Publication
Implementation of an USRP-based software-defined radio platform for designing and evaluating artificial intelligent wireless transmission algorithms
Qiuheng Zhou
Mastersthesis, Institute for Internal Combustion Engines and Automotive Engineering of University of Stuttgart, 2020.
Abstract
Long Term Evolution ( LTE), the Fourth Generation Wireless Technology ( 4G) has been adopted by all major operators in the world and has already ruled the cellular landscape for around a decade. Driven by the need to cope with exponentially growing mobile data traffic and to support new traffic types from massive numbers of machine-type devices, currently, they are also formed as the starting point for further progress beyond the 4G mobile network towards the Fifth Generation Wireless Technology ( 5G ). A lot of researches and new technologies are being considered as a potential element contributing to such a future mobile network, including the use of massive Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output (MIMO), exploiting unused spectrum, Cloud Radio Access Network ( RAN)s. The lack of the realistic and flexible experimentation platforms has limited and slowed the landing of new approaches because the new technologies need a wide range of experimentation modes from real-world experimentation to controlled and scalable evaluations. Motivated by the outstanding performance of the approached channel prediction algorithms on the simulated MIMO channel, however, we have noticed that the simulated channel cannot capture the complex real-world environment well. This has resulted in the need for building a real wireless communication platform so that we can perform some real value channel measurements for further algorithm verification and development. Software Defined Radio ( SDR) may provide flexible, upgradeable and longer lifetime radio equipment for the wireless communications infrastructure. SDR may also provide more flexible and possibly cheaper multi-standard-terminals for end users. Among all the General Purpose Processor (GPP)-based SDR systems, OpenAirInterface ( OAI ) is one of the most comprehensive and competitive open-source SDR systems. By altering the open-source code individually, we can freely perform the real value measurement. This thesis provides a real LTE access based on the SDR OAI platform for verification of the channel prediction algorithm. Firstly, the experimentation platform will be established by using OAI, Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP ) and commercial User Equipment (UE). Then, the author of this thesis has analyzed the source code of OAI and changed some parts of the codes so that the real-time over-the-air channel measurement can be achieved. The results from the measurement are then formed so that the channel prediction algorithm can be retrained and tested. The results of the test illustrate that the implemented experimentation platform can meet the need for algorithms’ verification and can be further extended for more developments of algorithms.