Smart antenna systems are employed to overcome multipath fading, extend range, and increase capacity by using diversity or beamforming techniques in wireless communication systems. Understanding of the smart base antenna performance mechanisms for various environments is important to design cost effective systems and network. This dissertation focuses on the experimental characterization and modeling of the smart base station antenna performance for various propagation environment scenarios. An eight-channel Virginia Tech smart base station antenna testbed was developed to investigate performances of three reverse link diversity methods. The experiment campaign resulted in 245 sets of collected data over 83 measurement sites, which were used to compare the performance of space, polarization, and angle diversity under identical conditions. Measured propagation path loss, envelope correlation coefficients, power imbalances, and mean effective gain (MEG) are characterized as a function of distance between the base station and the mobile terminal to illustrate the diversity performance mechanisms over different propagation environments. The performance of the three base station diversity methods with selection combining (SC), maximal ratio combining (MRC), and equal gain combining (EGC) techniques for both urban and suburban non-line-of-sight (NLOS) environments are presented and summarized using the measured data. Forward-link performance of a twelve-fixed narrow-beam base station antenna system for urban NLOS environments is investigated using the same measured data. A new procedure is introduced to experimentally model the forward-link performance of muitlple-fixed narrow-beam (MFNB) antennas using the measured reverse-link vector channel response. The experimentally calculated lower bound performance result shows that it achieves 2.5 to 2.8 times higher average RF SIR compared to the conventional three-sector base station system for typical urban NLOS multipath fading environment conditions. Also, a new mobile user angle estimation algorithm using the muitlple-fixed narrow-beam antennas for NLOS multipath fading environment conditions is developed and the experiment results are presented. / Ph. D.

The Web has outgrown the transport mechanisms that have been used since its inception. Due to the increasing complexity of web pages in terms of both total size and number of individual resources, HTTP over TCP can no longer provide a satisfactory user performance. In recent years, much progress has been made in this area by evolving the web's underlying mechanisms. Multipath QUIC (MPQUIC) is one such approach. MPQUIC is a new transport protocol which enables multihomed devices, such as smartphones, to aggregate their network interfaces in order to achieve greater performance. Additionally, MPQUIC is capable of multiplexing several data streams concurrently over a single connection, which can also provide performance benefits. This work began with a validation of our MPQUIC setup, which was performed by comparing MPQUIC to another multipath solution in a large set of experiments. The results show that MPQUIC is generally beneficial for the transfer time of large files, which corresponds with results from previous works. We additionally investigated ways to exploit MPQUIC's multipath and stream features to achieve lower latencies for web pages via the means of packet scheduling. We implemented the Earliest Completion First (ECF) scheduler, and investigated how it compares against MPQUIC's default path scheduler. The results indicate that the ECF scheduler is significantly more capable of handling heterogeneous network scenarios than the default scheduler, and can achieve higher throughput and lower latencies. Next, a Stream Priority scheduler was designed and implemented, which utilizes stream priorities to achieve lower completion times for select streams. The results from the investigation indicate that proper stream scheduling can significantly reduce download times of the prioritized resources. This effect was especially noticeable as path characteristics diverge. We also show that proper configuration of stream priorities is critical for such a scheduler, as a sub-optimal configuration yielded poor performance.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:07:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 SANDRI_Marcus_2015.pdf: 2702736 bytes, checksum: 227059d931183af24cbcab4cc7a1eb19 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-06-10 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / This Master s thesis shows a solution for splitting MPTCP subflows in an Openflow network. MPTCP is a network protocol designed to branch a single TCP connection into many subflows. The main idea is to forward subflows th- rough disjointed paths. Commonly, ECMP protocol is adopted together to split flows through distinct paths. Nevertheless, there are many issues that shows that ECMP is not pareto-optimal, such as: ECMP can easily set two subflows from the same TCP connection on the same path and/or set a distinct forward and back forward route to the same subflow. To solve these issues, it is designed MultiFlow, a module which uses a controller for guarantee multipath routing by setting subflows from the same MPTCP connection so that such subflows are forwarded through distinct paths. MultiFlow is evaluated in experimentation where is analyzed throughput and resilience comparing it with Spanning-Tree (STP) and ECMP. The experiments were done by using Mininet: An OpenFlow emulator for experimenting with a set of topologies. / Esta dissertação apresenta uma solução para distribuir subfluxos Multipath-TCP (MPTCP) em redes OpenFlow. MPTCP é um protocolo desenvolvido para derivar um fluxo TCP em diversos subfluxos e estes serem roteados por caminhos disjuntos ao longo da rede. Convencionalmente, adota-se em conjunto o protocolo Equal-Cost Multipath (ECMP), do qual distribui fluxos de todos os tipos de protocolos ao longo de uma rede com múltiplos caminhos. Entretanto, existem diversas questões que mostram que o ECMP não é um protocolo altamente eficiente. Dentre elas, o ECMP comumente pode alocar dois subfluxos de uma mesma conexão em um mesmo caminho e/ou distribuir um caminho de ida diferente do caminho de volta. A fim de solucionar estes problemas, é desenvolvido o MultiFlow, um módulo para o controlador POX a fim de garantir que subfluxos pertencentes a uma mesma conexão MPTCP possam ser encaminhados em caminhos disjuntos, em uma rede OpenFlow. MultiFlow é validado em experimentos de desempenho onde são analisados taxa de transferência (throughput) e resiliência em experimentos comparativos com os protocolos Spanning-Tree (STP) e ECMP. Para isso, utilizamos o Mininet: Um emulador de rede OpenFlow que permite a criação de diferentes topologias para experimentação.

The market penetration of mobile access devices with multiple network interfaces has increased dramatically over the last few years. As a consequence, the quest for a widespread multi-path transport protocol that takes advantage of all available interfaces simultaneously to increase data throughput and improve robustness, has received considerable attention. One prominent protocol introduced by the IETF is Multipath TCP (MPTCP). MPTCP is an extension to the predominant single-path transport protocol, the Transport Control Protocol (TCP) that enables multihomed devices to aggregate available resources transparently to the applications. Combining multiple radio access technologies, like LTE and Wi-Fi, with diverse characteristics in terms of transmission rates and fluctuations opens for novel challenges that may disrupt and even harm the data throughput. Therefore MPTCP must take path heterogeneity into account. For MPTCP to supersede single-path TCP it is required that MPTCP always achieve at least the throughput of the best individual TCP path. This thesis investigates if MPTCP with uncoupled congestion control fulfills this condition, and if so, how much it improves the throughput. By examining the protocol in a deterministic emulated environment defined by the characteristics of LTE, we conclude two key factors impacting the outcome: the download size and the difference in characteristics between the paths. Our experiments show that MPTCP overall fulfills this task, especially during path homogeneity with near aggregated results. But we also show that MPTCP may decrease data throughput with 16% compared to TCP during path heterogeneity. Hence MPTCP does not always fulfill the goal of throughput. We therefore conclude further intelligence is needed for the packet scheduling mechanism to avoid throughput degradation in the initial phase of a transmission.

ITC/USA 2006 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Second Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 23-26, 2006 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / The aeronautical channel is an air to ground channel characterized by multipath, high doppler shifts, Rayleigh fading and noise. Use of a channel sounder ensures proper estimation of the parameters associated with the impulse response of the channel. These estimates help us to characterize the radio channels associated with aeronautical telemetry. In order to have a satisfactory channel characterization, the amplitudes, phase shifts and delays associated with each multipath component in the channel model must be determined.

ITC/USA 2005 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-First Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2005 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / This paper presents the issues related to the modeling and performance of the Radio Channel used in Telemetry. Because of the physical environment one expects stressed channel conditions due to multipath, shadowing, and high doppler shift caused by high speeds of up to mach 3. Prior work has created useful data and models for analysis of these radio channels. This paper will develop features of a channel simulator that will allow for evaluation of radio protocols for iNET. Substantial work has also been done to develop requirements for the iNET networked radio environment. This paper will map these requirements into technical features required for the radio link and consider how these will relate to the effects of the channels.

ITC/USA 2009 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Fifth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 26-29, 2009 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Following-up on an ITC 2006 paper, "From RF to bits with Synthetic Beamforming", we follow the development and fielding of a Digital Beamforming (DBF) Antenna. This antenna, built for an airborne Telemetry application, supports 10 individual polarization-diverse beams and immediately converts RF to IF at the antenna element through a suite of LNBs. The IF is then digitized and all subsequent processing is performed through an array of 200+ FPGAs, including DBF, optimal combining, demodulation, and IF upconversion. We present our Model-Based Design approach, which allowed us to develop and test the system incrementally and rapidly, particularly during the transition from factory testing to flight operations, where several unexpected problems were discovered. Our software tool set enabled us to dissect the System behavior via post-mission replay, and our detailed simulations were instrumental in developing mitigation quickly. The System-level impacts and root causes of some of these issues are also discussed. We believe the flexibility of DBF and the modular software architecture were key in quickly mitigating many of these unforeseen real-world issues without hardware modification.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1999 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Data from ARTM channel sounding test flights is examined to characterize the dynamic channel behavior of aeronautical telemetry channels. The dynamic behavior is characterized using the Doppler power spectrum. The width of the Doppler power spectrum is the Doppler bandwidth of the channel which indicates the required bandwidth of adaptive detection techniques such as adaptive equalization, adaptive modulation, adaptive channel selection and adaptive error control coding. Data collected from ARTM Flight 11 suggest a Doppler bandwidth exceeding 6.7 Hz for the channel, but greater accuracy and resolution will only be possible with more data.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 23-26, 2000 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / The presence of multipath fading has been shown to degrade the performance of a wireless channel. This paper quantifies the effects of multipath interference on signal performance based on the estimated parameters of the multipath signal. Theoretical results are compared with actual results obtained through the Advanced Range Telemetry (ARTM) program.

This thesis investigates a method of tracking remote transmitters using multipath localization fingerprints generated by a ray tracing simulation. Radio wave propagation phenomena in a dense urban environment can be simulated using publicly available mapping data and 2-D ray tracing techniques when the receivers and transmitters are found to be approximately co-planar. OpenStreetMap (OSM) building data is used to model the area of interest, and frequency of arrival (FOA) localization fingerprints are generated virtually along a grid. These fingerprints are then used to estimate the origin of incoming signals. Simulation of this method using three receivers and a 10 m square grid demonstrates a simulated localization accuracy within 15 m. Taking things a step closer to reality, an attempt to validate the ray tracing simulation is made. Validation is presented in the form of experimental results for a set of trials along with a statistical comparison to simulation results. A significant positive correlation between the experimental and simulation results is found and detailed. Finally, the tracking method described is applied to real collected signal data and the results discussed.