Rapid-on-off-Division Duplex for Wireless

NU 2009-045B

Inventors

Dongning Guo*

Jun Luo

Short Description

A novel physical/MAC-layer paradigm for ad hoc or peer-to-peer wireless networks to vastly improve peer discovery and data communication

Abstract        

Northwestern researchers have designed a novel physical/MAC-layer paradigm for ad hoc or peer-to-peer wireless networks to vastly improve peer discovery and data communication.  This new technology is named rapid-on-off-division duplex (RODD).  It significantly improves upon the transmission of signals and diminishes error-control coding overhead.  Affordable radios are subject to half-duplex constraint which means that a node cannot simultaneously transmit and receive useful signal.  Traditional schemes, such as time-division duplex (TDD) and frequency-division duplex (FDD), do not have absolute distinction of “uplink” and “downlink” transmissions.  In contrast, the defining feature of RODD is to let each node transmit according to an on-off duplex mask over every frame interval, and receive signals from its peers during its own off-slots.  RODD is especially efficient if the traffic is simultaneous broadcast from nodes to their one-hop peers, such as in spontaneous wireless social networks and communication networks.

Applications

• Wireless networks:  peer-to-peer and ad hoc
• Data communication networks for disaster relief or battlefield

Advantages

• Nearly doubles transition throughput
• Decreases error-control coding overhead in small data transmissions

IP Status

Issued US Patent Nos. 8,665,063 and 9,832,769