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

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