<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD JATS (Z39.96) Journal Archiving and Interchange DTD v1.0 20120330//EN" "JATS-archivearticle1.dtd">
<article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
  <front>
    <journal-meta />
    <article-meta>
      <title-group>
        <article-title>SDR Demonstration System for the Investigation of Cooperative Communication and the Scaling Behaviour of MANETs</article-title>
      </title-group>
      <contrib-group>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Mus'ab Yu¨ksel</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Milenko Starcik</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Florian Hofmann</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Raphael Rolny</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Marc Kuhn</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Michael Kuhn</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Hochschule Darmstadt (h-da)</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Darmstadt</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Germany</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>armasuisse Science</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Technology</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Switzerland</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>ETH Zurich</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Zurich</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Switzerland</string-name>
        </contrib>
      </contrib-group>
      <pub-date>
        <year>2020</year>
      </pub-date>
      <fpage>46</fpage>
      <lpage>63</lpage>
      <abstract>
        <p>Efficient broadcasting is very important for currently poorly scaling mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs). Cooperative transmission protocols can significantly improve the scaling behaviour. This paper focuses on the implementation of a scalable MANET demonstration system with multiple software-defined radios (SDRs) which allows to thoroughly investigate different cooperative transmission and broadcast techniques and the improvements which can be achieved in practical systems. Measurement results show the advantages of cooperative broadcasting, distributed transmit diversity, and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) aggregation.</p>
      </abstract>
      <kwd-group>
        <kwd>Demonstration-System</kwd>
        <kwd>Cooperative Communication</kwd>
        <kwd>Distributed Transmit Diversity</kwd>
        <kwd>Space-Time Block Codes</kwd>
        <kwd>Alamouti</kwd>
        <kwd>Software Defined Radio (SDR)</kwd>
        <kwd>Signal-To-Noise-Ratio (SNR) Aggregation</kwd>
        <kwd>Cooperative Broadcast</kwd>
        <kwd>Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) Scalability</kwd>
        <kwd>Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM)</kwd>
        <kwd>Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)</kwd>
        <kwd>Filter Bank Multi-Carrier (FBMC)</kwd>
      </kwd-group>
    </article-meta>
  </front>
  <body>
    <sec id="sec-1">
      <title>Introduction</title>
      <p>
        Mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) play a vital role in mission critical
communication systems that should deliver reliable communication means in all
situations, e.g. if conventional networks (LTE, Wi-Fi, wired broadband systems, etc.)
are not available or collapse. As such systems cannot rely on fixed
infrastructure such as wired routers or managed access points, they have to be designed
in a decentralized manner, should be self-organizing, and avoid single points of
failure. Advantages of MANETs over managed networks include flexibility (they
can be built everywhere), low administration costs (no need to build
infrastructure), self-healing ability (new paths can be established if links break or nodes
disappear), and scalability (networks can easily be extended by more nodes) [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1">1</xref>
        ].
Due to their dynamic and flexible nature, MANETs are thus widely used in
secured and robust networks for public authorities, disaster rescue, transportation,
unmanned vehicles, sensor networks, or military communications [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1 ref2">1, 2</xref>
        ].
2
      </p>
      <p>
        As shown in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3">3</xref>
        ], the accumulated throughput in a MANET with N nodes
can however not grow larger than O(√N ) when the messages are forwarded in
a unicast multi-hop fashion. This means, such networks scale poorly with an
increasing number of nodes. Besides this, also the necessary network
organization introduces a growing overhead. As each node can move independently and
in any direction, the links between nodes may change frequently. The multi-hop
forwarding thus requires sophisticated routing algorithms. Especially in large
dynamic networks where the topology is constantly changing, routing information
has to be shared among all nodes in the network to establish and maintain correct
and up-to-date routing tables [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2 ref4 ref5">2, 4, 5</xref>
        ]. The overhead introduced by sharing
routing information can thus lead to a significant decrease in network performance
(e.g. long delays, throughput degradation, connectivity problems, and others).
In case of a proactive routing strategy, typically Hello and Topology-Control
(TC) messages are distributed. The TC messages are broadcast (or multicast)
messages sent from each node to all (or a subset of) other nodes in the MANET.
Hence, effective and efficient broadcasting is very important to implement
reliable and efficient routing strategies.
      </p>
      <p>
        With cooperative transmission protocols, the scaling behavior can
significantly be improved: Information theoretical work has shown that a scaling law
of O(N log N ) is achievable [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref6">6</xref>
        ]. The proposed cooperative transmission method
of distributed hierarchical multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission
is, however, of high complexity and difficult to implement in practice. In order
to improve the scaling behavior of practical MANETs, some other cooperative
approaches have been developed. Examples are multistage cooperative broadcast
[7] and barrage relaying [8]. These cooperative approaches focus on broadcast
(or multicast) instead of unicast communication. Thereby, all nodes which were
able to correctly decode the message transmitted by a source node in a first
time slot support the transmission in the next time slot by re-transmitting the
same message simultaneously. Nodes that could decode the message in the
second time slot start to re-transmit it in the following time slot and so on until
all intended nodes receive the message successfully. In order to achieve a
diversity gain, [7] proposes to use a distributed transmit diversity scheme such that
the different signal contributions add up in power at the receiving nodes and
the messages spread through the network quickly. Barrage relaying [8] follows
a similar approach but applies a specific phase dithering scheme in addition to
turbo-like error correction. Each transmitting node pseudo-randomly dithers its
carrier phase, such that the superposition of these signals induces a time-varying
channel characteristic at the receiving nodes. An error correction code is then
used to extract time diversity provided by the time-varying fading channel.
      </p>
      <p>
        Compared to classical broadcasting, such cooperative communication
methods can achieve large gains by reducing the required number of time slots to
spread messages to all (intended) nodes. Improving the efficiency of
broadcasting in a MANET can also enhance the scaling behavior of the network when
unicast traffic is considered. This is because the overhead introduced by routing
is one main reason for the poor scalability. Establishing and updating routing
tables is often based on broadcasting. Having a more efficient spreading of the
routing information thus results in more resources available for transmitting
unicast messages. Therefore, cooperative transmission schemes can improve the
performance of MANETs in various ways:
– To quickly spread messages to multiple (multicast) or all (broadcast) other
nodes in the network.
– To efficiently establish and refresh proactive routing tables in a MANET,
specifically to distribute Hello and TC messages.
– To distribute the message of a source node to its neighborhood to form a
virtual MIMO (VMIMO) cluster that can further improve the performance
by spatial multiplexing (cf. distributed hierarchical MIMO transmission [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref6">6</xref>
        ]).
Contribution: In this paper, we focus on the implementation of a
demonstration system to study different cooperative transmission and broadcast
techniques and the gains that can be achieved with them in practice. The developed
system is based on multiple software-defined radios (SDRs), is very flexible,
implements single-carrier quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM),
orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) as well as filter bank multi-carrier
(FBMC) modulation, and allows for comparison of all combinations of the
implemented modulation and cooperation schemes. Using this demonstration system,
we develop, implement, and study practical and efficient MANET broadcasting
schemes based on cooperative transmission protocols (e.g., distributed transmit
diversity schemes) for multi-carrier systems.
      </p>
      <p>In a first step, we study a distributed Alamouti scheme [9] and extend it to a
combination with signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) aggregation for cooperative
broadcasts in a single-carrier setup. With SNR aggregation, each receiver node stores
two or more observations of the broadcast message and, eventually, combines
them to enhance the probability of successful decoding.</p>
      <p>In a second step, we show that the system is very flexible and scalable
regarding both the number of participating nodes and number of multi-carrier
tones. Furthermore, we outline how these schemes can drastically improve the
broadcasting in MANETs.
2</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-2">
      <title>Design and Setup of the Demonstration System</title>
      <p>To build a scalable and flexible MANET demonstration system, different
hardware platforms and development environments have been investigated to find
the most suitable selection. Thereafter, first a simulation environment has been
developed to prove that the signal processing and principal signal chains are
working as expected. Second, the software has been adapted on real hardware
using SDRs. Last, some measurements have been conducted to prove the concept
and show that the demonstration system can be used to verify and demonstrate
various cooperation schemes.</p>
      <p>Within this section, the system model used for the demonstration system
and a brief overview of the state of the art will be provided. Thereafter, the
4
hardware and software setup will be explained in detail. The section will end by
discussing the transmitter and receiver implementation.
2.1</p>
      <sec id="sec-2-1">
        <title>System Model</title>
        <p>For the demonstration system we consider a distributed multiple-input
singleoutput (MISO) system consisting of multiple source nodes TXn, n = 1, 2, . . . , N ,
and a single destination node RX, all equipped with a single antenna as shown
in Figure 1. Distributed MISO systems are often considered to be a promising
approach in MANETs as several nodes can assist each other in transmitting data
and thus increasing the range and reducing the outage probability.</p>
        <p>TX2</p>
        <p>TX3</p>
        <p>TX1</p>
        <p>The transmit symbol vector x ∈ C1xN comprises the symbols of all
cooperating nodes. The structure of x depends on the cooperation scheme used by
the nodes (e.g. distributed transmit diversity or distributed beamforming). The
single antenna receiver RX observes the received symbol y ∈ C1x1 with
y = hT · x + n,
(1)
where h ∈ C1xN is the channel vector assuming a narrowband channel model
in the equivalent baseband, comprising the complex channel taps between each
transmitter and the receiver. The scalar n ∈ C1x1 models additive white
Gaussian noise.</p>
        <p>The demonstration system is designed such that it allows to study different
forms of transmit cooperation combined with different modulation schemes, as
e.g., single-carrier modulation, OFDM, and FBMC. Thereby, we are particularly
interested in cooperation techniques that apply transmit diversity.
2.2</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-2">
        <title>State of the Art</title>
        <p>In literature, different transmit diversity techniques are proposed to mitigate
the effect of short term fading. Examples of such techniques include delay
diversity schemes [10], space-time codes, space-frequency codes, phase roll
diversity schemes [11]. In the following, we focus on space-time codes. We
distinguish roughly between orthogonal space-time block codes (OSTBCs) [9, 12],
nonorthogonal space time block codes (NOSTBCs) [13, 14], and trellis codes [15]. In
a first step, we are going to study the use of distributed OSTBCs with the help
of our demonstration system.</p>
        <p>The first orthogonal space-time block code was the Alamouti code, a
transmit diversity scheme for two transmit antennas [9]. Tarokh et al. generalized
the principle of this scheme in [12], where they proposed space-time block codes
from orthogonal designs. Theses codes can be designed for any number of
transmit antennas and they achieve the full transmit diversity gain. The
maximumlikelihood (ML) decoding is very simple and of very low complexity. The most
important disadvantage is, that OSTBCs for more than two antennas do not
achieve the full rate, i.e. they lead to a rate loss. For more than four antennas
the maximum rate is only 0.5 (for n = 3 and n = 4 transmit antennas, there are
OSTBCs achieving a rate of R = 43 ).</p>
        <p>In this paper, we apply a distributed transmit diversity scheme based on the
Alamouti code. The goal is to implement an efficient cooperative broadcasting
scheme.</p>
        <p>A similar multi-antenna diversity demonstration system which utilizes the
Alamouti scheme on USRP boards is described in [16]. The authors have
successfully implemented a complete communication system using SDRs, MATLAB
and GNU Radio. However, the focus of their work was on the implementation
aspects using two SDRs and not on the scaling behaviour of MANETs. Hence,
only a single SDR equipped with two antennas was used on the transmit side
and another SDR on the receiving side.</p>
        <p>One very important aspect to achieve transmit diversity through the use of
space-time block codes (STBC) like the Alamouti scheme is knowledge about
the channel impulse response (CIR) at the receiver. The channel estimation
performance of a MIMO-OFDM system based on the Alamouti scheme is studied
in [17]. However, no measurements on hardware have been performed.</p>
        <p>MATLAB in combination with SDRs seems to be a popular approach to build
up a demonstration system with low costs. Measel et. al. also implemented an
OFDM-MIMO demonstration system utilizing the Alamouti scheme [18]. Unlike
the focus of this paper, their demonstration system was implemented to
characterize already existing communication systems but not to investigate cooperative
broadcast techniques with respect to the scalability of MANETs.</p>
        <p>Horva´th and Bakki implemented a prototype transmission link for FBMC
[19]. They also used the USRP SDR platform from Ettus Research for the
transmitter and receiver. Moreover, they performed some measurements regarding the
power spectral density, the peak-to-average power ratio, and the bit error rate
(BER) to validate their system design. In contrast to this paper, they focused on
6
a SISO system and not on a MISO system. Their main aim was the realization
of an FBMC transmission testbed based on one link.</p>
        <p>Dziri et al. implemented a comparable real-time FBMC transmission link
[20]. In addition to [19], they also implemented a channel, hence built up a
more sophisticated transmission model. Comparable to the demonstration
system presented in this paper, they used MATLAB to develop the software and
the USRP SDR platform from Ettus Research. But in contrast, they stuck to a
SISO model and did not further consider any diversity scheme. Their focus was
to solve some practical problems, mainly time and frequency synchronization as
well as channel estimation and equalization.
2.3</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-3">
        <title>Space-Time Coding</title>
        <p>Space-time coding means to code data across both space and time to achieve
transmit diversity. A simple scheme is to use a repetition scheme with two time
slots. In time slot 1, only transmit antenna 1 is transmitting symbol α, in time
slot 2, the same symbol α will be transmitted by antenna 2. This can be described
in matrix notation:
+
Note, that due to the time-slotted approach, the data rate is only 1/2. The
receiver will combine the two signals using the maximum-ratio combining approach
to maximize the SNR of the received signal:</p>
        <p>∗ ∗
y = y1 · h1 + y2 · h2</p>
        <p>∗ ∗
= |h1|2 + |h2|2 α + h1n1 + h2n2.
2.4</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-4">
        <title>Alamouti Scheme</title>
        <p>To overcome the drawback of rate reduction, two symbols have to be transmitted
in two time slots. This is achieved by a transmit symbol vector x1 = (α1, α2)T
in a first time slot and x2 = (−α2∗, α1∗)T in a second. The receiver observes
y1 ∈ C1x1 in the first time slot, and y2 in the second; both are stacked in a
vector (y1, y2)T.</p>
        <p>The resulting matrix notation for this is
which can be rewritten as
y1
y2
y1
y2∗
=
=
y =
r E2s · H · α + n.</p>
        <p>+
+
Decoding will be performed by multiplying with HH:
r = HH · y
=
=
=
r Es</p>
        <p>2 · HHH · α + HHn</p>
        <p>· hh2∗1 −hh21∗ · α + HHn</p>
        <p>Thus, two independent channels are established which gives about 4 dB
improvement compared to the repetition scheme in order to achieve the same data
rate [21].</p>
        <p>Considering a frequency offset of both transmitters with respect to the local
oscillator of the receiver, (4) can be rewritten as
where Ts is the slot duration. Assuming that the frequency offset is so small
that the phase shift that occurs due to the frequency offset between time slot 1
and time slot 2 can be neglected, i.e.
and
=
=
=
(9)
(10)
(11)
(12)
(13)
(14)
(15)
(16)
(17)
(19)
ejω1t ≈ ejω1(t+Ts)
ejω2t ≈ ejω2(t+Ts),
r Es h1∗ · e−jω1t h2 · ejω2t h2 · ejω2t</p>
        <p>2 · h2∗ · e−jω2t −h1 · ejω1t · hh2∗1··ee−jjωω12tt −h1∗ · e−jω1t ·α + HHn (18)
equation (11) can be rewritten as
r = HH · y
r Es
2 · HHH · α + HHn
y1
y2
=
r Es h2 · ejω2t α1
2 · hh2∗1··ee−jjωω12tt −h1∗ · e−jω1t · α2
+</p>
        <p>As described above, decoding can thus be performed by multiplying with HH:
8
Hence, small frequency offsets between the different local oscillators can be
corrected at the receiving side. Estimation of the time-variant channel impulse
response will be performed in two steps:
1. estimation of the complex channel coefficient and
2. estimation of the frequency offset.</p>
        <p>Combining both estimates can be considered as a time-variant CIR.
2.5</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-5">
        <title>Hardware Setup</title>
        <p>For the measurements, three different SDRs of type Ettus Research USRP B210
are used, each connected to a computer. Two SDRs are configured as
transmitters, one as a receiver. For the initial measurements, the SDRs are connected
to the Ettus Research 8-channel clock distribution system CDA-2990 (called
OctoClock). This system generates a 10 MHz reference signal which is used to
derive the carrier frequency and the sampling timing. Additionally, a
one-pulseper-second (PPS) signal is generated and distributed to the SDRs for timing
alignments (cf. Figure 2). The two SDRs are configured to start transmitting
at a certain instant of time. Based on the PPS-pulses, the receiver is configured
to start 0.01 s prior to the transmission. This ensures that the receiver will not
miss the start of a burst, also in case of jitter. Due to the connecting cables
between OctoClock and SDRs, the range of the setup is limited to the lengths
of the cables.</p>
        <sec id="sec-2-5-1">
          <title>SDR Demo-System for MANETs 9</title>
          <p>2.6</p>
        </sec>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-6">
        <title>Software Setup</title>
        <p>Development Environment In order to have a user-friendly interface, a
highperformance interface to the SDR, and a powerful programming language, we
have chosen a combination of three different programming tools:
Simulink: The Simulink environment is part of MATLAB and offers a graphical
user interface which allows to monitor and change signal parameters and settings
during runtime of the measurement. It is therefore the preferred solution for the
user interface. Moreover, it offers the possibility to integrate MATLAB and C++
code, which both will be needed, too.</p>
        <p>MATLAB: MATLAB is very well suited to implement algorithms and signal
processing. A lot of functions are provided by various toolboxes which simplifies
the development. In addition, figures can easily be generated during runtime of
the measurement which eases the development and debugging process.
Therefore, all signal processing functionality is implemented using MATLAB blocks
in Simulink.</p>
        <p>C++: As a C++ API is provided for the SDRs, an interface between MATLAB
and the SDR is programmed using C++. This allows access to sophisticated
functions of the SDRs like synchronization to external pulses and reference
frequencies. The C++ interface can be included in Simulink and MATLAB using
MEX-functions.</p>
        <p>Configuration Relevant settings of the SDRs (such as frequency offsets, gains,
etc.) can be controlled from the Simulink user interface. All other settings are
defined in appropriate initialization-f iles which are called at the software’s startup.
In these files carrier frequency, length of training sequences and data,
interpolation and decimation factors, etc. are set.
2.7</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-7">
        <title>Modulation</title>
        <p>In the current implementation, different modulation schemes are implemented.
The setup allows to select between a single-carrier 4-QAM modulation scheme,
a multi-carrier OFDM and an FBMC scheme using 4-QAM and Offset-4-QAM
on the subcarriers.
2.8</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-8">
        <title>Transmitter Implementation</title>
        <p>The transmitter implementation consists of the burst generation, i.e. combining
training data and payload, coding according to the Alamouti scheme, and pulse
shaping using rectangular pulses. The complex baseband sequence will then be
passed to the SDR interface where the signal is mixed to carrier frequency and
transmitted. For the demonstration system, the payload data is always the same
which allows for simple BER and packet error rate (PER) calculations at the
receiving side.
10
2.9</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-9">
        <title>Receiver Implementation</title>
        <p>PPS pulses are used for coarse synchronization and the start of sampling is
aligned on the rising edge of the PPS pulse. This ensures that full bursts are
sampled and no data will be missed. The SDR mixes data to a low intermediate
frequency. Mixing to baseband and applying a matched filter is then performed
in MATLAB.</p>
        <p>Since for the Alamouti scheme two transmitters are active and therefore CIRs
and carrier frequency offsets have to be estimated for both of them, all further
signal processing blocks are implemented twice. The explanations will
concentrate on one chain as both chains are working similarly. The main difference
is that they use different training sequences and, for the staggered burst
structure, the offset values are different (i.e. the time difference between the training
sequence and the start of the data block has to be adjusted).</p>
        <p>Parameter Estimation The parameter estimation, such as carrier frequency
offset estimation, timing estimation, and estimation of the CIR has to be done
differently for single-carrier and multi-carrier modulation schemes. For
singlecarrier schemes, the estimation is mostly done in time domain, whereas in
multicarrier schemes, the estimation is typically done in frequency domain, resulting
in a complex channel coefficient per subcarrier.</p>
        <p>For the single-carrier system, which we will consider in the following sections,
maximum length sequences (m-sequences) are used to perform the estimation of
carrier frequency offset, timing, and CIR. In order to facilitate the estimation,
three sequences are used, two at the beginning of the burst (used for timing and
CIR estimation as well as coarse frequency offset estimation) and one at the
end of the burst (used for fine frequency offset estimation). As multiple
transmitters are used, orthogonality between the training sequences of the different
transmitters has to be ensured. This can be done using orthogonal sequences,
transmitted simultaneously, or using a time-division multiplexing approach to
transmit the training sequences of the different receivers in a staggered
manner (see Figure 3). Since the used m-sequences are not perfectly orthogonal, i.e.
the cross-correlation between the two training sequences is not zero, there will
be some interference in the simultaneous mode which degrades the estimation,
especially in cases of large carrier frequency offsets.</p>
        <p>For the multi-carrier schemes, pilot tones are often used to estimate the
channel transfer function and the carrier frequency offset. The orthogonality between
the pilots of the different transmitters can be achieved by using a
frequencydivision multiplexing approach, e.g. by assigning every N −th carrier to one
transmitter and interpolating the channel transfer function. This approach works
fine in case the coherence bandwidth of the channel is larger than the spacing
between the pilots.</p>
        <p>Decoding Once frequency offset and complex CIR are estimated, the Alamouti
decoding can be performed. This scheme can also be extended to more than two</p>
        <sec id="sec-2-9-1">
          <title>SDR Demo-System for MANETs 11</title>
          <p>TX 1
TX 2
m1‘
m1‘</p>
          <p>Data Bits</p>
          <p>m1‘
m2‘
m2‘</p>
          <p>Data Bits
m2‘
nodes. The requirement for this is that an orthogonal transmit diversity scheme
is applied. The Alamouti decoding block will use the estimates from both chains
and output symbols according to the time-slotted Alamouti scheme where two
symbols are transmitted in two adjacent time slots. To ensure that both signal
chains are working properly, BER and PER will be calculated per chain and in
total. Finally, demapping is performed and the transmitted and received values
are compared in order to calculate BER and PER.
3</p>
        </sec>
      </sec>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-3">
      <title>Measurement Results</title>
      <p>In order to prove the aforementioned concepts, several measurements have been
performed. In this section, the test scenarios are presented which shall be the
base for further measurements. Thereafter, some details are provided for the
measurement results for the single-carrier QAM configuration of the
demonstration system. For the measurements, the SDRs are positioned in a shape of a
right-angled triangle where the receiver is positioned in the corner of the right
angle. The path between TX1 and RX is a grazing line of sight, as measurement
equipment is positioned in between. The path from TX2 to RX can be
considered as a line-of-sight channel. The distance between both transmitters and the
receiver is about 1.32 m and 1.1 m, respectively.
3.1</p>
      <sec id="sec-3-1">
        <title>Test Scenarios</title>
        <p>We investigate the broadcast (BRC) of MANETs in four different scenarios:
– Scenario 1 (reference, 1 transmit node and single burst decoding): One
transmitter sends a packet in a short burst. The receiver decodes based on the
single burst.
– Scenario 2 (BRC, SNR aggregation, one transmit node): One transmitter
repeatedly sends the same burst. The receiver stores two or more observations
of this burst and combines them to enhance the probability of successful
decoding.
– Scenario 3 (cooperative BRC, distributed transmit diversity, single burst
decoding): Two transmitters send the same broadcast data, either using the
distributed Alamouti transmit diversity scheme, or each one alone.
– Scenario 4 (cooperative BRC, distributed transmit diversity, SNR
aggregation): Two transmitters send the same broadcast data repeatedly, either
using distributed transmit diversity or each one alone. The receiver stores
several observations and combines them for successful decoding.
12
In the following sections, the main results will be discussed.</p>
        <p>Scenario 1 Several measurements for different SNR levels have been performed.
An example of the resulting BER per packet is shown in Figure 4 for an average
SNR of approximately 8.1 dB. Thereby, each one of 4001 packets is decoded
separately and no channel coding is used; the channel is estimated using a training
sequence. The PER, averaged over all 4001 packets, is about 96%, i.e. only 4%
of the received packets are successfully decoded, i.e. without a bit error.</p>
        <p>Bit Error Rate per Packet Transmission
10-1
ER10-2
B</p>
        <p>Fig. 4. BER for each of 4001 transmitted packets, Scenario 1, mean SNR ≈ 8.1dB.
Scenario 2 One representative result is given in Figure 5 for the same
measurements as used in Scenario 1. It shows the significant improvement compared
to the experiment in Figure 4 for the SNR aggregation based on two coherently
combined packets, i.e. packet 1 is combined with packet 2 before decoding, packet
2 is combined with packet 3 before decoding, then packet 3 with packet 4 and so
on. For the coherent combining, the estimated CIR is used. The average PER is
decreased to about 21%. Taking all results into account, it can be concluded that
the SNR aggregation used for this scenario is an efficient technique to enhance
the BER and PER performance in a broadcast significantly.</p>
        <p>Scenario 3 For Scenario 3 we consider a very low SNR case measured with the
demonstration system. Node 1 and Node 2 are using the distributed Alamouti
10-1
ER10-2
B
Fig. 5. BER for coherently aggregated packets (consisting of two coherently combined
observations), Scenario 2, mean SNR ≈ 8.1dB.
scheme, or each node transmits alone. For Node 1 transmitting, the receive SNR
is about -4 dB, for Node 2 it is about -2 dB and for the distributed Alamouti
transmission of both nodes it is about 0 dB.</p>
        <p>As it can be seen in Figure 6, the BER can be significantly reduced by the use
of the distributed transmit diversity. For all three cases the BERs are high and
the PERs are 100% (i.e. no error free packet could be detected) because of the
very low SNR. In comparison, the distributed Alamouti approach shows by far
the lowest BER, due to a diversity as well as a power gain (two nodes transmit
jointly and no sum power constraint is limiting the sum transmit power).</p>
        <p>The fact, that the Alamouti scheme outperforms both SISO schemes is true
as long as good estimates of the channel are available. This can be seen from the
following two measurements. In a first case (Case 1) the channel estimation is
performed in a low SNR-regime whereas in a second case (Case 2) the channel
estimation is performed in a high(er) SNR-regime.
14</p>
        <p>BER per Packet, Comparison single Tx to Distr. Alamouti</p>
        <p>Tx2 only
Tx1 only</p>
        <p>Distr. Alamouti, Tx1 + Tx2
0.4</p>
        <p>As it can be seen in Table 1, the Alamouti scheme outperforms both SISO
schemes in case good estimates of the complex CIR can be achieved, i.e. the SNR
of the training sequences is sufficiently large. This has been achieved by
transmitting the training sequences with a higher transmit power than the payload
of the message.</p>
        <p>Scenario 4 In Scenario 3, the resulting BER is very high and the PER equals
100% even for the distributed Alamouti transmission - due to the very low
receive SNR. To further reduce the PER, we combine SNR aggregation with the
distributed Alamouti scheme. Figure 7 shows the corresponding PER versus the
group size Ng for aggregated transmissions (i.e., the number of combined packet
observations). For group size Ng = 1, each packet is decoded separately, for
Ng = 2, two packet observations are coherently combined, etc. The same
measurements as in Scenario 3 are used, i.e. the receive SNR values are as stated
there.</p>
        <p>Although the packet error rates drop strongly in all three cases, the
distributed Alamouti approach shows by far the best performance. However, due
to the low SNR a high number of observations have to be combined to achieve
low packet error rates. For instance, in order to achieve a PER below 10%, for
the distributed Alamouti case 27 packet observations have to be combined. In
comparison, in case only Node 1 is transmitting, already 63 packets, and in case
of Node 2 even 153 packets have to be combined to achieve PER &lt; 10%.
Summary of the Results To conclude, the transmission can be significantly
improved in terms of a BER and PER reduction by using the SNR aggregation
0.9
0.8
50 100 150 200
Group Size for aggregated Transmissions
250</p>
        <p>Fig. 7. PER vs. number of coherently combined packets; low SNR case.
and the Alamouti diversity scheme. The benefits of SNR aggregation become
clearly visible in the first two scenarios. The benefits of the Alamouti diversity
scheme become obvious in the third measurement scenario. The last scenario
shows, that the SNR aggregation in combination with the Alamouti diversity
scheme is even more beneficial.
3.3</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-2">
        <title>Scalability of the Demonstration System</title>
        <p>Currently, the demonstration system consists of three SDRs. One of the major
drawbacks of the B210 SDRs is that only USB-connectivity is supported. This
means that the SDR devices have to be connected to a PC, which requires a
large number of PCs to set up a larger demonstration system, or much more
expensive SDRs providing an Ethernet interface.</p>
        <p>In order to overcome this issue, a Raspberry Pi, which is a single board
computer, can be used. Data to be transmitted can be sent to the Raspberry
Pi via Ethernet which is then forwarded to the SDR over the USB interface.
Therefore, one PC can be used to control a large number of transmitters. A
TCP/IP server is running on the Raspberry Pi and a TCP/IP client in MATLAB
on the PC. Thus, the user interface only requires minimal change, i.e. the SDR
interface has to be replaced by the TCP/IP client interface. A proof of concept
has been performed and the results have shown that this is a suitable approach
for further phases of the project.
4.1</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-3">
        <title>Scaling Behaviour of MANETs</title>
        <p>As sketched in Section 1, one major drawback of MANETs is their scaling
behaviour with increasing number of nodes and, correspondingly, routes. Currently,
no sophisticated solution exists on how to overcome this issue. One of the major
goals of the implemented demonstration system and its planned extensions is to
investigate different methods and techniques to improve exactly this. Therefore,
it is foreseen to further investigate the use of OSTBCs as well as NOSTBCs
like Linear Scalable Dispersion Codes (LSDCs). Moreover, it is nearby to
consider Space-Frequency Block Codes, too. In our future work we will also consider
synchronization issues in order to implement the system without the OctoClock
synchronizer.</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-4">
        <title>Adaptability of the Demonstration System</title>
        <p>The implemented Simulink environment has been designed in a modular way for
simple exchange of modulation schemes, parameter estimation algorithms, and
cooperative diversity schemes. With this model it has been shown that
exchanging the modulation with only slight adaptations is possible. The distributed
MISO scheme still allows for a diversity gain.</p>
        <p>The simulation environments are implemented with a user interface in such a
way that simulations can be run on a PC and the same user interface can be
used to perform real transmissions using SDRs.
4.3</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-5">
        <title>Further Measurements</title>
        <p>All measurements shown above have been performed for the single-carrier scheme.
The measurements shall be repeated for OFDM and FBMC modulation schemes.
We expect that with OFDM and FBMC an efficient use of larger bandwidth and
higher data rates can be achieved. A comparison between the spectra of the
generated signals shows that the edges for the FBMC spectrum are much steeper
than for the OFDM spectrum which corresponds to the theoretical expectations
proving that the signal processing in our implementation is working correctly.
5</p>
      </sec>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-4">
      <title>Conclusion</title>
      <p>This paper describes how to set up and implement a MANET demonstration
system which allows to perform measurements and to gain hands-on experience
on cooperative transmit diversity schemes in combination with further
signalprocessing like the SNR aggregation approach for broadcasting.
Furthermore, the scalability and adaptability of this demonstration system have
been proven. For the latter, Simulink environments have been implemented
utilizing single-carrier as well as multi-carrier modulation schemes (OFDM and</p>
      <p>Fig. 8. Comparison between the OFDM and FBMC Spectrum.</p>
      <p>FBMC). These environments can be directly deployed to the SDRs in order to
perform real-time measurements.</p>
      <p>First measurements using the demonstration system in its single-carrier
configuration have been performed investigating the benefits of the described burst
structure and SNR aggregation. One crucial result is that the Alamouti
diversity schemes significantly outperform SISO schemes as long as the estimation of
the complex CIR is possible with the necessary quality. Additionally, SNR
aggregation can be used to further reduce the PER. Again, the Alamouti diversity
scheme shows by far the best results.
7. B. Sirkeci-Mergen, A. Scaglione, and G. Mergen, ”Asymptotic Analysis of
MultiStage Cooperative Broadcast in wireless networks,” in IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory,
Vol. 52, No. 6, pp. 2531–2550, June 2006.
8. T. R. Halford, and K.M. Chugg, ”Barrage Relay Networks,” in 2010 Information</p>
      <p>Theory and Applications Workshop (ITA), April 2010.
9. Alamouti, S. M., ”A Simple Transmit Diversity Technique for Wireless
Communications,” in IEEE J.Sel. A. Commun. 16, Nr. 8, S. 1451-1458, September 2006.
10. A. Wittneben, ”Basestation modulation diversity for digital simulcast,” [1991</p>
      <p>Proc.] 41st IEEE Vehicular Technology Conf., St. Louis, MO, USA, 1991.
11. D. Gesbert, S. Hanly, H. Huang, S. Shamai Shitz, O. Simeone and W. Yu,
”MultiCell MIMO Cooperative Networks: A New Look at Interference,” in IEEE Journal
on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 28, no. 9, pp. 1380-1408, December 2010.
12. V. Tarokh, H. Jafarkhani and A. R. Calderbank, ”Space-time block codes from
orthogonal designs,” in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 45, no. 5,
pp. 1456-1467, July 1999.
13. A. Wittneben and M. Kuhn, ”A new concatenated linear high rate space-time
block code,” Vehicular Technology Conf.. IEEE 55th Vehicular Technology Conf..</p>
      <p>VTC Spring 2002 (Cat. No.02CH37367), Birmingham, AL, USA, 2002.
14. B. Hassibi and B. M. Hochwald, ”High-rate codes that are linear in space and
time,” in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 48, no. 7, July 2002.
15. V. Tarokh, N. Seshadri and A. R. Calderbank, ”Space-time codes for high data
rate wireless communication: performance criterion and code construction,” in IEEE
Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 744-765, March 1998.
16. M. Ullah, H. Khan, U. Sharif and M. D. Nisar, ”Multi-antenna diversity
demonstration via Alamouti scheme on USRP boards,” 2017 Int. Symp. on Wireless Systems
and Networks (ISWSN), Lahore, 2017, pp. 1-5.
17. S. Manzoor, A. S. Bamuhaisoon and A. N. Alifa, ”Channel estimation for
MIMOOFDM systems,” 2015 5th Nat. Symp. on Information Technology: Towards New
Smart World (NSITNSW), Riyadh, 2015, pp. 1-7.
18. R. Measel et al., ”A MATLAB platform for characterizing MIMO-OFDM
communications with software-defined radios,” 2014 IEEE Int. Workshop Technical
Committee on Communications Quality and Reliability (CQR), Tucson, AZ, 2014.
19. B. Horva´th and P. Bakki, ”Implementation of FBMC transmission link using
SDR,” 2013 23rd Int. Conf. Radioelektronika (RADIOELEKTRONIKA),
Pardubice, 2013, pp. 320-323.
20. A. Dziri, C. Alexandre, R. Zakaria and D. Le Ruyet, ”SDR based prototype for
filter bank based multi-carrier transmission,” 2014 11th Int. Symp. on Wireless
Communications Systems (ISWCS), Barcelona, 2014, pp. 878-882.
21. David Tse and Pramod Viswanath, Fundamentals of Wireless Communication. 5th
printing. Cambridge: Cambridge Unitversity Press, 2005.</p>
    </sec>
  </body>
  <back>
    <ref-list>
      <ref id="ref1">
        <mixed-citation>
          1.
          <string-name>
            <given-names>C.</given-names>
            <surname>Siva Ram Murthy</surname>
          </string-name>
          and
          <string-name>
            <given-names>B. S.</given-names>
            <surname>Manoj</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <article-title>Ad hoc Wireless Networks: Architectures and Protocols</article-title>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <surname>Prentice Hall</surname>
            <given-names>PTR</given-names>
          </string-name>
          , May
          <year>2004</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref2">
        <mixed-citation>
          2.
          <string-name>
            <given-names>J.</given-names>
            <surname>Loo</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <given-names>J.</given-names>
            <surname>Mauri</surname>
          </string-name>
          , and
          <string-name>
            <given-names>J.</given-names>
            <surname>Ortiz</surname>
          </string-name>
          , Mobile Ad Hoc Networks,
          <source>Auerbach Publications</source>
          ,
          <year>2012</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref3">
        <mixed-citation>
          3.
          <string-name>
            <given-names>P.</given-names>
            <surname>Gupta</surname>
          </string-name>
          and
          <string-name>
            <given-names>P. R.</given-names>
            <surname>Kumar</surname>
          </string-name>
          , ”
          <article-title>The capacity of wireless networks,”</article-title>
          <source>in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory</source>
          , vol.
          <volume>46</volume>
          , no.
          <issue>2</issue>
          , pp.
          <fpage>388</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>404</lpage>
          ,
          <year>March 2000</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref4">
        <mixed-citation>
          4.
          <string-name>
            <given-names>C.</given-names>
            <surname>Zhang</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <given-names>X.</given-names>
            <surname>Zhu</surname>
          </string-name>
          and
          <string-name>
            <given-names>Y.</given-names>
            <surname>Fang</surname>
          </string-name>
          , ”
          <article-title>On the improvement of scaling laws for large-scale MANETs with network coding,”</article-title>
          <source>in IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications</source>
          , vol.
          <volume>27</volume>
          , no.
          <issue>5</issue>
          , pp.
          <fpage>662</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>672</lpage>
          ,
          <year>June 2009</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref5">
        <mixed-citation>
          5.
          <string-name>
            <given-names>M. F.</given-names>
            <surname>Carey</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <given-names>J. M.</given-names>
            <surname>Chapin</surname>
          </string-name>
          and
          <string-name>
            <given-names>V. W. S.</given-names>
            <surname>Chan</surname>
          </string-name>
          , ”
          <article-title>Connectivity and Scaling behavior of power-limited directional infrastructureless wireless networks</article-title>
          ,”
          <fpage>2011</fpage>
          <string-name>
            <surname>- MILCOM 2011 Military Communications</surname>
          </string-name>
          <article-title>Conf</article-title>
          .,
          <string-name>
            <surname>Baltimore</surname>
            ,
            <given-names>MD</given-names>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <year>2011</year>
          , pp.
          <fpage>985</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>990</lpage>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref6">
        <mixed-citation>
          6.
          <string-name>
            <given-names>A.</given-names>
            <surname>Ozgur</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <given-names>O.</given-names>
            <surname>Leveque</surname>
          </string-name>
          and
          <string-name>
            <given-names>D. N. C.</given-names>
            <surname>Tse</surname>
          </string-name>
          , ”
          <article-title>Hierarchical Cooperation Achieves Optimal Capacity Scaling in Ad Hoc Networks,”</article-title>
          <source>in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory</source>
          , vol.
          <volume>53</volume>
          , no.
          <issue>10</issue>
          , pp.
          <fpage>3549</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>3572</lpage>
          , Oct.
          <year>2007</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
    </ref-list>
  </back>
</article>