Full-duplex wireless communications using off-the-shelf radios: Feasibility and first results

Abstract

We study full-duplex wireless communication systems where same band simultaneous bidirectional communication is achieved via cancellation of the self-interfering signal. Using off-the-shelf MIMO radios, we present experimental results that characterize the suppression performance of three self-interference cancellation mechanisms, which combine a different mix of analog and digital cancellation. Our experimental results show that while the amount of self-interference increases linearly with the transmitted power, the self-interference can be sufficiently cancelled to make full-duplex wireless communication feasible in many cases. Our experimental results further show that if the self-interference is cancelled in the analog domain before the interfering signal reaches the receiver front end, then the resulting full-duplex system can achieve rates higher than the rates achieved by a half-duplex system with identical analog resources.