CAREER: MIMO-Based Blind Interference Cancellation for Wireless Networking

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Interference management is a central theme in the design of wireless technologies and systems as evidenced by its evolution from interference avoidance in 2G/3G networks to interference exploitation in 4G networks. However, most of the existing interference management techniques are highly inefficient and not amenable to practical implementation as they require network-wide coordination as well as knowledge of interference characteristics. It is therefore important to develop blind interference cancellation (BIC) techniques that can tame unknown interference in uncoordinated networks. The objective of the proposed research is to develop BIC techniques and use them to advance networking solutions for 5G communications. Success of the proposed research will not only improve spectrum utilization efficiency and flexibility by enabling transparent spectrum sharing between uncoordinated networks, but also reduce the costs of network deployment and maintenance through infrastructure integration for heterogeneous networks. Although there exist many sophisticated interference management techniques, most of them are limited to cooperative networks where the network nodes have knowledge of interference characteristics (e.g., waveform, frame format, and pilot signals). The goal of this project is to develop BIC techniques that can tame unknown interference by leveraging recent advances in Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology, and use the BIC techniques to advance networking solutions for 5G communications. The proposed research will be carried out through three inter-dependent research thrusts: (1) develop a generic MIMO-based BIC framework that enables a wireless receiver to decode its signal in the face of strong unknown interference; (2) develop a transparent spectrum sharing scheme that allows uncoordinated networks to use the same spectrum at the same time; and (3) integrate a small-cell base station into a multi-antenna Wi-Fi access point (AP) to demonstrate the feasibility of infrastructure sharing between heterogeneous networks (e.g., Wi-Fi and current cellular). The research effort is inter-disciplinary, utilizing communications theory, algorithm and protocol design, as well as cross-layer optimization. The algorithms and protocols developed in this project are complemented by a system-level prototyping and experimentation effort aimed at guaranteeing that the technologies developed are suitable for deployment in real-world wireless systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.