Towards Programming the Radio Environment with Large Arrays of Inexpensive Antennas
Towards Programming the Radio Environment with Large Arrays of Inexpensive Antennas
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发表时间：
2019
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通讯作者：
Zhuqi Li;Yaxiong Xie;Longfei Shangguan;R. I. Zelaya;J. Gummeson;Wenjun Hu;Kyle Jamieson
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作者：
Zhuqi Li;Yaxiong Xie;Longfei Shangguan;R. I. Zelaya;J. Gummeson;Wenjun Hu;Kyle Jamieson
传统思维将无线信道视为一种约束，因此无线网络设计到目前为止的目标是最好地利用信道的端点设计。示例包括发射器的速率和功率控制，复杂的接收器解码器设计，以及数据本身的高性能前向纠错。相反，我们探索是否有可能重新配置环境本身以促进无线通信。在这项工作中，我们使用大量廉价天线（LAIA）元件阵列来测量环境，并设计算法来实时配置LAIA元件。我们的系统通过快速调整每个LAIA元件的板载移相器实现了高水平的可编程性。我们设计了一种信道分解算法，以快速估计由于单独环境而导致的无线信道，从而使我们能够对齐LAIA元素的相位。然后，我们的核心算法的变体改进了单天线和多天线链路的无线信道，以及在相邻频带上运行的附近网络。我们在真实的室内家庭环境中实现并部署了一个36元的LAIA阵列。在此设置下的实验表明，通过重新配置无线环境，我们可以在基线单天线链路上平均提高24%的TCP吞吐量和51.4%的Shannon容量中位数提高。在基线多天线链路上，LAIA在Shannon容量上实现了12.23%至18.95%的改进。
Conventional thinking treats the wireless channel as a constraint, so wireless network designs to date target endpoint designs that best utilize the channel. Examples include rate and power control at the transmitter, sophisticated receiver de-coder designs, and high-performance forward error correction for the data itself. We instead explore whether it is possible to reconfigure the environment itself to facilitate wireless communication. In this work, we instrument the environment with a large array of inexpensive antenna (LAIA) elements, and design algorithms to configure LAIA elements in real time. Our system achieves a high level of programmability through rapid adjustments of an on-board phase shifter in each LAIA element. We design a channel decomposition algorithm to quickly estimate the wireless channel due to the environment alone, which leads us to a process to align the phases of the LAIA elements. Variations of our core algo-rithm then improve wireless channels on the fly for single-and multi-antenna links, as well as nearby networks operating on adjacent frequency bands. We implement and deploy a 36-element LAIA array in a real indoor home environment. Experiments in this setting show that, by reconfiguring the wireless environment, we can achieve a 24% TCP throughput improvement on average and a median improvement of 51.4% in Shannon capacity over baseline single-antenna links. Over baseline multi-antenna links, LAIA achieves an improvement of 12.23% to 18.95% in Shannon capacity.