Huacheng Zeng

MIMO-based jamming resilient communication in wireless networks

Reactive jamming is considered the most powerful jamming attack as the attack efficiency is maximized while the risk of being detected is minimized. Currently, there are no effective anti-jamming solutions to secure OFDM wireless communications under reactive jamming attack. On the other hand, MIMO has emerged as a technology of great research interest in recent years mostly due to its capacity gain. In this paper, we explore the use of MIMO technology for jamming resilient OFDM communication, especially its capability to communicate against the powerful reactive jammer. We first investigate the jamming strategies and their impacts on the OFDM-MIMO receivers. We then present a MIMO-based anti-jamming scheme that exploits interference cancellation and transmit precoding capabilities of MIMO technology to turn a jammed non-connectivity scenario into an operational network. Our testbed evaluation shows the destructive power of reactive jamming attack, and also validates the efficacy and efficiency of our defense mechanisms.

Shark-IA: An Interference Alignment Algorithm for Multi-hop Underwater Acoustic Networks with Large Propagation Delays

A fundamental issue of underwater acoustic (UWA) communications is large propagation delays due to water medium. A new direction to address this issue is to take advantage of large propagation delays rather than enduring them as a disadvantage. Recent advances in time-based interference alignment (IA), or propagation delay (PD)-based IA, offer a new potential to turn the adverse effect of large propagation delays into something that is beneficial to throughput improvement. The goal of this paper is to investigate PD-IA in a multi-hop UWA network. We develop an analytical PD-IA model with a set of constraints that guarantee PD-IA feasibility at the physical layer. Based on this model, we develop a distributed PD-IA scheduling algorithm, called Shark-IA, to maximally overlap interference in a multi-hop UWA network. Simulation results show that Shark-IA algorithm can improve throughput performance when compared to an idealized benchmark algorithm with perfect scheduling and zero propagation delay. Further, the throughput gain increases with the amount of interference in the network.

A novel MIMO DoF model for multi-hop networks

The rapid advances of MIMO to date have mainly stayed at the physical layer or single-hop communications. Such advantages have not been fully realized at the network level, particularly for multi-hop networks. This is mainly due to the lack of a tractable and accurate model that can characterize MIMOs powerful capabilities such as spatial multiplexing (SM) and interference cancellation (IC). Recently a new DoF-based model was proposed to capture MIMOs SM and IC capabilities in multi-hop networks. This model is based on a novel node-ordering concept and only requires simple numeric computation on DoFs. In this article we review previous models for MIMO and then describe this new DoF model. This new DoF model has the potential to enable significant advances in MIMO research in the networking community.

On interference alignment for multi-hop MIMO networks

Interference alignment (IA) is a major advance in information theory. Despite its rapid advance in the information theory community, most results on IA remain point-to-point or single-hop and there is a lack of advance of IA in the context of multi-hop wireless networks. The goal of this paper is to make a concrete step toward advancing IA technique in multi-hop MIMO networks. We present an IA model consisting of a set of constraints at a transmitter and a receiver that can be used to determine a subset of interfering streams for IA. Based on this IA model, we develop an IA optimization framework for a multihop MIMO network. For performance evaluation, we compare the performance of a network throughput optimization problem under our proposed IA framework and the same problem when IA is not employed. Simulation results show that the use of IA can significantly decrease the DoF consumption for IC, thereby improving network throughput.

A Scheduling Algorithm for MIMO DoF Allocation in Multi-Hop Networks

Recently, a new MIMO degree-of-freedom (DoF) model was proposed to allocate DoF resources for spatial multiplexing (SM) and interference cancellation (IC) in a multi-hop network. Although this DoF model promises many benefits, it hinges upon a global node ordering to keep track of IC responsibilities among all the nodes. An open question about this model is whether its global ordering property can be achieved among the nodes in the network through distributed operations. In this paper, we explore this question by studying DoF scheduling in a multi-hop MIMO network, with the objective of maximizing the minimum throughput among a set of sessions. We propose an efficient DoF scheduling algorithm to solve it and show that our algorithm only requires local operations. We prove that the resulting DoF scheduling solution is globally feasible and show that there exists a corresponding feasible global node ordering for IC, albeit such global ordering is implicit. Simulation results show that the solution values obtained by our algorithm are relatively close to the upper bound values computed by CPLEX solver, thereby indicating that our algorithm is highly competitive.

Jamming Resilient Communication Using MIMO Interference Cancellation

Jamming attack is a serious threat to the wireless communications. Reactive jamming maximizes the attack efficiency by jamming only when the targets are communicating, which can be readily implemented using software-defined radios. In this paper, we explore the use of the multi-input multi-output (MIMO) technology to achieve jamming resilient orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) communication. In particular, MIMO interference cancellation treats jamming signals as noise and strategically cancels them out, while transmit precoding adjusts the signal directions to optimize the decoding performance. We first investigate the reactive jamming strategies and their impacts on the MIMO-OFDM receivers. We then present a MIMO-based anti-jamming scheme that exploits MIMO interference cancellation and transmit precoding technologies to turn a jammed non-connectivity scenario into an operational network. We implement our jamming resilient communication scheme using software-defined radios. Our testbed evaluation shows the destructive power of reactive jamming attack, and also validates the efficacy and efficiency of our defense mechanisms in the presence of numerous types of reactive jammers with different jamming signal powers.

An efficient DoF scheduling algorithm for multi-hop MIMO networks

Degree-of-Freedom (DoF)-based model is a simple yet powerful tool to analyze MIMOs spatial multiplexing (SM) and interference cancellation (IC) capabilities in a multi-hop network. Recently, a new DoF model was proposed and was shown to achieve the same rate region as the matrix-based model (under SM and IC). The essence of this new DoF model is a novel node ordering concept, which eliminates potential duplication of DoF allocation for IC. In this paper, we investigate DoF scheduling for a multi-hop MIMO network based on this new DoF model. Specifically, we study how to perform DoF allocation among the nodes for SM and IC so as to maximize the minimum rate among a set of sessions. We formulate this problem as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) and develop an efficient DoF scheduling algorithm to solve it. We show that our algorithm is amenable to local implementation and has polynomial time complexity. More importantly, it guarantees the feasibility of final solution (upon algorithm termination), despite that node ordering establishment and adjustment are performed locally. Simulation results show that our algorithm can offer a result that is close to an upper bound found by CPLEX solver, thus showing that the result found by our algorithm is highly competitive.

On the Limitation of Embedding Cryptographic Signature for Primary Transmitter Authentication

Recently, an interesting primary transmitter authentication scheme was proposed. The main idea of this scheme is to have the primary transmitter embed cryptographic authentication tag at the physical layer. There are a number of features that make this scheme attractive. In this paper, we investigate the effective coverage areas for the primary and secondary receivers before and after applying this scheme. During the process, we reveal a serious limitation of this scheme, which may prohibit its application in practice.

An Analytical Model for Interference Alignment in Multi-Hop MIMO Networks

Interference alignment (IA) is a powerful technique to handle interference in wireless networks. Since its inception, IA has become a central research theme in the wireless communications community. Due to its intrinsic nature of being a physical layer technique, IA has been mainly studied for point-to-point or single-hop scenario. There is a lack of research of IA from a networking perspective in the context of multi-hop wireless networks. The goal of this paper is to make such an advance by bringing IA technique to multi-hop MIMO networks. We develop an IA model consisting of a set of constraints at a transmitter and a receiver that can be used to determine IA for a subset of interfering streams. We further prove the feasibility of this IA model by showing that a DoF vector can be supported free of interference at the physical layer as long as it satisfies the constraints in our IA model. Based on the proposed IA model, we develop an IA design space for a multi-hop MIMO network. To study how IA performs in a multi-hop MIMO network, we compare the performance of a network throughput optimization problem based on our developed IA design space against the same problem when IA is not employed. Simulation results show that the use of IA can significantly decrease the DoF consumption for IC, thereby improving network throughput.

Impact of Full Duplex Scheduling on End-to-End Throughput in Multi-Hop Wireless Networks

There have been some rapid advances on the design of full duplex (FD) transceivers in recent years. Although the benefits of FD have been studied for single-hop wireless communications, its potential on throughput performance in a multi-hop wireless network remains unclear. As for multi-hop networks, a fundamental problem is to compute the achievable end-to-end throughput for one or multiple communication sessions. The goal of this paper is to offer some fundamental understanding on end-to-end throughput performance limits of FD in a multi-hop wireless network. We show that through a rigorous mathematical formulation, we can cast the multi-hop throughput performance problem into a formal optimization problem. Through numerical results, we show that in many cases, the end-to-end session throughput in a FD network can exceed 2x of that in a half duplex (HD) network. Our finding can be explained by the much larger design space for scheduling that is offered by removing HD constraints in throughput maximization problem. The results in this paper offer some new understandings on the potential benefits of FD for end-to-end session throughput in a multi-hop wireless network.