An IEEE 802.11a/g/p OFDM receiver for GNU radio

TLDR

Experimental research on wireless communication protocols often requires full access to all protocol layers, and SDR platforms with real‑time frameworks provide a basis for implementing transceivers that enable such experimentation. The authors present a complete OFDM receiver implemented in GNU Radio for operation with an Ettus USRP N210. The receiver implements all layers up to MAC parsing and payload extraction for IEEE 802.11a/g/p, supports 20 MHz WiFi and 10 MHz DSRC, and was validated through interoperability tests and performance measurements. The prototype, validated through interoperability tests and performance measurements, is the first GNU‑Radio based OFDM receiver for IEEE 802.11a/g/p and its open‑source code facilitates experimentation with novel signal‑processing algorithms.

Abstract

Experimental research on wireless communication protocols frequently requires full access to all protocol layers, down to and including the physical layer. Software Defined Radio (SDR) hardware platforms, together with real-time signal processing frameworks, offer a basis to implement transceivers that can allow such experimentation and sophisticated measurements. We present a complete Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) receiver implemented in GNU Radio and fitted for operation with an Ettus USRP N210. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first prototype of a GNU Radio based OFDM receiver for this technology. Our receiver comprises all layers up to parsing the MAC header and extracting the payload of IEEE 802.11a/g/p networks. It supports both WiFi with a bandwidth of 20 MHz and IEEE 802.11p DSRC with a bandwidth of 10 MHz. We validated and verified our implementation by means of interoperability tests, and present representative performance measurements. By making the code available as Open Source we provide an easy-to-access system that can be readily used for experimenting with novel signal processing algorithms.