1 Utilizing Beamforming Antennas for Wireless Multi-hop Networks Romit Roy Choudhury

2 Applications Several Challenges, Protocols Internet

3 Omnidirectional Antennas

4 CTS = Clear To Send RTS = Request To Send IEEE with Omni Antenna D Y S M K RTS CTS X

5 IEEE with Omni Antenna D Y S X M K silenced Data ACK

6 IEEE with Omni Antenna D S X M K silenced Y Data ACK D silenced E A C F B G `` Interference management `` A crucial challenge for dense multihop networks

7 Managing Interference Several approaches  Dividing network into different channels  Power control  Rate Control … New Approach … Exploiting antenna capabilities to improve the performance of wireless multihop networks

8 From Omni Antennas … D S X M K silenced Y D E A C F B G

9 To Beamforming Antennas D S X M K Y D E A C F B G

10 To Beamforming Antennas D S X M K Y D E A C F B G

11 Today Antenna Systems  A quick look New challenges with beamforming antennas Design of MAC and Routing protocols  MMAC, ToneDMAC, CaDMAC  DDSR, CaRP  Cross-Layer protocols – Anycasting  Improved understanding of theoretical capacity Experiment with prototype testbed

12 Antenna Systems Signal Processing and Antenna Design research  Several existing antenna systems Switched Beam Antennas Steerable Antennas Reconfigurable Antennas, etc.  Many becoming commercially available For example …

13 Electronically Steerable Antenna [ATR Japan] Higher frequency, Smaller size, Lower cost  Capable of Omnidirectional mode and Directional mode

14 Switched and Array Antennas On poletop or vehicles  Antennas bigger  No power constraint

15 Antenna Abstraction 3 Possible antenna modes  Omnidirectional mode  Single Beam mode  Multi-Beam mode Higher Layer protocols select  Antenna Mode  Direction of Beam

16 Antenna Beam Energy radiated toward desired direction A Pictorial Model A Main Lobe (High gain) Sidelobes (low gain)

17 Directional Reception Directional reception = Spatial filtering  Interference along straight line joining interferer and receiver AB C D Signal Interference No Collision at A AB C D Signal Interference Collision at A

18 Will attaching such antennas at the radio layer yield most of the benefits ? Or Is there need for higher layer protocol support ?

19 We design a simple baseline MAC protocol (a directional version of ) We call this protocol DMAC and investigate its behavior through simulation

20 Remain omni while idle  Nodes cannot predict who will trasmit to it DMAC Example D Y S X

21 RTS DMAC Example D Y S X Assume S knows direction of D

22 RTS CTS DMAC Example D Y S X DATA/ACK X silenced … but only toward direction of D

23 Intuitively Performance benefits appear obvious

24 However … Sending Rate (Kbps) Throughput (Kbps)

25 Clearly, attaching sophisticated antenna hardware is not sufficient Simulation traces revealed various new challenges Motivates higher layer protocol design

26 Antenna Systems  A quick look New challenges with beamforming antennas Design of MAC and Routing protocols  MMAC, ToneDMAC, CaDMAC  DDSR, CaRP  Cross-Layer protocols – Anycasting  Improved understanding of theoretical capacity Experiment with prototype testbed

27 Self Interference with Directional MAC New Challenges [Mobicom 02]

28 Unutilized Range Longer range causes interference downstream  Offsets benefits  Network layer needs to utilize the long range  Or, MAC protocol needs to reduce transmit power A BC Data D route

29 Utilize Range – MMAC Learn far away neighbor via ngbr discovery  Approaches proposed in literature Send RTS packets over multiple DO links  Request Rx to beamform back toward Tx  Tx sends Data over DD link, followed by DD Ack

30 New Hidden Terminal Problems with Directional MAC New Challenges II …

31 New Hidden Terminal Problem Due to gain asymmetry Node A may not receive CTS from C  i.e., A might be out of DO-range from C B CA Data RTS CTS

32 New Hidden Terminal Problem Due to gain asymmetry Node A later intends to transmit to node B  A cannot carrier-sense B’s transmission to C B CA Data Carrier Sense RTSCTS

33 New Hidden Terminal Problem Due to gain asymmetry Node A may initiate RTS meant for B  A can interfere at C causing collision B CA Data RTS Collision

34 New Hidden Terminal Problems with Directional MAC New Challenges II …

35 While node pairs communicate  X misses D’s CTS to S  No DNAV toward D New Hidden Terminal Problem II D Y S X Data

36 While node pairs communicate  X misses D’s CTS to S  No DNAV toward D  X may later initiate RTS toward D, causing collision New Hidden Terminal Problem II D Y S X Data RTS Collision

37 Deafness with Directional MAC New Challenges III …

38 Deafness Node N initiates communication to S  S does not respond as S is beamformed toward D  N cannot classify cause of failure  Can be collision or deafness S D N Data RTS M

39 Channel Underutilized Collision: N must attempt less often Deafness: N should attempt more often  Misclassification incurs penalty (similar to TCP) S D N Data RTS M Deafness not a problem with omnidirectional antennas

40 Deafness and “Deadlock” Directional sensing and backoff...  Causes S to always stay beamformed to D  X keeps retransmitting to S without success  Similarly Z to X  a “deadlock” DATA RTS X D S Z

41 MAC-Layer Capture The bottleneck to spatial reuse New Challenges IV …

42 Typically, idle nodes remain in omni mode  When signal arrives, nodes get engaged in receiving the packet  Received packet passed to MAC  If packet not meant for that node, it is dropped Capture Wastage because the receiver could accomplish useful communication instead of receiving the unproductive packet

43 Capture Example AB C D Both B and D are omni when signal arrives from A AB C D B and D beamform to receive arriving signal

44 Outline / Contribution Antenna Systems  A closer look New challenges with beamforming antennas Design of MAC and Routing protocols  MMAC, ToneDMAC, CaDMAC  DDSR, CaRP  Cross-Layer protocols – Anycasting  Improved understanding of theoretical capacity Experiment with prototype testbed

45 Impact of Capture Beamforming for transmission and reception only is not sufficient Antenna control necessary during idle state also AB C D AB C D

46 Capture-Aware MAC (CaDMAC)  D monitors all incident traffic  Identifies unproductive traffic  Beams that receive only unproductive packets are turned off  However, turning beams off can prevent useful communication in future MAC Layer Solution AB C D

47 CaDMAC turns off beams periodically  Time divided into cycles  Each cycle consists of 1. Monitoring window + 2. Filtering window 12 CaDMAC Time Cycles 1122 cycle time All beams remain ON, monitors unproductive beams Node turns OFF unproductive beams while it is idle. Can avoid capture

48 CaDMAC Communication Transmission / Reception uses only necessary single beam When node becomes idle, it switches back to appropriate beam pattern  Depending upon current time window AB C D AB C D

49 During Monitoring window, idle nodes are omni Spatial Reuse in CaDMAC AB C E F D

50 At the end of Monitoring window CaDMAC identifies unproductive links Spatial Reuse in CaDMAC AB C E F D

51 During Filtering window  use spatial filtering Spatial Reuse in CaDMAC AB C E F D Parallel Communications CaDMAC : 3 DMAC & others : ≤ 2 Omni : 1

52 Questions?

53 ToneDMAC timeline

54 Common Receiver Another possible improvement: Backoff Counter for DMAC flows Backoff Counter for ToneDMAC flows time Backoff Values

55 Network Transport Capacity Transport capacity defined as: bit-meters per second (like man-miles per day for airline companies) Capacity analysis

56 Directional Capacity Existing results show  Capacity improvement lower bounded by  Results do not consider side lobes of radiation patterns We consider main lobe and side lobe gains (g m and g s ) We find capacity upper bounded by  i.e., improvement of CaDMAC still below achievable capacity

57 CaDMAC cannot eliminate capture completely  Happens because CaDMAC cannot choose routes  Avoiding capture-prone links  A routing problem Discussion Y X A B

58 Routing using Beamforming Antennas Incorporating capture-awareness

59 Motivating Capture-Aware Routing Y X A B Y X A B D S Z D Z S Find a route from S to D, given A  B exists  Options are SXYD, SXZG Capture No Capture

60 1.Sum capture costs of all beams on the route  Capture cost of a Beam j = how much unproductive traffic incident on Beam j 2.Route’s hop count 3.Cost of participation  How many intermediate nodes participate in cross traffic Measuring Route Cost X D S

61 Source routing protocol (like DSR)  Intermediate node X updates route cost from S - X  Destination chooses route with least cost (U route )  Routing protocol shown to be loop-free Protocol Design X D S C1C1 C2C2 C3C3 C5C5 U SX U SD = U SX + C 2 + C 5 + P D + 1

62 U route = Weighted Combination of 1. Capture cost (K) 2. Participation cost (P) 3. Hop count (H) Weights chosen based on sensitivity analysis Unified Routing Metric

63 CaRP Vs DSR

64 CaRP Vs DSR

65 CaRP Vs DSR

66 CaRP Vs DSR

67 CaRP Vs DSR

68 CaRP Vs DSR

69 CaRP Vs DSR

70 CaRP Vs DSR

71 CaRP Vs DSR DSRCaRP CaRP prefers a traffic-free direction “Squeezes in” more traffic in given area

72 Performance of CaDMAC CaDMAC DMAC CBR Traffic (Mbps) Aggregate Throughput (Mbps) CMAC

73 Throughput with CaRP CaRP + CaDMAC DSR + CaDMAC DSR Aggregate Throughput (Mbps) Topology Number Random Topologies

74 Outline / Contribution Antenna Systems  A closer look New challenges with beamforming antennas Design of MAC and Routing protocols  MMAC, ToneDMAC, CaDMAC  DDSR, CaRP  Cross-Layer protocols – Anycasting  Improved understanding of theoretical capacity Experiment with prototype testbed

75 Testbed Prototype [VTC 05, Mobihoc 05] Network of 6 laptops using ESPAR antennas  ESPAR attached to external antenna port  Beams controlled from higher layer via USB Validated basic operations and tradeoffs  Neighbor discovery Observed multipath 60 degrees beamwidth useful  Basic link state routing Improves route stability Higher throughput, less delay

76 Summary Future = Dense wireless networks  Better interference management necessary Typical approach = Omni antennas  Inefficient energy management  PHY layer research needs be exploited

77 Omnidirectional Antennas Internet

78 Summary Our focus = Exploiting antenna capabilities  Existing protocols not sufficient Our work  Identified several new challenges Lot of ongoing research toward these challenges  Designed MAC, Network layer protocols  Theoretical capacity analysis  Prototype implementation Our vision …

79 Beamforming Internet

80 Other Work Sensor Networks  Reliable broadcast [submitted]  Exploiting mobility [StoDis 05]  K-Coverage problems Location management in mobile networks  Distributed algorithms [IPDPS], [Mobihoc] Scheduling protocols for n  Combination of CSMA + TDMA schemes [WTS 04]

81 Future Work Next generation radios (software, cognitive)  PHY layer not be sufficient to harness flexibility  Example When should a radio toggle between TDMA and CSMA ? Dynamic channel access needs coordination  Higher layer protocols necessary for decisions

82 Future Work Exploiting Diversity Opportunistically  Especially in the context of improving reliability Link diversity Route diversity Antenna diversity Channel diversity …  My previous work on Anycasting – a first step  I intend to continue in this direction S A B C D

83 Future Work Sensor Networks Strong guarantees Weak guarantees Solution Complexity Very complex Works 100% Very simple Works 80% Sensor applications Need to operate here

84 Future Work Experimental Testbeds and Prototypes  Evaluate protocols in real conditions Mesh Networks Sensor Networks RFID Networks

85 Thank You Acknowledgments Prof. Nitin Vaidya (advisor) Members of my research group Collaborators Xue Yang (Intel) Ram Ramanathan (BBN) Tetsuro Ueda (ATR Labs, Japan) Steve Emeott (Motorola Labs)

86 RTS = Request To Send RTS CTS = Clear To Send CTS IEEE with Omni Antenna D Y S X M K

87 Enhancing MAC [Mobicom02] MMAC  Transmit multi-hop RTS to far-away receiver  Synchronize with receiver using CTS (rendezvous)  Communicate data over long links

88 Routing with Higher Range [PWC03 Best Paper] Directional routes offer  Better connectivity, fewer-hop routes However, broadcast difficult  Sweeping necessary to emulate broadcast Evaluate tradeoffs  Designed directional DSR

89 ToneDMAC’s Impact Another possible improvement: Backoff Counter for DMAC flows Backoff Counter for ToneDMAC flows time Backoff Values

90 2-hop flow DMAC IEEE Deafness

91 Neighbor Discovery Non LOS and multipath important factors However, wide beamwidth (60 degrees)  reasonable envelope Anechoic ChamberOffice Corridor

92 Route Reliability Routes discovered using sweeping – DO links  Data Communication using DD links  Improved SINR improves robustness against fading

93 Optimal Carrier Sense Threshold When sidelobe abstracted to sphere with gain G s T Sidelobe Gs Mainlobe Gd Provided, optimal CS threshold is above the Rx sensitivity threshold i.e., min {CS_calculate, RxSensitivity}

94 Commercial Antennas … Paratek (DRWin scanning smart antennas)  Beamforming in the RF domain (instead of digital)  Multiple simultaneous beams possible, each steerable  tm tm Motia Inc. (Javelin appliqué to cards)  Blind beamforming in RF domain (< 2us, within pilot) CalAmps (DirectedAP offers digital beamforming)  Uses RASTER beamforming technology 

95 Commercial Antennas Belkin (Pre-N smart antenna router – Airgo tech.)  Uses 3 antenna elements for adaptive beamforming  Tantivy Communications (switching < 100 nanosec)  benefitsofSmartAntennasin802.11Networks.pdf benefitsofSmartAntennasin802.11Networks.pdf

96 While node pairs communicate  X misses D’s CTS to S  No DNAV toward D New Hidden Terminal Problem II D Y S X Data

97 While node pairs communicate  X misses D’s CTS to S  No DNAV toward D  X may later initiate RTS toward D, causing collision New Hidden Terminal Problem II D Y S X Data RTS Collision

98 Abstract Antenna Model N conical beams Any combination of beams can be turned on Capable of detecting beam-of-arrival for received packet

99 Wireless Multihop Networks RFID Sensors RFID Readers

100 Wireless Multihop Networks

101 Wireless Multihop Networks

102 Wireless Multihop Networks Internet

103 Protocol Design Numerous challenges  Connectivity (nodes can be mobile)  Capacity (increasing demand)  Reliability (channels fluctuate)  Security  QoS … Many protocols designed One commonality among most protocols

104 CTS = Clear To Send RTS = Request To Send IEEE with Omni Antenna D Y S M K RTS CTS X

105 Testbed Prototype [VTC 05, Mobihoc 05 Poster] Network of 6 laptops using ESPAR antennas  ESPAR attached to external antenna port  Beams controlled from higher layer via USB

106 Neighbor Discovery Non LOS and multipath important factors However, 60 degree beamwidth useful Anechoic ChamberOffice Corridor

107 Route Reliability Routes discovered using sweeping – DO links  Data Communication using DD links  Improved SINR improves robustness against fading

108 Announcements Please start with project thoughts  Come and discuss even if you don’t have a topic Do you want me to do a forward pointing class in which I discuss what we will cover in future May help in identifying exciting topics …  Planning to buy sensor motes for class See TinyOS tutorial … talk to me  Download simulator (ns2, Qualnet), code your own I am arranging Qualnet license for class students