SBIR Phase II: Massively Parallel Protocols for Software-based Wireless Instrumentation

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is that it enables the use of wireless spectrum more efficiently, while ensuring high quality service to wireless users. Demand for wireless communication continues to expand, and 4G and 5G protocols are able to efficiently use available spectrum — but only as long as deployments are properly engineered and configured. The technology being developed addresses the complexity of configuring a wireless network and ensuring that it operates at peak efficiency. The objective is to build a system that can non-intrusively monitor 4G and 5G networks and detect interference, misconfiguration and/or places where additional base stations are needed. This will be done automatically, removing the need for specialized wireless expertise from the network owner, installer or operator. This enables deploying wireless networks faster and less expensively. The underlying innovation is a new approach to implementing radios purely in software. By using off-the-shelf “software defined radio” hardware, over-the-air signals are captured in a form that can be processed on a standard computer (e.g., a laptop). Combining standard hardware with advanced software makes a system that meets the above goals possible. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project addresses a central problem in implementing wireless communication systems. It has long been appreciated that if wireless systems were mostly implemented in software, they could be deployed faster and upgraded more easily. However, while computer speeds have gone up dramatically, the processing requirement of wireless systems have increased even faster. Software implementations of modern communication standards (e.g., 5G) have lagged. However, current microprocessors have many individual processing “cores” — dozens to a few hundred — and can do many operations in parallel. The challenge is to divide up the task of wireless signal processing so tasks can be done in parallel, without the overhead of moving results between cores and degrading the gains. Previous work has identified promising approaches, and this work aims to extend them, allowing complete decoding of 4G and 5G over-the-air control signals (user traffic is encrypted for privacy and is not accessible). The research seeks to develop signal processing techniques that are well-matched to modern multi-core processors and uses them at peak efficiency. The result will be a system that is able to monitor and verify correct operation of a modern wireless network. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.