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

Reciprocity Calibration for Massive MIMO: Proposal, Modeling and Validation

This paper presents a mutual coupling based calibration method for time-division-duplex massive MIMO systems, which enables downlink precoding based on uplink channel estimates. The entire calibration procedure is carried out solely at the base station (BS) side by sounding all BS antenna pairs. An Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm is derived, which processes the measured channels in order to estimate calibration coefficients. The EM algorithm outperforms current state-of-the-art narrow-band calibration schemes in a mean squared error (MSE) and sum-rate capacity sense. Like its predecessors, the EM algorithm is general in the sense that it is not only suitable to calibrate a co-located massive MIMO BS, but also very suitable for calibrating multiple BSs in distributed MIMO systems. The proposed method is validated with experimental evidence obtained from a massive MIMO testbed. In addition, we address the estimated narrow-band calibration coefficients as a stochastic process across frequency, and study the subspace of this process based on measurement data. With the insights of this study, we propose an estimator which exploits the structure of the process in order to reduce the calibration error across frequency. A model for the calibration error is also proposed based on the asymptotic properties of the estimator, and is validated with measurement results.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 21/Feb/201

Vandermonde-subspace Frequency Division Multiplexing for Two-Tiered Cognitive Radio Networks

Vandermonde-subspace frequency division multiplexing (VFDM) is an overlay spectrum sharing technique for cognitive radio. VFDM makes use of a precoder based on a Vandermonde structure to transmit information over a secondary system, while keeping an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based primary system interference-free. To do so, VFDM exploits frequency selectivity and the use of cyclic prefixes by the primary system. Herein, a global view of VFDM is presented, including also practical aspects such as linear receivers and the impact of channel estimation. We show that VFDM provides a spectral efficiency increase of up to 1 bps/Hz over cognitive radio systems based on unused band detection. We also present some key design parameters for its future implementation and a feasible channel estimation protocol. Finally we show that, even when some of the theoretical assumptions are relaxed, VFDM provides non-negligible rates while protecting the primary system.Comment: 9 pages, accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Communication

On Channel Reciprocity to Activate Uplink Channel Training for Downlink Wireless Transmission in Tactile Internet Applications

We determine, for the first time, the requirement on channel reciprocity to activate uplink channel training, instead of downlink channel training, to achieve a higher data rate for the downlink transmission from a multi-antenna base station to a single-antenna user. We first derive novel closed-form expressions for the lower bounds on the data rates achieved by the two channel training strategies by considering the impact of finite blocklength. The performance comparison result of these two strategies is determined by the amount of channel reciprocity that is utilized in the uplink channel training. We then derive an approximated expression for the minimum channel reciprocity that enables the uplink channel training to outperform the downlink channel training. Through numerical results, we demonstrate that this minimum channel reciprocity decreases as the blocklength decreases or the number of transmit antennas increases, which shows the necessity and benefits of activating the uplink channel training for short-packet communications with multiple transmit antennas. This work provides pivotal and unprecedented guidelines on choosing channel training strategies and channel reciprocity calibrations, offering valuable insights into latency reduction in the Tactile Internet applications.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Submitted to IEEE ICC 2018 Worksho