The growing demand for high-speed data, quality of service (QoS) assurance, and energy efficiency has triggered the evolution of fourth-generation (4G) Long-Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) networks to fifth generation (5G) and beyond. Interference is still a major performance bottleneck. This paper studies the application of physical-layer network coding (PNC), which is a technique that exploits interference, in heterogeneous cellular networks. In particular, we propose a rate-maximizing relay selection algorithm for a single cell with multiple relays assuming the decode-and-forward (DF) strategy. With nodes transmitting at different powers, the proposed algorithm adapts the resource allocation according to the differing link rates, and we prove theoretically that the optimization problem is log-concave. The proposed technique is shown to perform significantly better than the widely studied selection-cooperation technique. We then undertake an experimental study—on a software radio platform—of the decoding performance of PNC with unbalanced signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) in the multiple-access transmissions. This problem is inherent in cellular networks, and it is shown that, with channel coding and decoders based on multiuser detection and successive interference cancellation, the performance is better with power imbalance. This paper paves the way for further research on multicell PNC, resource allocation, and the implementation of PNC with higher order modulations and advanced coding techniques.
To date, most PNC studies have focused on the two-way relay channel (TWRC) model where all the nodes transmit at equal powers @cite_22 . Two key issues in PNC, symbol asynchrony and channel coding, were addressed in the time domain in @cite_11 and in the frequency domain in @cite_14 . PNC was also successfully implemented on a software radio platform and insights on throughput gains, symbol misalignment, channel coding, effect of carrier frequency offset and real-time issues were gained through these practical prototyping efforts @cite_14 @cite_23 @cite_9 .
@cite_14 @cite_22 @cite_9 @cite_23 @cite_11
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Abstract This paper presents the first implementation of a two-way relay network based on the principle of physical-layer network coding (PNC). To date, only a simplified version of PNC, called analog network coding (ANC), has been successfully implemented. The advantage of ANC is that it is simple to implement; the disadvantage, on the other hand, is that the relay amplifies the noise along with the signal before forwarding the signal. PNC systems in which the relay performs XOR or other denoising PNC mappings of the received signal have the potential for significantly better performance. However, the implementation of such PNC systems poses many challenges. For example, the relay in a PNC system must be able to deal with symbol and carrier-phase asynchronies of the simultaneous signals received from multiple nodes, and the relay must perform channel estimation before detecting the signals. We investigate a PNC implementation in the frequency domain, referred to as FPNC, to tackle these challenges. FPNC is based on OFDM. In FPNC, XOR mapping is performed on the OFDM samples in each subcarrier rather than on the samples in the time domain. We implement FPNC on the universal soft radio peripheral (USRP) platform. Our implementation requires only moderate modifications of the packet preamble design of 802.11a g OFDM PHY. With the help of the cyclic prefix (CP) in OFDM, symbol asynchrony and the multi-path fading effects can be dealt with simultaneously in a similar fashion. Our experimental results show that symbol-synchronous and symbol-asynchronous FPNC have essentially the same BER performance, for both channel-coded and non-channel-coded FPNC systems. Abstract The concept of physical-layer network coding (PNC) was proposed in 2006 for application in wireless networks. Since then it has developed into a subfield of network coding with wide implications. The basic idea of PNC is to exploit the mixing of signals that occurs naturally when electromagnetic (EM) waves are superimposed on one another. In particular, at a receiver, the simultaneous transmissions by several transmitters result in the reception of a weighted sum of the signals. This weighted sum is a form of network coding operation by itself. Alternatively, the received signal could be transformed and mapped to other forms of network coding. Exploiting these facts turns out to have profound and fundamental ramifications. Subsequent works by various researchers have led to many new results in the domains of (1) wireless communication, (2) information theory, and (3) wireless networking. The purpose of this paper is fourfold. First, we give a brief tutorial on the basic concept of PNC. Second, we survey and discuss recent key results in the three aforementioned areas. Third, we examine a critical issue in PNC: synchronization. It has been a common belief that PNC requires tight synchronization. Recent results suggest, however, that PNC may actually benefit from asynchrony. Fourth, we propose that PNC is not just for wireless networks; it can also be useful in optical networks. We provide an example showing that the throughput of a passive optical network (PON) could potentially be raised by 100 with PNC. In this paper we consider physical-layer network coding (PLNC) in OFDM-based two-way relaying systems. Practically, a key impairment for the application of PLNC is the carrier frequency offset (CFO) mismatch between the sources and the relay, which can not be compensated completely in the multiple-access (MA) phase. As this CFO mismatch results in inter-carrier interference (ICI) for OFDM transmissions, practical CFO compensation and ICI cancelation strategies are investigated to mitigate the impairment for a-posterior probability (APP) based PLNC decoders at the relay. Furthermore, we perform hardware implementation of the two-way relaying network employing an long term evolution (LTE) near parametrization adapted to PLNC. The APP-based decoding schemes with CFO compensation and ICI cancelation are applied on this real-time transmission platform to verify the analytical results. A key issue in physical-layer network coding (PNC) is how to deal with the asynchrony between signals transmitted by multiple transmitters. That is, symbols transmitted by different transmitters could arrive at the receiver with symbol misalignment as well as relative carrier-phase offset. A second important issue is how to integrate channel coding with PNC to achieve reliable communication. This paper investigates these two issues and makes the following contributions: 1) We propose and investigate a general framework for decoding at the receiver based on belief propagation (BP). The framework can effectively deal with symbol and phase asynchronies while incorporating channel coding at the same time. 2) For unchannel-coded PNC, we show that for BPSK and QPSK modulations, our BP method can significantly reduce the asynchrony penalties compared with prior methods. 3) For QPSK unchannel-coded PNC, with a half symbol offset between the transmitters, our BP method can drastically reduce the performance penalty due to phase asynchrony, from more than 6 dB to no more than 1 dB. 4) For channel-coded PNC, with our BP method, both symbol and phase asynchronies actually improve the system performance compared with the perfectly synchronous case. Furthermore, the performance spread due to different combinations of symbol and phase offsets between the transmitters in channel-coded PNC is only around 1 dB. The implication of 3) is that if we could control the symbol arrival times at the receiver, it would be advantageous to deliberately introduce a half symbol offset in unchannel-coded PNC. The implication of 4) is that when channel coding is used, symbol and phase asynchronies are not major performance concerns in PNC.