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

Dynamic Resource Allocation in Cognitive Radio Networks: A Convex Optimization Perspective

This article provides an overview of the state-of-art results on communication resource allocation over space, time, and frequency for emerging cognitive radio (CR) wireless networks. Focusing on the interference-power/interference-temperature (IT) constraint approach for CRs to protect primary radio transmissions, many new and challenging problems regarding the design of CR systems are formulated, and some of the corresponding solutions are shown to be obtainable by restructuring some classic results known for traditional (non-CR) wireless networks. It is demonstrated that convex optimization plays an essential role in solving these problems, in a both rigorous and efficient way. Promising research directions on interference management for CR and other related multiuser communication systems are discussed.Comment: to appear in IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, special issue on convex optimization for signal processin

Generic Multiuser Coordinated Beamforming for Underlay Spectrum Sharing

The beamforming techniques have been recently studied as possible enablers for underlay spectrum sharing. The existing beamforming techniques have several common limitations: they are usually system model specific, cannot operate with arbitrary number of transmit/receive antennas, and cannot serve arbitrary number of users. Moreover, the beamforming techniques for underlay spectrum sharing do not consider the interference originating from the incumbent primary system. This work extends the common underlay sharing model by incorporating the interference originating from the incumbent system into generic combined beamforming design that can be applied on interference, broadcast or multiple access channels. The paper proposes two novel multiuser beamforming algorithms for user fairness and sum rate maximization, utilizing newly derived convex optimization problems for transmit and receive beamformers calculation in a recursive optimization. Both beamforming algorithms provide efficient operation for the interference, broadcast and multiple access channels, as well as for arbitrary number of antennas and secondary users in the system. Furthermore, the paper proposes a successive transmit/receive optimization approach that reduces the computational complexity of the proposed recursive algorithms. The results show that the proposed complexity reduction significantly improves the convergence rates and can facilitate their operation in scenarios which require agile beamformers computation.Comment: 30 pages, 5 figure

Achieving Large Multiplexing Gain in Distributed Antenna Systems via Cooperation with pCell Technology

In this paper we present pCellTM technology, the first commercial-grade wireless system that employs cooperation between distributed transceiver stations to create concurrent data links to multiple users in the same spectrum. First we analyze the per-user signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) employing a geometrical spatial channel model to define volumes in space of coherent signal around user antennas (or personal cells, i.e., pCells). Then we describe the system architecture consisting of a general-purpose-processor (GPP) based software-defined radio (SDR) wireless platform implementing a real-time LTE protocol stack to communicate with off-the-shelf LTE devices. Finally we present experimental results demonstrating up to 16 concurrent spatial channels for an aggregate average spectral efficiency of 59.3 bps/Hz in the downlink and 27.5 bps/Hz in the uplink, providing data rates of 200 Mbps downlink and 25 Mbps uplink in 5 MHz of TDD spectrum.Comment: IEEE Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers, Nov. 8-11th 2015, Pacific Grove, CA, US

On the ergodic sum-rate performance of CDD in multi-user systems

The main focus of space-time coding design and analysis for MIMO systems has been so far focused on single-user systems. For single-user systems, transmit diversity schemes suffer a loss in spectral efficiency if the receiver is equipped with more than one antenna, making them unsuitable for high rate transmission. One such transmit diversity scheme is the cyclic delay diversity code (CDD). The advantage of CDD over other diversity schemes such as orthogonal space-time block codes (OSTBC) is that a code rate of one and delay optimality are achieved independent of the number of transmit antennas. In this work we analyze the ergodic rate of a multi-user multiple access channel (MAC) with each user applying such a cyclic delay diversity (CDD) code. We derive closed form expressions for the ergodic sum-rate of multi-user CDD and compare it with the sum-capacity. We study the ergodic rate region and show that in contrast to what is conventionally known regarding the single-user case, transmit diversity schemes are viable candidates for high rate transmission in multi-user systems. Finally, our theoretical findings are illustrated by numerical simulation results.Comment: to appear in Proceedings of 2007 IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW) in Lake Taho