On the scalability of constructive interference in low-power wireless networks

Constructive baseband interference has been recently introduced in low-power wireless networks as a promising technique enabling low-latency network flooding and sub-μs time synchronisation among network nodes. The scalability of this technique has been questioned in regards to the maximum temporal misalignment among baseband signals, due to the variety of path delays in the network. By contrast, we find that the scalability is compromised, in the first place, by emerging fast fading in the composite channel, which originates in the carrier frequency disparity of the participating repeaters nodes. We investigate the multisource wave problem and show the resulting signal becomes vulnerable in the presence of noise, leading to significant deterioration of the link whenever the carriers have similar amplitudes.This work was partially supported by National Funds through FCT (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) and by ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) through COMPETE (Operational Programme ‘Thematic Factors of Competitiveness’), within projects FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-014922 (MASQOTS) and FCOMP- 01-0124-FEDER-037281 (CISTER). We wish to thank Fernando A. Miranda Bonomi (National University of Tucum´an, Argentina), for fruitful discussions and early contributions to this work during the ICTP School on Applications of Open Spectrum and White Spaces Technologies

GNU Radio

GNU Radio is a free & open-source software development toolkit that provides signal processing blocks to implement software radios. It can be used with readily-available, low-cost external RF hardware to create software-defined radios, or without hardware in a simulation-like environment. It is widely used in hobbyist, academic, and commercial environments to support both wireless communications research and real-world radio systems