This paper presents the design and implementation of the first in-band full duplex WiFi radios that can simultaneously transmit and receive on the same channel using standard WiFi 802.11ac PHYs and achieves close to the theoretical doubling of throughput in all practical deployment scenarios. Our design uses a single antenna for simultaneous TX/RX (i.e., the same resources as a standard half duplex system). We also propose novel analog and digital cancellation techniques that cancel the self interference to the receiver noise floor, and therefore ensure that there is no degradation to the received signal. We prototype our design by building our own analog circuit boards and integrating them with a fully WiFi-PHY compatible software radio implementation. We show experimentally that our design works robustly in noisy indoor environments, and provides close to the expected theoretical doubling of throughput in practice.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/2486001.2486033

Full duplex radios

In-band full-duplex (IBFD) operation has emerged as an attractive solution for increasing the throughput of wireless communication systems and networks. With IBFD, a wireless terminal is allowed to transmit and receive simultaneously in the same frequency band. This tutorial paper reviews the main concepts of IBFD wireless. One of the biggest practical impediments to IBFD operation is the presence of self-interference, i.e., the interference that the modem's transmitter causes to its own receiver. This tutorial surveys a wide range of IBFD self-interference mitigation techniques. Also discussed are numerous other research challenges and opportunities in the design and analysis of IBFD wireless systems.

/pdf/in-band-full-duplex-wireless-challenges-and-opportunities-djlyhtrciu.pdf

In-Band Full-Duplex Wireless: Challenges and Opportunities

In-band full-duplex (IBFD) operation has emerged as an attractive solution for increasing the throughput of wireless communication systems and networks. With IBFD, a wireless terminal is allowed to transmit and receive simultaneously in the same frequency band. This tutorial paper reviews the main concepts of IBFD wireless. Because one the biggest practical impediments to IBFD operation is the presence of self-interference, i.e., the interference caused by an IBFD node's own transmissions to its desired receptions, this tutorial surveys a wide range of IBFD self-interference mitigation techniques. Also discussed are numerous other research challenges and opportunities in the design and analysis of IBFD wireless systems.

This paper presents a full duplex radio design using signal inversion and adaptive cancellation. Signal inversion uses a simple design based on a balanced/unbalanced (Balun) transformer. This new design, unlike prior work, supports wideband and high power systems. In theory, this new design has no limitation on bandwidth or power. In practice, we find that the signal inversion technique alone can cancel at least 45dB across a 40MHz bandwidth. Further, combining signal inversion cancellation with cancellation in the digital domain can reduce self-interference by up to 73dB for a 10MHz OFDM signal. This paper also presents a full duplex medium access control (MAC) design and evaluates it using a testbed of 5 prototype full duplex nodes. Full duplex reduces packet losses due to hidden terminals by up to 88%. Full duplex also mitigates unfair channel allocation in AP-based networks, increasing fairness from 0.85 to 0.98 while improving downlink throughput by 110% and uplink throughput by 15%. These experimental results show that a re- design of the wireless network stack to exploit full duplex capability can result in significant improvements in network performance.

/pdf/practical-real-time-full-duplex-wireless-48e487yqxp.pdf

Practical, real-time, full duplex wireless

We present an experiment-based characterization of passive suppression and active self-interference cancellation mechanisms in full-duplex wireless communication systems. In particular, we consider passive suppression due to antenna separation at the same node, and active cancellation in analog and/or digital domain. First, we show that the average amount of cancellation increases for active cancellation techniques as the received self-interference power increases. Our characterization of the average cancellation as a function of the self-interference power allows us to show that for a constant signal-to-interference ratio at the receiver antenna (before any active cancellation is applied), the rate of a full-duplex link increases as the self-interference power increases. Second, we show that applying digital cancellation after analog cancellation can sometimes increase the self-interference, and thus digital cancellation is more effective when applied selectively based on measured suppression values. Third, we complete our study of the impact of self-interference cancellation mechanisms by characterizing the probability distribution of the self-interference channel before and after cancellation.

/pdf/experiment-driven-characterization-of-full-duplex-wireless-3u33o8w3q1.pdf

Experiment-Driven Characterization of Full-Duplex Wireless Systems

This paper discusses the design of a single channel full-duplex wireless transceiver. The design uses a combination of RF and baseband techniques to achieve full-duplexing with minimal effect on link reliability. Experiments on real nodes show the full-duplex prototype achieves median performance that is within 8% of an ideal full-duplexing system. This paper presents Antenna Cancellation, a novel technique for self-interference cancellation. In conjunction with existing RF interference cancellation and digital baseband interference cancellation, antenna cancellation achieves the amount of self-interference cancellation required for full-duplex operation. The paper also discusses potential MAC and network gains with full-duplexing. It suggests ways in which a full-duplex system can solve some important problems with existing wireless systems including hidden terminals, loss of throughput due to congestion, and large end-to-end delays.

/pdf/achieving-single-channel-full-duplex-wireless-communication-3pg630e002.pdf

Achieving single channel, full duplex wireless communication

In one aspect there is provided a method. The method may include receiving a first analog radio frequency signal including a signal of interest and an interference signal caused by a second analog radio frequency signal transmitted in full duplex over a channel from which the first analog transmission is received; combining the first analog radio frequency signal and a portion of the second analog radio frequency signal to generate an output analog radio frequency signal characterized by at least a reduction or an elimination of the interference signal included in the output analog radio frequency signal; and providing the output analog radio frequency signal. Related apparatus, systems, methods, and articles are also described.

Single channel full duplex wireless communications

This paper explores metrics that capture to what degree packet reception on different links is correlated. Specifically, it explores metrics that shed light on when and why opportunistic routing and network coding protocols perform well (or badly). It presents a new metric, κ that, unlike existing widely used metrics, has no bias based on the packet reception ratios of links. This lack of bias makes κ a better predictor of performance of opportunistic routing and network coding protocols. Comparing Deluge and Rateless Deluge, Deluge's network coding counterpart, we find that κ can predict which of the two is best suited for a given environment. For example, irrespective of the packet reception ratios of the links, if the average κ of the link pairs is very high (close to 1.0), then using a protocol that does not code works better than using a network coding protocol. Measuring κ on several 802.15.4 and 802.11 testbeds, we find that it varies significantly across network topologies and link layers. κ can be a metric for quantifying what kind of a network is present and help decide which protocols to use for that network.

https://sing.stanford.edu/pubs/sing-09-02.pdf

The κ factor: inferring protocol performance using inter-link reception correlation

A circuit that cancels a self-interference signal includes, in part, a pair of signal paths that are substantially in phase, each of which paths includes a passive coupler, a delay element and a variable attenuator. The circuit further includes, in part, a first group of P signal paths each of which is substantially in phase with the pair of paths, and a second group of M signal paths each of which is substantially out-of-phase relative to the pair of signal paths. Each of the P and M signal paths includes a delay element and a variable attenuator. Furthermore, (P−1) signal paths of the first group of P signal paths, and (M−1) signal paths of the second group of M signal paths include a passive coupler. Optionally, each of the M signal paths is optionally 180° out-of-phase relative to the pair of signal paths.

Jung-Il Choi

Papers

Achieving single channel, full duplex wireless communication

Practical, real-time, full duplex wireless

Single channel full duplex wireless communications

The κ factor: inferring protocol performance using inter-link reception correlation

Feed forward signal cancellation