skip to main content
10.1145/3581791.3596860acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesmobisysConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

SIGNiPHY: Reconciling random access with directional reception for efficient mmWave WLANs

Published:18 June 2023Publication History

ABSTRACT

Millimeter-Wave (mmWave) WiFi can provide very low latency and multi-Gbps throughput, but real-world deployments usually do not achieve the theoretically feasible performance. One main source of inefficiency is the contention-based random channel access, as it requires omni-directional reception which limits performance. Additionally, carrier sensing at mmWave frequencies is highly unreliable, leading to reduced channel usage. In this paper, we present SIGNalling in the PHY Preamble (SIGNiPHY) for efficient directional communications, a solution that allows to embed user identity in the preamble of data packets. It allows for true early user identification and then immediately steering the beam towards the transmitter while receiving the physical layer preamble. SIGNiPHY enables directional reception in random access mmWave networks, and additionally helps to quickly filter unwanted packets. It does not affect any preamble functions and is backward-compatible with legacy stations. We implement SIGNiPHY on an FPGA-based mmWave testbed and show that it achieves 99.6% decoding accuracy even under very low SINR conditions. We also implement SIGNiPHY in ns-3 to evaluate large networks and show that it achieves throughput gains between 13% and 230% compared to different baseline schemes, due to the lower packet loss rate and improved spatial sharing.

References

  1. Shivang Aggarwal, Moinak Ghoshal, Piyali Banerjee, Dimitrios Koutsonikolas, and Joerg Widmer. 2021. 802.11ad in Smartphones: Energy Efficiency, Spatial Reuse, and Impact on Applications. IEEE INFOCOM (2021), 1--10.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  2. Anique Akhtar and Sinem Coleri Ergen. 2018. Directional MAC protocol for IEEE 802.11ad based wireless local area networks. Ad Hoc Networks 69 (2018), 49--64.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  3. Hany Assasa, Nina Grosheva, Tanguy Ropitault, Steve Blandino, Nada Golmie, and Joerg Widmer. 2021. Implementation and evaluation of a WLAN IEEE 802.11ay model in network simulator ns-3. Workshop on ns-3 (2021), 9--16.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  4. Hany Assasa, Swetank Kumar Saha, Adrian Loch, Dimitrios Koutsonikolas, and Jörg Widmer. 2018. Medium Access and Transport Protocol Aspects in Practical 802.11 ad Networks. IEEE WoWMoM (2018), 1--11.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  5. Bharathan Balaji, Tamma Bheemarjuna Reddy, and B. S. Manoj. 2010. A Novel Power Saving Strategy for Greening IEEE 802.11 Based Wireless Networks. IEEE GLOBECOM (2010), 1--5.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  6. Andrea Bartoli, Juan Hernández-Serrano, Miguel Soriano, Mischa Dohler, Apostolos A. Kountouris, and Dominique Barthel. 2011. Secure Lossless Aggregation Over Fading and Shadowing Channels for Smart Grid M2M Networks. IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid 2, 4 (2011), 844--864.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  7. S. Biswas and S. Datta. 2004. Reducing Overhearing Energy in 802.11 Networks by Low-power Interface Idling. In IEEE IPCCC. 695--700. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  8. Qian Chen, Jiqiang Tang, David Tung Chong Wong, Xiaoming Peng, and Youguang Zhang. 2013. Directional Cooperative MAC Protocol Design and Performance Analysis for IEEE 802.11ad WLANs. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology 62 (2013), 2667--2677.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  9. Romit Roy Choudhury and Nitin H. Vaidya. 2004. Deafness: a MAC Problem in Ad Hoc Networks When Using Directional Antennas. IEEE ICNP (2004), 283--292.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  10. Romit Roy Choudhury, Xue Yang, Nitin H. Vaidya, and Ram Ramanathan. 2002. Using Directional Antennas for Medium Access Control in Ad Hoc Networks. In ACM MobiCom. Association for Computing Machinery, 59--70.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  11. Jiska Classen, Matthias Schulz, and Matthias Hollick. 2015. Practical covert channels for WiFi systems. In IEEE CNS. 209--217. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  12. Mustafa Ergen and Pravin Varaiya. 2007. Decomposition of Energy Consumption in IEEE 802.11. IEEE ICC (2007), 403--408.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  13. Bing Feng, Chi Zhang, Haichuan Ding, and Yuguang Fang. 2018. PhyCast: Towards Energy Efficient Packet Overhearing in WiFi Networks. IEEE ICC (2018), 1--6.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  14. Wei Feng, Yanmin Wang, Dengsheng Lin, Ning Ge, Jianhua Lu, and Shaoqian Li. 2017. When mmWave Communications Meet Network Densification: A Scalable Interference Coordination Perspective. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications 35, 7 (2017), 1459--1471.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  15. Dolores Garcia Marti, Jesus Omar Lacruz, Pablo Jimenez Mateo, Joan Palacios, Rafael Ruiz, and Joerg Widmer. 2021. Scalable Phase-Coherent Beam-Training for Dense Millimeter-wave Networks. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (2021), 1--1.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  16. Y. Ghasempour, C. R. C. M. da Silva, C. Cordeiro, and E. W. Knightly. 2017. IEEE 802.11ay: Next-Generation 60 GHz Communication for 100 Gb/s Wi-Fi. IEEE Communications Magazine 55, 12 (2017), 186--192.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  17. M. Golay. 1961. Complementary series. IRE Transactions on Information Theory 7, 2 (1961), 82--87. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  18. Michelle X. Gong, Robert Stacey, Dmitry Akhmetov, and Shiwen Mao. 2010. A Directional CSMA/CA Protocol for mmWave Wireless PANs. IEEE WCNC (2010), 1--6.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  19. Ya-Shiue Huang, Wei-Chang Liu, and Shyh-Jye Jou. 2011. Design and implementation of synchronization detection for IEEE 802.15.3c. In 2011 International Symposium on VLSI Design, Automation and Test. 1--4. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  20. IEEE 802.11 working group. 2012. Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications Amendment 3: Enhancements for Very High Throughput in the 60 GHz Band. IEEE Standard 802.11ad (2012).Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  21. IEEE 802.11 working group. 2021. Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications-Amendment 2: Enhanced Throughput for Operation in License-Exempt Bands Above 45 GHz. IEEE Standard 802.11ay (2021).Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  22. Suraj Jog, Jiaming Wang, Junfeng Guan, Thomas Moon, Haitham Hassanieh, and Romit Roy Choudhury. 2019. Many-to-Many Beam Alignment in Millimeter Wave Networks. In NSDI. 783--800.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  23. Jesus O. Lacruz, Dolores Garcia, Pablo Jiménez Mateo, Joan Palacios, and Joerg Widmer. 2020. mm-FLEX: An Open Platform for Millimeter-Wave Mobile Full-Bandwidth Experimentation. In ACM MobiSys (Toronto, Ontario, Canada). 1--13.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  24. Jesus O. Lacruz, Rafael Ruiz Ortiz, and Joerg Widmer. 2021. A Real-Time Experimentation Platform for Sub-6 GHz and Millimeter-Wave MIMO Systems (in ACM MobiSys). 427--439.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  25. Leonardo Lanante and Sumit Roy. 2022. Performance Analysis of the IEEE 802.11ax OBSS_PD-Based Spatial Reuse. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking 30, 2 (2022), 616--628. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  26. Chun-Yi Liu, Meng-Siou Sie, Edmund W. J. Leong, Yu-Cheng Yao, Chih-Wei Jen, Wei-Chang Liu, Chih-Feng Wu, and Shyh-Jye Jou. 2017. Dual-Mode All-Digital Baseband Receiver With a Feed-Forward and Shared-Memory Architecture for Dual-Standard Over 60 GHz NLOS Channel. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers 64, 3 (2017), 608--618.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  27. Sohrab Madani, Suraj Jog, Jesús Omar Lacruz, Joerg Widmer, and Haitham Hassanieh. 2021. Practical Null Steering in Millimeter Wave Networks. In NSDI. 903--921.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  28. Eugenio Magistretti, Omer Gurewitz, and Edward W. Knightly. 2014. 802.11ec: Collision Avoidance Without Control Messages. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking 22, 6 (2014), 1845--1858. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  29. Hanif Rahbari and Marwan Krunz. 2016. Full Frame Encryption and Modulation Obfuscation Using Channel-Independent Preamble Identifier. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security 11, 12 (2016), 2732--2747. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  30. Sundeep Rangan, Theodore S. Rappaport, and Elza Erkip. 2014. Millimeter-Wave Cellular Wireless Networks: Potentials and Challenges. Proc. IEEE 102, 3 (2014), 366--385.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  31. Swetank Kumar Saha, Hany Assasa, Adrian Loch, Naveen Muralidhar Prakash, Roshan Shyamsunder, Shivang Aggarwal, Daniel Steinmetzer, Dimitrios Koutsonikolas, Jörg Widmer, and Matthias Hollick. 2018. Fast and Infuriating: Performance and Pitfalls of 60 GHz WLANs Based on Consumer-Grade Hardware. IEEE SECON (2018), 1--9.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  32. Sumit Singh, Federico Ziliotto, Upamanyu Madhow, Elizabeth M. Belding-Royer, and Mark J. W. Rodwell. 2009. Blockage and directivity in 60 GHz wireless personal area networks: from cross-layer model to multihop MAC design. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications 27, 8 (2009), 1400--1413.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  33. Sivers Semiconductors. 2022. EVK06002 Development Kit. https://www.sivers-semiconductors.com/sivers-wireless/evaluation-kits/evaluation-kit-evk06002/.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  34. In Keun Son, Shiwen Mao, Michelle X. Gong, and Yihan Li. 2012. On frame-based scheduling for directional mmWave WPANs. IEEE INFOCOM (2012), 2149--2157.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  35. Sanjib Sur, Ioannis Pefkianakis, Xinyu Zhang, and Kyu-Han Kim. 2017. WiFi-Assisted 60 GHz Wireless Networks. ACM MobiCom (2017), 28--41.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  36. Sanjib Sur, Ioannis Pefkianakis, Xinyu Zhang, and Kyu-Han Kim. 2018. Towards Scalable and Ubiquitous Millimeter-Wave Wireless Networks. ACM MobiCom (2018), 257--271.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  37. Mineo Takai, Jay Martin, Rajive L. Bagrodia, and Aifeng Ren. 2002. Directional Virtual Carrier Sensing for Directional Antennas in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks. In ACM MobiHoc. 183--193.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  38. Chin-Chong Tseng and C. Liu. 1972. Complementary sets of sequences. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 18, 5 (1972), 644--652. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  39. Teng Wei and Xinyu Zhang. 2017. Pose Information Assisted 60 GHz Networks: Towards Seamless Coverage and Mobility Support. ACM MobiCom (2017), 42--55.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  40. Yi Yang, Anfu Zhou, Dongzhu Xu, Shaoyuan Yang, Lele Wu, Huadong Ma, Teng Wei, and Jianhua Liu. 2020. mmMuxing: Pushing the Limit of Spatial Reuse in Directional Millimeter-wave Wireless Networks. In IEEE SECON. 1--9.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  41. Ding Zhang, Panneer Selvam Santhalingam, Parth H. Pathak, and Zizhan Zheng. 2019. Characterizing Interference Mitigation Techniques in Dense 60 GHz mmWave WLANs. IEEE ICCCN (2019), 1--9.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  42. Xinyu Zhang and Kang G. Shin. 2012. E-MiLi: Energy-Minimizing Idle Listening in Wireless Networks. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing 11, 9 (2012), 1441--1454.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  43. Zhengguang Zhang, Hanif Rahbari, and Marwan Krunz. 2020. Expanding the Role of Preambles to Support User-defined Functionality in MIMO-based WLANs. In IEEE INFOCOM. 1191--1200. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  44. Zhengguang Zhang, Hanif Rahbari, and Marwan Krunz. 2021. Adaptive Preamble Embedding with MIMO to Support User-defined Functionalities in WLANs. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (2021), 1--1. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref

Index Terms

  1. SIGNiPHY: Reconciling random access with directional reception for efficient mmWave WLANs

        Recommendations

        Comments

        Login options

        Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

        Sign in
        • Published in

          cover image ACM Conferences
          MobiSys '23: Proceedings of the 21st Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services
          June 2023
          651 pages
          ISBN:9798400701108
          DOI:10.1145/3581791

          Copyright © 2023 ACM

          Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

          Publisher

          Association for Computing Machinery

          New York, NY, United States

          Publication History

          • Published: 18 June 2023

          Permissions

          Request permissions about this article.

          Request Permissions

          Check for updates

          Qualifiers

          • research-article

          Acceptance Rates

          MobiSys '23 Paper Acceptance Rate41of198submissions,21%Overall Acceptance Rate274of1,679submissions,16%

          Upcoming Conference

          MOBISYS '24
        • Article Metrics

          • Downloads (Last 12 months)163
          • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)22

          Other Metrics

        PDF Format

        View or Download as a PDF file.

        PDF

        eReader

        View online with eReader.

        eReader