Large-Scale Software Defined Radio Systems: Design, Implementation, and Evaluation

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dc.contributor.advisorKnightly, Edward W
dc.creatorGuerra, Ryan Guerra Elliot
dc.date.accessioned2019-05-16T16:48:32Z
dc.date.available2019-05-16T16:48:32Z
dc.date.created2019-05
dc.date.issued2019-04-19
dc.date.submittedMay 2019
dc.date.updated2019-05-16T16:48:32Z
dc.description.abstractSince 2012, Television White Space (TVWS) systems have been permitted unlicensed operation on unused television channels between 50 to 800 MHz utilizing radio spectrum sharing techniques. Often considered “beachfront property” radio spectrum for their advantageous propagation characteristics, 6 MHz TVWS channels are nevertheless narrow relative to other unlicensed radio frequency bands and often fragmented, resulting in low network throughput and limiting their usefulness for modern, high-bandwidth applications. However, new many-antenna radio technologies have been shown to improve spectral efficiency beyond 100 bits/s/Hz, mitigating the need for wide channel bandwidths by leveraging spatial multiplexing. This presents an opportunity to deploy new unlicensed wireless networks that are large-scale in both range and speed as well as the number of coherent radios utilized for Multi-User Beamforming (MUBF). In this thesis, we design and implement the first scalable, agile, Software-Defined Radio (SDR) platform designed to support multi-user beamforming on TVWS. This design addresses key physical layer implementation barriers such as: fast automatic gain control, ultra-wideband power transfer networks, and distributed clocking architecture for scalable MUBF. Through an extensive series of indoor and outdoor measurements using our new platform, we show that in comparison to other unlicensed frequency bands, measured TVWS channels have temporal characteristics that are more beneficial for MUBF while maintaining nearly the same amount of spatial diversity. We leverage this new experimental insight to design an opportunistic MUBF protocol for 802.11af-like networks that can avoid all overhead associated with MUBF channel estimation by exploiting the high stability of fixed TVWS channels. We emulate this protocol based on empirical measurements and show that our opportunistic channel sounding protocol outperforms alternative 802.11af-based strategies for 4×4 or 8×4 MUBF when packets are short and modulation rates are high. For high-order MUBF like 32 × 16, opportunistic channel sounding outperforms alternatives by avoiding significant overhead that scales with the degree of spatial multiplexing. Through a comprehensive end-to-end system design addressing hardware, digital, and protocol challenges with final system validation, we develop a holistic new approach for leveraging TVWS to enable very large-scale, unlicensed wireless systems with gigabit network throughput.
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.citationGuerra, Ryan Guerra Elliot. "Large-Scale Software Defined Radio Systems: Design, Implementation, and Evaluation." (2019) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/105344">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/105344</a>.
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/105344
dc.language.isoeng
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.
dc.subjectTVWS
dc.subjectTelevision White Space
dc.subjectSDR
dc.subjectSoftware-Defined Radio
dc.subjectUHF
dc.subjectMIMO
dc.subjectRF
dc.subjectMany-Antenna MIMO
dc.subjectMassive MIMO
dc.subjectMUBF
dc.subjectZFBF
dc.subjectMulti-User Beamforming
dc.subjectZero-Forcing Beamforming
dc.subjectBeamforming
dc.titleLarge-Scale Software Defined Radio Systems: Design, Implementation, and Evaluation
dc.typeThesis
dc.type.materialText
thesis.degree.departmentElectrical and Computer Engineering
thesis.degree.disciplineEngineering
thesis.degree.grantorRice University
thesis.degree.levelDoctoral
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophy
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