Full-Duplex Systems Using Multi-Reconfigurable Antennas

Full-duplex systems are expected to achieve 100% rate improvement over half-duplex systems if the self-interference signal can be significantly mitigated. In this paper, we propose the first full-duplex system utilizing Multi-Reconfigurable Antenna (MRA) with ?90% rate improvement compared to half-duplex systems. MRA is a dynamically reconfigurable antenna structure, that is capable of changing its properties according to certain input configurations. A comprehensive experimental analysis is conducted to characterize the system performance in typical indoor environments. The experiments are performed using a fabricated MRA that has 4096 configurable radiation patterns. The achieved MRA-based passive self-interference suppression is investigated, with detailed analysis for the MRA training overhead. In addition, a heuristic-based approach is proposed to reduce the MRA training overhead. The results show that at 1% training overhead, a total of 95dB self-interference cancellation is achieved in typical indoor environments. The 95dB self-interference cancellation is experimentally shown to be sufficient for 90% full-duplex rate improvement compared to half-duplex systems.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communication

All-Digital Self-interference Cancellation Technique for Full-duplex Systems

Full-duplex systems are expected to double the spectral efficiency compared to conventional half-duplex systems if the self-interference signal can be significantly mitigated. Digital cancellation is one of the lowest complexity self-interference cancellation techniques in full-duplex systems. However, its mitigation capability is very limited, mainly due to transmitter and receiver circuit's impairments. In this paper, we propose a novel digital self-interference cancellation technique for full-duplex systems. The proposed technique is shown to significantly mitigate the self-interference signal as well as the associated transmitter and receiver impairments. In the proposed technique, an auxiliary receiver chain is used to obtain a digital-domain copy of the transmitted Radio Frequency (RF) self-interference signal. The self-interference copy is then used in the digital-domain to cancel out both the self-interference signal and the associated impairments. Furthermore, to alleviate the receiver phase noise effect, a common oscillator is shared between the auxiliary and ordinary receiver chains. A thorough analytical and numerical analysis for the effect of the transmitter and receiver impairments on the cancellation capability of the proposed technique is presented. Finally, the overall performance is numerically investigated showing that using the proposed technique, the self-interference signal could be mitigated to ~3dB higher than the receiver noise floor, which results in up to 76% rate improvement compared to conventional half-duplex systems at 20dBm transmit power values.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communication

Distributed Full-duplex via Wireless Side Channels: Bounds and Protocols

In this paper, we study a three-node full-duplex network, where a base station is engaged in simultaneous up- and downlink communication in the same frequency band with two half-duplex mobile nodes. To reduce the impact of inter- node interference between the two mobile nodes on the system capacity, we study how an orthogonal side-channel between the two mobile nodes can be leveraged to achieve full-duplex-like multiplexing gains. We propose and characterize the achievable rates of four distributed full-duplex schemes, labeled bin-and- cancel, compress-and-cancel, estimate-and-cancel and decode- and-cancel. Of the four, bin-and-cancel is shown to achieve within 1 bit/s/Hz of the capacity region for all values of channel parameters. In contrast, the other three schemes achieve the near-optimal performance only in certain regimes of channel values. Asymptotic multiplexing gains of all proposed schemes are derived to show that the side-channel is extremely effective in regimes where inter-node interference has the highest impact.Comment: Published in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, August 201

Simultaneous Bidirectional Link Selection in Full Duplex MIMO Systems

In this paper, we consider a point to point full duplex (FD) MIMO communication system. We assume that each node is equipped with an arbitrary number of antennas which can be used for transmission or reception. With FD radios, bidirectional information exchange between two nodes can be achieved at the same time. In this paper we design bidirectional link selection schemes by selecting a pair of transmit and receive antenna at both ends for communications in each direction to maximize the weighted sum rate or minimize the weighted sum symbol error rate (SER). The optimal selection schemes require exhaustive search, so they are highly complex. To tackle this problem, we propose a Serial-Max selection algorithm, which approaches the exhaustive search methods with much lower complexity. In the Serial-Max method, the antenna pairs with maximum "obtainable SINR" at both ends are selected in a two-step serial way. The performance of the proposed Serial-Max method is analyzed, and the closed-form expressions of the average weighted sum rate and the weighted sum SER are derived. The analysis is validated by simulations. Both analytical and simulation results show that as the number of antennas increases, the Serial-Max method approaches the performance of the exhaustive-search schemes in terms of sum rate and sum SER

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