Full-duplex wireless communications: challenges, solutions and future research directions

The family of conventional half-duplex (HD) wireless systems relied on transmitting and receiving in different time-slots or frequency sub-bands. Hence the wireless research community aspires to conceive full-duplex (FD) operation for supporting concurrent transmission and reception in a single time/frequency channel, which would improve the attainable spectral efficiency by a factor of two. The main challenge encountered in implementing an FD wireless device is the large power difference between the self-interference (SI) imposed by the device’s own transmissions and the signal of interest received from a remote source. In this survey, we present a comprehensive list of the potential FD techniques and highlight their pros and cons. We classify the SI cancellation techniques into three categories, namely passive suppression, analog cancellation and digital cancellation, with the advantages and disadvantages of each technique compared. Specifically, we analyse the main impairments (e.g. phase noise, power amplifier nonlinearity as well as in-phase and quadrature-phase (I/Q) imbalance, etc.) that degrading the SI cancellation. We then discuss the FD based Media Access Control (MAC)-layer protocol design for the sake of addressing some of the critical issues, such as the problem of hidden terminals, the resultant end-to-end delay and the high packet loss ratio (PLR) due to network congestion. After elaborating on a variety of physical/MAC-layer techniques, we discuss potential solutions conceived for meeting the challenges imposed by the aforementioned techniques. Furthermore, we also discuss a range of critical issues related to the implementation, performance enhancement and optimization of FD systems, including important topics such as hybrid FD/HD scheme, optimal relay selection and optimal power allocation, etc. Finally, a variety of new directions and open problems associated with FD technology are pointed out. Our hope is that this treatise will stimulate future research efforts in the emerging field of FD communication

Full-Duplex Versus Half-Duplex Amplify-and-Forward Relaying: Which is More Energy Efficient in 60-GHz Dual-Hop Indoor Wireless Systems?

We provide a comprehensive energy efficiency (EE) analysis of the full-duplex (FD) and half-duplex (HD) amplify-and-forward (AF) relay-assisted 60-GHz dual-hop indoor wireless systems, aiming to answer the question of which relaying mode is greener (more energy efficient) and to address the issue of EE optimization. We develop an opportunistic relaying mode selection scheme, where FD relaying with one-stage self-interference cancellation (passive suppression) or two-stage self-interference cancellation (passive suppression + analog cancellation) or HD relaying is opportunistically selected, together with transmission power adaptation, to maximize the EE with given channel gains. A low-complexity joint mode selection and EE optimization algorithm are proposed. We show a counter-intuitive finding that with a relatively loose maximum transmission power constraint, FD relaying with two-stage self-interference cancellation is preferable to both FD relaying with one-stage self-interference cancellation and HD relaying, resulting in a higher optimized EE. A full range of power consumption sources is considered to rationalize our analysis. The effects of imperfect self-interference cancellation at relay, drain efficiency, and static circuit power on EE are investigated. Simulation results verify our theoretical analysis

RF Energy Harvesting Wireless Networks: Challenges And Opportunities

Energy harvesting wireless networks is one of the most researched topics in this decade, both in industry and academia, as it can offer self-sustaining sensor networks. With RF energy harvesting (RF-EH) embedded, the sensors can operate for extended periods by harvesting energy from the environment or by receiving it as an Energy signal from a hybrid base station (HBS). Thus, providing sustainable solutions for managing massive numbers of sensor nodes. However, the biggest hurdle of RF energy is the low energy density due to spreading loss. This paper investigates the RF-EH node hardware and design essentials, performance matrices of RF-EH. Power management in energy harvesting nodes is discussed. Furthermore, an information criticality algorithm is proposed for critical and hazardous use cases. Finally, some of the RF-EH applications and the opportunities of 5G technologies for the RF-EH are introduced