interference subspace in the time varying channel. At
receivers, we propose a practical interference alignment based on fast and
robust fast data projection method (FDPM) subspace tracking algorithm, to
achieve the receive beamformer under channel uncertainty. Numerical results
show that our proposed robust transceiver design achieves better performance
compared with some existing methods in terms of the sum rate and the energy
efficiency.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure
MAC Aspects of Millimeter-Wave Cellular Networks
The current demands for extremely high data rate wireless services and the spectrum scarcity at the sub-6 GHz bands are forcefully motivating the use of the millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies. MmWave communications are characterized by severe attenuation, sparse-scattering environment, large bandwidth, high penetration loss, beamforming with massive antenna arrays, and possible noise-limited operation. These characteristics imply a major difference with respect to legacy communication technologies, primarily designed for the sub-6 GHz bands, and are posing major design challenges on medium access control (MAC) layer. This book chapter discusses key MAC layer issues at the initial access and mobility management (e.g., synchronization, random access, and handover) as well as resource allocation (interference management, scheduling, and association). The chapter provides an integrated view on MAC layer issues for cellular networks and reviews the main challenges and trade-offs and the state-of-the-art proposals to address them
Interference Alignment (IA) and Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) with IEEE802.11ac feedback compression: testbed results
We have implemented interference alignment (IA) and joint transmission
coordinated multipoint (CoMP) on a wireless testbed using the feedback
compression scheme of the new 802.11ac standard. The performance as a function
of the frequency domain granularity is assessed. Realistic throughput gains are
obtained by probing each spatial modulation stream with ten different coding
and modulation schemes. The gain of IA and CoMP over TDMA MIMO is found to be
26% and 71%, respectively under stationary conditions. In our dense indoor
office deployment, the frequency domain granularity of the feedback can be
reduced down to every 8th subcarrier (2.5MHz), without sacrificing performance.Comment: To appear in ICASSP 201
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