Zhijun Li and Tian He
Computer Science and EngineeringUniversity of Minnesota
BEST Paper Award @ MobiCom 2017
Tian He @ UMN
1.8B
… and Increases Rapidly
Source: ABI Research
~4B
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Gartner predicts 20 billion IOT devices by year 2020
Source: Navigant Research
130M
Tian He @ UMN
Coexist and CollaborateLANNetwork of
“Things”ThermostatSmoke detectorHumidity detectorMany more
PAN
WAN
Smart Hospital
Tian He @ UMN
Objective: Ubiquitous Connectivity
Q: How to Interconnect/bridge them?
PAN
LAN
PAN
WAN
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Tian He @ UMN
MutiRadio Gateway
Bridging Wireless Tech: Gateway
�Extra HW/deployment cost�Traffic overhead into/out of the gateway�Pre-deployment, unsuitable for ad hoc/mobile
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Tian He @ UMN
The New Paradigm: CTCCross-Technology Communication (CTC) enabling heterogeneous devices talks directly!
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Tian He @ UMN
What CTC can Achieve: Low Cost
A WiFi AP controls all smart home ZigBee-enabled devices in one hop without gateway
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Tian He @ UMN
What CTC can Achieve: Mobility
Direct Communication among mobile IOT devices without pre-deployed gateways
Battle FieldVANET
Inventory Tracking Wearables
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Tian He @ UMN
Support Explicit channel coordination
� Extends local mechanisms globally across wireless tech.� Global RTS/CTS Reservation.� Global Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)
What CTC can Achieve: Coordination
Time
Wifi
No traffic next 20ms
ZigBee Wifi
I need next 200ms
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Tian He @ UMN
Outline
� The State of the Art
� The Design
� Implementation & Evaluation
� Extensions
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Tian He @ UMN
Packet-level CTCUsing packet length, gap, or offset
A packet can only express a few bits
A Brief History of CTC Research
Mobicom2009
INFOCOM2013
MobiCom2015
MobiCom2017
ESENSEPacket Length
K. Chebrolu
GSenseGap Length
X. Zhang
HoWiESComb. Packet
LengthY. Zhang
FreeBeeBeacon Interval
S. Kim
bps
PHYCTC
100sKbps
bps bps
16,000X Faster!!! WE ARE HERE
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timeEner
gy(R
SSI)
10
1
Tian He @ UMN
Physical-Level CTCBy emulating receiver’s RF waveform, A packet achieves Rx’s maximum rate
A Brief History of CTC Research
Mobicom2009
INFOCOM2013
MobiCom2015
MobiCom2017
bps
PHYCTC
100sKbps
bps bps
16,000X Faster!!! WE ARE HERE
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I/Q
RSS
I
time
QuadratureIn-phase
11 1 0
……
Tian He @ UMN
The Key Idea of WEBee
WiFi Sender
Emulated ZigBee Signals
ZigBeeReceiver
WiFi Frame with selected Payload
ZigBee Frame
Ignore IgnoreZigBeeCompatible Signal
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Tian He @ UMN
Challenges of Physical-Layer CTC
Modulation: QAM, OFDMRate: ~54Mbps (802.11g)Distance:300mTx:26dBmSensitivity:-80dBm
Modulation : OQPSK, DSSSRate: ~250KbpsDistance:100mTx:0dBmSensitivity:-97dBmWithout translator
Key InnovationSignal
Emulation@
Wi-Fi Sender
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Tian He @ UMN
How Wi-Fi Transmits
Wi-FiFrame
Modulation(QAM)
Scrambler ConvolutionalEncoder Interleaver
Channel Coding
PilotInsertion IFFT Cyclic
Prefixing
Post-QAM ProcessingWi-Fi Signal
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Coded Bitspayload
Tian He @ UMN
Emulation via a Reverse Path
Wi-FiFrame
Scrambler ConvolutionalEncoder Interleaver
PilotInsertion IFFT Cyclic
Prefixing
Modulation(QAM)
TransmissionEmulation
Channel Coding Emulation
Post-QAM Emulation
QAMEmulation
ZigBee SignalsTo be Emulated
Coded Bitspayload
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Tian He @ UMN
QAM Emulation
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Mimic
RF Signal Spectrogram in the Air
QAM/OFDM signals OQPSK signals
Tian He @ UMN
� Minimizing emulation distortion in the time-domain is equivalent to minimizing the total deviation of frequencycomponents (based on Parseval’s theorem)
The Closest Wi-Fi QAM Points
Minimizing Emulation Distortion
Desired Time-domainZigBee Signals
FFT QAMEmulation
CorrespondingFrequency-domain
Components
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Tian He @ UMN
Parallel CTC
Link-level reliability
Other Technical ChallengesReverse channel coding
Pilot/Null avoidance
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For details, refer to the paper
29Tian He @ UMN 29
Combine the advantages of two technologies.
Tx:26dbmSensitivity:-65dbm
Rx:0dbmSensitivity:-97dbm
Big Mouth Good Ear
WEBee has a longer range than Wi-Fi!
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Support high mobility and duty cycled operations
Longer Range, better mobility Low Power Listening
32Tian He @ UMN 32
An 16,000x faster CTC with 99.9% reliability
For details referring to our mobicom 2017 paper
Tian He @ UMN
System Implementation
WiFi(Commodity)
AR9485
ZigBee(USRP)
N210
ZigBee(Commodity)
CC2420
WEBee @USRP
N210
WEBee@ SmartphoneLGNexus5
WEBee@Laptop
AR2425
ReceiverSender
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RXWi-Fi Frame
RX ZigBee Frame
RX ZigBee Frame
Tian He @ UMN
Experimental Setting� Lab� Hallway� Outdoor
Experiment setting
10,000 runs each trial
• Varying distances • Varying Tx Power• Varying packet length• Varying content• Varying duty-cycle• Varying Mobility
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Tian He @ UMN
Symbol Error Ratio vs Data RateFreeBee [Mobicom ’15]
7.5bps@99%
WEBee [Mobicom ’17]
63,000bps@99%
~8,000xSpeedup*250kbpstheoretically
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Tian He @ UMN
Frame Reception Ratio
~50%
WEBee(USRP) è ZigBee
WEBee(WiFi) è ZigBee
Rec
ept.
Rat
io (%
) 20
4060
8010
00
A frame fails with one symbol error
WEBee(Commodity)
AR2425
WEBee(USRP)
N210
ZigBee
CC2420
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Tian He @ UMN
Reliability after Retransmission
99%after6retransmissions
Less re-TX with Repeated preamble and coding
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Tian He @ UMN
Application: Smart Light Control
GE Gateway Solution WeBee Solution
Vs.
� You can control ZigBee Smart Bulb with WEBee
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Tian He @ UMN
Release: WEBee Payload Generator V1.o
You can conduct cross-technology research using WEBee Generator!Available at: http://tianhe.cs.umn.edu/CTC
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Possible New Topics:
• Channel Access Control• Coordination• Neighbor Discovery• Multi-Technology Routing• CTC Time Synch.• CTC Localization • …..
Tian He @ UMN
LTEBee: LTE (band 7) to ZigBee� LTE smartphone controls a CC2530 ZigBee Blub directly
after 7-layers channel coding and 6-step modulation.
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Tian He @ UMN
Conclusion� WEBee is the first physical-layer CTC design, a
paradigm shift with a significantly higher throughput, while requiring no change of HW.
� Our work indicates Signal Emulation is a generic technology to build light-weight SDR, striking a delicate balance between flexibility and cost.
� Our work brings a surge of opportunities to expand many local wireless mechanisms globally (e.g., coordination, discovery, etc.) across technologies.
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Can support two-way
MasterNode
Slavenodes
Duty-Cycle ModeAlways On Mode
Wake
Long Range
Tian He @ UMN
� Wireless technologies share unlicensed ISM bands, offering opportunity for cross-tech. communication
Opportunity for Cross-Tech.-Comm.
<ni.com>
<digikey.com>
ChannelCenter Frequency (MHz)
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