FACULDADE DE E NGENHARIA DA U NIVERSIDADE DO P ORTO

Successive Interference Cancellation in

Vehicular Networks to Relieve the
Negative Impact of the Hidden Node
Problem

Carlos Miguel Silva Couto Pereira

Preparation of the dissertation conducted under the

Master in Electrical Engineering and Computer
Major Telecommunications

Supervisor: Ana Aguiar (Ph.D.)

Co-Supervisor: Jens Mittag (Dipl.-Inform.)

February, 2011
Resumo

Comunicações entre veículos e de veículos para infra-estruturas sítuadas na berma da estrada

é uma abordagem promissora para aumentar a segurança nas estradas. No entanto, o problema da
nó escondido (hidden node problem) pode levar a transmissões de pacotes dessincronizadas por
nós que estejam fora do alcance de detecção de outros, o que por si pode resultar em colisões
de pacotes e perdas em receptores no meio. Adicionalmente, condições de canal que variam fre-
quentemente introduzem transmissões nã sincronizadas.
Da teoria da informação, é conhecido que é possível, mediante condições específicas, de-
scodificar e receber com sucesso pacotes que colidam. A técnica que é usada para isto chama-se
cancelamento sucessivo da interferência (SIC).
Neste contexto, o principal objectivo desta tese de mestrado é desenvolver um algoritmo de
cancelamento sucessivo de interferência para comunicações entre veículos. Esta tese terá como
foco mitigar o problema do nó escondido.

i
ii
Abstract

Communication between vehicles and from vehicles to roadside infrastructure is a promising

approach to increase the safety on the roads. However, the hidden node problem can lead to un-
synchronized packet transmissions by nodes that are outside of each other’s sensing range, which
in turn may result in packet collisions and losses at possible receivers in between. Additionally,
rapidly changing channel conditions introduces additional unsynchronized transmissions.
From information theory, it is known that it is possible to, under specific conditions, success-
fully decode and receive even colliding packets. The technique that is used to achieve this is called
Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC).
In this context, the main objective for this master thesis is to develop a successive interference
cancellation algorithm for vehicular communications. This thesis will focus on relieve the hidden
node problem.

iii
iv
Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisors, Ph.D. Ana Aguiar and Dipl.-Inform. Jens Mittag, for their
assistance and support given to the accomplishment of this report.

The Author

v
vi
“I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.”

Isaac Asimov

vii
viii
Contents

1 Introdution 1
1.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2 Related Work 5
2.1 VANET, DSRC, 802.11p . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.1 VANET Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.2 The emerging of 802.11p . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 802.11p . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2.1 802.11p OFDM PHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.2 802.11p MAC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3 Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3.1 Channel - Path Loss, shadowing and multipath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3.2 Channel Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3.3 Channel Estimation - OFDM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.4 Hidden Node Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.5 Interference Cancellation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.5.1 SINR model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.5.2 Capture Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.5.3 SIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.5.4 SIC for CDMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.5.5 SIC for OFDM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

3 Methodology 25
3.1 NS-3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.2 NS-3 with PhySim-WiFi module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.2.1 Channel models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.2.2 Reception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.3 Simulation model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

4 Problem Formulation 31

5 Workplan 33
5.1 Task List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5.2 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

6 Conclusions 35

ix
x CONTENTS

References 36
List of Figures

2.1 VANET - WBSS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.2 VANET - WIBSS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3 Spectrum allocation for DSRC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.4 IEEE 802.11p WAVE Protocol Stack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.5 IEEE 802.11p frame with OFDM preamble and PLCP header using a 10 MHz
channel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.6 802.11p Operating Channels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.7 OFDM transmitter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.8 OFDM receiver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.9 General MAC frame format with explicit frame Control field. . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.10 Multipath Propagation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.11 Block-type Pilot Channel Estimation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.12 Comb-type Pilot Channel Estimation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.13 Hidden Node. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.14 Four-way handshake. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.15 Block diagram of SIC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.16 Block diagram of PIC for CDMA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.17 SIC using a standard CDMA matched filter receiver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.18 Iteractive receiver structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

3.1 NS-3 architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

3.2 Architecture of the physical layer emulation within NS-3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.3 Channel modelling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.4 Frame Reception. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.5 Topology of the simulations without carrier sensing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

5.1 Possible calendar and duration of each task. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

xi
xii LIST OF FIGURES
List of Tables

2.1 Comparison of the main PHY parameters between IEEE 802.11a and IEEE 802.11p. 10
2.2 Default parameter settings for different application categories in 802.11p. . . . . 13

xiii
xiv LIST OF TABLES
xv
xvi Abbreviations

Abbreviations

AC Application Categorie
ACK Acknowledgement
AIFS Arbitration Inter Frame Space
AWGN Additive White Gaussian Noise
BER Bit Error Ratio
CCA Clear Channel Assessment
CCH Control Channel
CDMA Code Division Multiple Access
CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check
CS Carrier Sense
CSMA Carrier Sense Multiple Access
CSMA/CA Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA)
CSMA/CD Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD)
CTS Clear-To-Send
CW Contention Window
DAB Digital Audio Broadcast
DCF Distributed Coordination Function
DFT Discrete Fourier Transform
DIFS DCF Interframe Space
DSRC Dedicated Short-Range Communications
DVB Digital Video Broadcast
EDCA Enhanced Distributed Channel Access
EIRP Effective Isotropic Radiated Power
ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute
FCC Federal Communications Commission
FFT Fast Fourier Transform
GI Guard Interval
HiperLAN High Performance Local Area Network
ICI Inter-Carrier Interference
IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
IFS Inter-Frame Space
ITS Intelligent Transport Systems
ISI Inter-Symbol Interference
LI Linear Interpolation
LLS Linear Least Squares
LMS Least Mean-Squares
LNS Log-Normal Shadowing
LPI Low-Pass Interpolation
LS Least Squares
LOS Line-of-Sight
Abbreviations xvii

MAC Medium Access Control Layer

MAI Multiple Access Interference
MANET Mobile Ad-Hoc NETwork
MIM Message-in-Message
MIMO Multiple-Input Multiple-Output
MMSE Minimum Mean-Square Error
MUD Multi-User Detection
MSDU MAC Service Data Unit
NLOS Non-Line-of-Sight
OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
O-QAM Orthogonally Multiplexed QAM
PCF Point Coordination Function
PF Persistence Factor
PHY Physical Layer
PLCP Physical Layer Convergence Procedure
QAM Quadrature Amplitude Modulation
QoS Quality of Service
RSS Received Signal Strength
RTS Request-To-Send
SCH Service Channel
SCI Spline Cubic Interpolation
SIC Successive Interference Cancellation
SINR Signal-to-Interference and Noise Ratio
SIR Signal-to-Interference Ratio
SOI Second-Order Interpolation
STA Station
TCs Traffic Categories
TDI Time Domain Interpolation
TRG Two-Ray Ground
VANET Vehicular Ad-hoc NETwork
V2I Vehicle-to-Infrastructure
V2V Vehicle to Vehicle
WAVE Wireless Access for vehicular environments
WBSS WAVE Basic Service Set
WIBSS WAVE Independent Basic Service Set
WSMP WAVE Short Message Protocol
xviii Abbreviations
Chapter 1

Introdution

1.1 Motivation

Mobility and flexibility are making wireless technologies prevail over other methods of data
transfer. Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks (VANETs) is one subclass of Mobile Ad-Hoc NETworks
(MANETs), in which the communications are made between vehicles and from vehicles to road-
side infrastructure (see section 2.1.1 for scheme description). VANET is one of the influencing
areas for the improvement of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) in order to provide safety
and comfort to the road users. This is a promising approach to increase the safety on communi-
cations that are made between vehicles and from vehicles to roadside infrastructure the roads. By
periodically exchanging status information with neighboring vehicles, e.g., the own geographical
position, driving speed and heading, cooperative traffic safety applications are envisioned to detect
dangerous traffic situations in advance and to act or to inform the driver appropriately. In USA,
according to preliminary data for 2008 [1], motor vehicle accidents are the first cause of death
in the age group 1 - 44 years. Motivations of VANET technology are not limited to safety. En-
hancement of the traveller mobility, increase on the efficiency of the transport system, decrease of
the travelling time and boost on-board luxury are amongst the vast reasons for why VANETs are
receiving the well-deserved attention [2].
Upcoming cooperative systems will be built on top of the IEEE 802.11p standard, which in
general uses Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) to schedule the packet transmissions of nodes
competing for the shared wireless channel. As it is well known for such wireless ad-hoc networks,
the hidden station problem can lead to unsynchronized packet transmissions by nodes that are
outside of each other’s sensing range, which in turn may result in packet collisions and losses
at possible receivers in between. The rapidly changing channel conditions, i.e., the fast fading
characteristics of the received signal due to the high mobility of the sending/receiving vehicles,
introduces additional unsynchronized transmissions, since even nodes located in the close sur-
rounding might not detect an ongoing transmission and interfere when they actually should not.

1
2 Introdution

Consequently, packet collisions, i.e., the timely overlap of two or more packets at a receiver, will
not be an exception in vehicular communications. One solution to this problem is the exchange
of Request-to-Send (RTS) and Clear-to-Send (CTS) messages, as defined in the IEEE 802.11
standard. However, the high mobility of vehicles and the rapidly changing topology in vehicular
networks have a significant negative impact on the effectiveness and the performance of this so-
lution. Furthermore, the introduced overhead is not acceptable in such systems, considering that
the contact duration times will be rather small due to the high mobility. From information theory,
it is known that it is possible to, under specific conditions, successfully decode and receive even
overlapping (or to use the above terminology: colliding) packets successfully. The technique that
is used to achieve this is called Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC) and works as follows
(assuming, without loss of generality, that only 2 frames/packets are overlapping): (1) the receiver
first decodes the bits of the stronger frame, called f s in the following, then (2) the receiver applies
the channel estimation that was used during the reception process of f s to re-compute the incom-
ing complex signal ss of f s (as it arrived at the receiver), then (3) the receiver cancels ss out of
the cumulative signal in order to obtain a ’clean’ signal that consists only of the thermal noise and
the received signal sw of the weaker frame f w. (4) The ’clean’ signal is then used to decode the
weaker frame f w.
SIC has already been applied to ZigBee [3], the spread spectrum based IEEE 802.11 PHY
specification in [4], and is used in CDMA systems to perform multi-user detection and to relieve
the near-far problem that exists in such systems [5]. The question arises: can interference cancel-
lation be applied effectively to vehicular communications as well, in particular to an OFDM-based
IEEE 802.11p system under fast-fading channel conditions?

1.2 Objectives

This master thesis has two main objectives. Firstly, determine in which situations occur un-
synchronized interferences and evaluate the significance of the hidden terminal problem. For that,
a metric will be developed allowing to describe the amount of unsynchronized packet transmis-
sions in different scenario setups as well as the geographic relationship between a sender and an
unsynchronized interferer. Secondly, based on these previous results it is expected to develop an
interference cancellation algorithm within the accurate physical layer simulator for NS-3, called
PhySim-WiFi and evaluate how many of the packets, that collide due to unsynchronized transmis-
sions, can actually be recovered by interference cancellation.

1.3 Structure

This document is organized according with the following structure. The current chapter is an
introduction to this report. In chapter 2, a review of the State of the Art is presented along with
related work. Chapter 3 describes the methodology involved. In chapter 4, there is the formulation
1.3 Structure 3

of the problem. In chapter 5, a possible work plan is provided and conclusions are made in
chapter 6.
4 Introdution
Chapter 2

Related Work

2.1 VANET, DSRC, 802.11p

2.1.1 VANET Scheme

There are two types of nodes in VANETs. Mobile Nodes named On Board Units (OBUs) and
Static Nodes named Road Side Units (RSUs). An OBU performs the functions of a 802.11 station
with additional WAVE (term described later on, in 2.1.2) functions. RSU performs the functions
of a 802.11 Access Point with additional WAVE functions. Figure 2.1 shows a set of OBUs
operating in a WAVE mode controlled by an RSU, which is called WBSS (WAVE basic service
set). A WIBSS (WAVE independent basic service set) is a set of OBUs operating in a WAVE mode
without the control of a RSU (Figure 2.2). In a WIBSS there are no beacons messages and the
connections are created/ended on-the-fly [6].

2.1.2 The emerging of 802.11p

Sharing the medium in conventional 802.11 networks is so much more difficult as the higher
the mobility of nodes and the dynamic of topology changes. Typical 802.11 MAC protocols are not

Figure 2.1: VANET - WBSS. Figure 2.2: VANET - WIBSS.

5
6 Related Work

suitable for VANETs [7]. Due to the characteristics of radio transmissions, when a vehicle trans-
mits a message it does a broadcast and everyone in the neighborhood "hears" that message. For
efficiency and/or safety reasons, this broadcast does not concern a problem, e.g., to warn traffic jam
or to announce an accident. VANETs, like other wireless networks, face some difficulties relative
to MAC operation like half-duplex operation, time-varying channel and location-dependent carrier
sensing leading to hidden and exposed terminals. Compared to conventional wireless networks a
main difference arises: in VANETs, there is no central communication coordinator because of the
ad-hoc nature. The standard performance metrics of MAC as throughput, delay, fairness, stabil-
ity, robustness against channel fading and support for Quality of Service (QoS) can be applied to
assess MAC proposals for VANETs. Other important topics [8] must also be taken into account.
Firstly, the system dynamics since that mobility and rapid alterations in environmental conditions
lead to time and frequency varying channels. Since the channels assigned to VANETs have a
bandwidth ranging from 5 to 20 MHz, in a high vehicular traffic density the channels can easily
be congested; therefore, the scalability has to be taken into account. There will be different types
of communication between the vehicles; the basic type - one-hop broadcast messages - will peri-
odically transmit status information to surrounding vehicles; additionally, it will also be necessary
to spread emergency messages, quickly and efficiently; therefore, it is necessary to differentiate
various types of communication and provide support for QoS.
In this environment, the Dedicated Short-Range Communications(DSRC) technology emerged.
Figure 2.3 shows that DSRC operates in the 75MHz licensed, but free, spectrum at 5.9GHz allo-
cated in October 1999, by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the USA. The
75MHz spectrum is divided into 10MHz bandwidth channel with a total of 7 different channels. In
Europe, in August 2008, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) allocated
30 MHz of spectrum in the 5.9GHz band from 5875MHz to 5905MHz with a possible extension
of 40MHz [9].

Recently, the IEEE 802.11 Working Group created the Task Group P that started to examine
possible solutions for adapting 802.11 to vehicular networks. IEEE 802.11p is an evolution from
ASTM E2213-03: Standard Specification for Telecommunications and Information Exchange Be-
tween Roadside and Vehicle Systems - 5 GHz Band Dedicated Short Range Communications
(DSRC) Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications [10]. DRSC
PHY and MAC layers are based in the IEEE 802.11a - 1999 and IEEE 802.11e - 2005 standards,
respectively. The 802.11p Wireless Access in Vehicular Environment (WAVE) amendment, mod-
ifies 802.11-2007 standard to add support to ITS applications [11]. In a broader context, 802.11p
is a part of several standards, which will jointly enable widescale telematics. It provides Vehicle-
to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communications. 802.11p WAVE proposes
small modifications to the data link and physical layers of the OSI model to provide a more reliable
connection and quick setup for high-speed vehicles, as shown in figure 2.4 (extracted from [12]).
From that figure, one can see that 802.11p WAVE supports two different stacks, one for IPv6 and
the other for WAVE Short Message Protocol (WSMP).
2.2 802.11p 7

Figure 2.3: Spectrum allocation for DSRC.

Figure 2.4: IEEE 802.11p WAVE Protocol Stack.

2.2 802.11p

Modifications and amendments on IEEE 802.11a was made for adapting it to vehicular en-
vironments, resulting in IEEE 802.11p. Although basic algorithms and modulation schemes re-
8 Related Work

mained unaltered, there was the exclusion of association/authentication. Multiple channels with
different bandwidth per channel and specific transmit power were defined for use.

2.2.1 802.11p OFDM PHY

Briefly, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a special case of multicarrier

modulation (MCM) in which multiple user symbols are transmitted in parallel using different sub-
carriers with overlapping frequency bands that are mutually orthogonal. Like described in [13],
OFDM is known since 1966 [14] but only in the 1990s reached a state mature enough to be em-
ployed in standard systems and a proof of that was it was chosen to be the standard of the European
Digital Audio Broadcast (DAB) as well as of the Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) scheme. Also, it
was considered a reasonable proposal for the 3G mobile radio standard and selected as the High
Performance Local Area Network (HiperLAN) transmission technique1 . OFDM is an important
part of the IEEE 802.11 standard, namely IEEE 802.11a and IEEE 802.11p, which concern the
most for this work.
OFDM has many advantages over conventional modulation schemes [15], although that is
normal it also imposes limitations. One advantage, that is quite attractive, is that OFDM sys-
tems adapts to time- and frequency-domain channel quality variations of the transmission chan-
nel [13]. This way, dispersive transmission media (e.g., wireless channels), can be considered
non-dispersive and thus it does not require a classic channel equalizer during communications.
In [16] was argued that instead of a set of sub-channel modulations2 , it can be implemented a Dis-
crete Fourier Transform (DFT) using a single Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), which dramatically
reduces complexity in OFDM modems3 . In 1980, an equalization algorithm was proposed in [17]
to suppress both inter-symbol and inter-subcarrier interference caused by the channel impulse re-
sponse or timing and frequency error and also, in the same year, [18] simplified OFDM modem
implementations. Later, [19] introduced the DFT-based implementation of Saltzberg’s orthogo-
nally multiplexed Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (O-QAM) OFDM system.
An IEEE 802.11 frame for OFDM-based communication is divided into three functionally
different sections: a preamble, a signal header and the data unit section with the actual payload.
Except of the amendment of parameters to allow high user mobility and longer ranges of commu-
nications (up to 1000 meters), the physical layer properties of 802.11p are similar to the already
widely used on the 802.11a standard, which uses OFDM modulation. In both standards it is em-
ployed a 64-subcarrier OFDM but only 52 are used for transmissions. Out of these 52 subcarriers,
48 are for transmitting data and the remaining 4 are called pilot-subcarriers. The pilot-subcarriers
are used for tracing frequency and phase offset and noise. For signal detection, coarse frequency
offset estimation, time synchronization, and channel estimation are used short and long training
symbols (see figure 2.5), which are located at the beginning of each data packet.

1 Note that HiperLANv2 and IEEE 802.11a use the same transmission technique (52-subcarrier OFDM).
2 Sinusoidal generators and demodulators.
3 A device that can do both the modulation and demodulation.
2.2 802.11p 9

Figure 2.5: IEEE 802.11p frame with OFDM preamble and PLCP header using a 10 MHz channel.

The fading channel is combated with the coding and interleaving of information bits before
they are modulated on subcarriers [20]. To ease Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI), introduced by
multipath propagation effects, there are guard intervals GIs.
For the specific case of North America, IEEE 802.11p operates in 5.9 GHz spectrum with
75MHz allocated (record figure 2.3). This total frequency bandwidth is divided in 7 channels
of 10MHz (figure 2.6, extracted from [21]) with a 5MHz safety margin at the lower end of the
assigned spectrum. Channel 178 is the control channel (CCH), which is used for broadcasting
transmissions and establishing communications. Channels 172 and 184 are reserved for special
users. The remaining channels are service channels and are used to manage two-way communi-
cation between RSUs and OBUs and between OBUs [22] but if an OBU does not "hear" anything
within 100 miliseconds, it switches back to control channel. Note also that there is the possibility
of two adjacent service channels may be used as a single 20MHz channel [20].

Figure 2.6: 802.11p Operating Channels.

Propagation conditions in vehicular communications are different to the ones projected for
802.11, based on nomadic indoor usage [23]. IEEE 802.11p decreases the available frequency
bandwidth of each channel to 10MHz, which doubles all parameters in time domain when com-
pared to IEEE802.11a while the data rate is halved (3 to 27 Mbps). Thus, ISI is reduced due
to the doubled guard interval. Inter-carrier interferences (ICI) are mitigated as well because the
Doppler spread is much smaller than half the subcarrier separation distance of 156.25 kHz (see
table 2.1). It was reported in [24] that lower data rates promote a robust message exchange by
offering better opportunities for countering noise and interferences. Meanwhile, the transmission
power in 802.11p can be higher than in 802.11a in order to support larger communication range
10 Related Work

in VANETs. Therefore, four classes of maximum allowable Effective Isotropic Radiated Power
(EIRP) are defined in IEEE 802.11, with maximum value of 44.8 dBm (30W), this one reserved for
emergency vehicles [20]. Table 2.1 exhibits the comparison of the main PHY parameters between
IEEE 802.11a and IEEE 802.11p.

Parameters IEEE 802.11a IEEE 802.11p Differences

Bit Rate(Mbit/s) 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 26, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 18, Half
48, 54 24, 27
Bandwidth(MHz) 20 10 Half
Modulation Mode BPSK, QPSK, 16- BPSK, QPSK, 16- Equal
QAM, 64-QAM QAM, 64-QAM
1 2 3 1 2 3
Coding Rate 2, 3, 4 2, 3, 4 Equal
Number of Subcarriers 52 (48+4) 52 (48+4) Equal
IFFT/FFT Period (µs) 3.2 6.4 Double
Guard Interval (µs) 0.8 ( 3.2
4 ) 1.6 ( 6.4
4 ) Double
OFDM Symbol Duration (µs) 4 (3.2+0.8) 8 (6.4+1.6) Double
Preamble Duration (µs) 16 32 Double
Subcarrier Spacing (MHz) 0.3125 0.15625 Half

Table 2.1: Comparison of the main PHY parameters between IEEE 802.11a and IEEE 802.11p.
2.2 802.11p 11

2.2.1.1 OFDM PHY - Tx and RX

A quick overview of OFDM modus operandi is presented next (based on [25]).

On an OFDM system, the input data is modulated, usually by a QAM modulator. Then, the sym-
bols are converted from serial-to-parallel resulting in parallel QAM symbols, which correspond
to the symbols transmitted over each of the subcarriers (discrete components). These discrete fre-
quency components are converted into time by performing an inverse DFT, which is efficiently
implemented using the IFFT algorithm. After the addition of the cyclic prefix, time samples are
converted to serial and passed to analogic (D/A converter) resulting in the baseband OFDM signal,
which is then upconverted to a frequency f0 (figure 2.7).

Figure 2.7: OFDM transmitter.

On the receiver side the reverse process ocurrs (figure 2.8).

Figure 2.8: OFDM receiver.

The demodulator can use the knowledge of the channel gains to recover the original QAM.
This is known as frequency equalization, however, for continuous-time OFDM, frequency equal-
ization leads to noise enhancement [25].
An important step at the receiver is synchronization. Correct synchronization occurs by organiz-
ing the data into reliable synchronized frames. A synchronization symbol, referred already in
section 2.2, is present in the beginning of all frames to indicate the starting position of the frame.
Wireless communications usually have noisy communication links, so is normal that received data
is not always correct or is affected by collisions, thus there is no certainty that the receiver is able
to recognize the synchronization symbol. Basically, the frame synchronization task consists on
the alignment of the FFT window at the correct received sample. If the alignment is not well suc-
ceeded, the samples from the adjacent OFDM symbols can be included in the FFT block, resulting
in ISI [26].
12 Related Work

2.2.2 802.11p MAC

The MAC frame format (fig 2.9 - extracted from [27]) is constituted by a set of fields with
a fixed order in all frames. Only the first three and last fields must be present in all frames and
compose the minimal possible frame. The remainders are only present in certain frames types
and subtypes. The frame body has a maximum size of the maximum MAC Service Data Unit
(MSDU) size (2304 octets) plus any overhead from security encapsulation [27]. The fundamen-

Figure 2.9: General MAC frame format with explicit frame Control field.

tal access method of IEEE 802.11 MAC is Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) known as
carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA). The DCF is implemented in
all stations (STA) and it is used to coordinate the medium access in the ad hoc mode. Before
starting a transmission it performs a backoff procedure, i.e., after the station senses the channel
idle it waits for a Inter Frame Space (IFS), and activates a contention timer with a minimum dura-
tion time called DCF Interframe Space (DIFS). This ensures low probability of collision and fair
access opportunities for other stations. The contention timer is chosen randomly from a uniform
distribution [0,CWmax] where CW is the contention window size where the units are slot times.
The backoff timer is decremented during a given slot time only if the medium is detected to be
idle. The station has permission to start the transmission when the timer reaches 0. The backoff
procedure is imposed by a binary exponential backoff algorithm, where each unsuccessful attempt
to transmit the same packet is preceded by backoff within a window that is double the size used
previously. If another transmission starts before the contention timer expires, this one is inhibited
until that transmission ends and when the transmission ends timer is reactivated. An enhanced
version of 802.11 DCF is used in the 802.11e, to coordinate channel access and at the same time
guarantee QoS requirements is the Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA). EDCA is also
based on CSMA/CA. The essential on the mode of operation of EDCA is that, when the channel
is busy, the backoff mechanism differs. The IEEE 802.11e prioritizes messages by providing dif-
ferent Traffic Categories (TC) that are also called Access Categories (ACs). When the medium is
determined busy before the counter reaches zero, the station has to wait for the medium being idle
for Arbitration Inter Frame Spacing (AIFS) again, before continuing to count down the timer. One
big difference from the legacy DCF is that when the medium is determined by the station as being
idle for the period of AIFS, the backoff counter is reduced by one beginning the last slot interval
of the AIFS period (in legacy DCF, the backoff counter is reduced by one beginning the first slot
2.3 Channel 13

interval after the DIFS period). Also, in legacy 802.11 the content timer always doubles after
any unsuccessful transmission while in IEEE 802.11e after an unsuccessful transmission attempt
a new content window is calculated with the help of the persistence factor (PF)(related to the TC)
and another uniformly distributed backoff counter is taken out of this new CW, in order to reduce
the probability of a new collision [28].
V2V communications require operating in an ad hoc mode. 802.11p MAC layer is based on
IEEE 802.11e EDCA QoS extension [29] where different applications categories (ACs) have dif-
ferent Arbitration Inter Frame Space (AIFS) and Contention Window (CW) values. In table 2.2
is displayed the parameter settings for diferent application traffic types [30]. As one can see, the
higher the access category the higher the priority for transmission of that frame. For each AC ex-
ists a packet queue. The four ACs contest internally for the selection of a packet to transmit. Then,
whichever packet selected must also compete for the channel externally with its own contention
parameters. Although this mechanism is based on IEEE 802.11e EDCA extension, IEEE 802.11p
uses specific parameters for its EDCA extension.

AC CWmin CWmax AIFSN

3 3 7 2
2 3 7 3
1 7 225 6
0 15 1023 9

Table 2.2: Default parameter settings for different application categories in 802.11p.

802.11p supports two different stacks, one for IPv6 (only on service channels) and the other
for WAVE Short Message Protocol (WSMP) that can be sent on any channel. The latter permits
aplications to control physical characteristics.

2.3 Channel

2.3.1 Channel - Path Loss, shadowing and multipath

In wireless communications, the transmission medium is a radio channel between transmitter

and receiver. The signal propagates over different paths, each one with or without a Line-of-
Sight (LOS), like is shown in figure 2.10 (extracted from [31]). Different phenomena can happen
when there is no LOS, which determine the different attenuation and multipath components and
have a major impact on the performance of any communication over wireless channel, including
VANETs. Shadowing is caused by obstacles between the transmitter and receiver that attenuate
signal power through reflection, scattering, and diffraction [32]. They can be described as:

• Reflection - When a signal is reflected on an object with a considerably higher dimension

relative to the wavelength of the signal.
14 Related Work

Figure 2.10: Multipath Propagation.

• Scattering - When a signal is reflected on an object with smaller dimensions relative to the
wavelength of the signal.

• Diffraction - When a signal is bent at the edge of an object that is large compared to wave-
length of radio wave, continuing its propagation beyond that object.

Path loss is caused by dissipation of the power. Path loss models do not include shadowing effects,
i.e, path loss is always the same for a given distance. Variations to the signal can be classified ac-
cording to distances. For relatively large distances, like path loss or shadowing, there are referred
to as large-scale propagation effects and for short distances, on the order of the signal wavelength,
these variations are referred to as small-scale propagation effects. Variations due to path loss and
shadowing occur over relatively large distances, thus, these variations are sometimes referred to
as large-scale propagation effects. Variation due to multipath occurs over very short distances, on
the order of the signal wavelength, therefore, this variation is sometimes referred to as small-scale
propagation effects [25]. It is very difficult to consider all the small effects introduced by the
propagation channel; therefore, usually, simplified channel models are used and reflect the most
important properties of channels in parameters [33].
Basic mechanisms that condition signal propagation in wireless environments and outline var-
ious modeling parameters [33]:

• Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel - Implemented to validate the model per-
formance. Not a realistic scenario in wireless networks due to existence of a multiplicity of
propagation paths.

• Block-Fading channel - A frequency-selective channel model. Permits investigating depen-

dency of the model on the number of propagation paths from the transmitter to the receiver.
Unlike in a AWGN channel, in a Block-Fading channel the channel transfer function must
be modeled because a frequency-selective channel model cannot be modeled by a simple
attenuation coeficient since the received signal is spread in time thus the channel is said to
be time-dispersive4 .
4 Also named frequency-selective.
2.3 Channel 15

• Time-variant channel - Normally, we have to cope with time-variant channels that vary dur-
ing the transmisson of each OFDM frame. Time-variant channel models permit understand-
ing the model behavior in propagation environments where high relative velocities introduce
the Doopler Shift. The Doppler Shift happens when the trasmitter, the receiver or the inter-
acting objects are in relative motion, which induces a shift of the received frequency. The
variation of a wireless channel over the duration of a given data block is caused by multiple
wavefronts effects, each with potentially different frequency shift. In OFDM, the Doppler
Shift destroys the orthogonality among subcarriers. The loss of orthogonality will induce
Inter-Carrier Interferences (ICI) and significantly degrade the performance [34].

2.3.2 Channel Models

In 1946, a non-statistical5 model that permitted to calculate the Received Signal Strength
(RSS) in LOS areas was presented by H. T. Friis [35]. It lacks Non-LOS (NLOS) components.
Two-Ray Ground (TRG), also a non-statistical model, models direct path of radio waves between
the sender and the receiver and one reflection to the ground.
Probabilistic models derive an attenuation following a specific probability function corre-
sponding to different multipath scenarios with amplitude fluctuations during time due to the rel-
ative movement of the surrounding. Probabilistic models are more realistic than deterministic
models [36]. Log-Normal Shadowing (LNS) models the path-loss relative to a reference distance
and the possible variations in the content (density, relief) of the environment. Rayleigh fading
distribution model is known to be a good model in NLOS case, which assumes a received multi-
path signal consists of a large number of reflected waves. The key to Rayleigh’s simplicity is the
basic assumption of the absence of a dominant path [37]. Rician distribution is Rayleigh fading
but with a strong component, e.g, LOS wave. Another probabilistic model that is worth mention-
ing is Nakagami-m distribution, which models fast-fading [36]. Nakagami fading parameter m
lies between 16 and 4 for the open area and between 0.5 and 1 for the highway. [38] shows that
Nakagami-m match empirical data regarding radio wave propagation in VANETs in highways in
the absence of interferences.

2.3.3 Channel Estimation - OFDM

Among other things, pilot-subcarriers are used for tracing frequency and phase offset and
noise. Based on the principle of OFDM transmission scheme, it is easy to assign the pilots both
in time-domain and in frequency domain. There are two major ways to perform the channel
estimation, as shown in figure 2.11 and 2.12 (extracted from [39]).
The first way is by assigning pilot tones into all of the subcarriers of OFDM symbols with
a specific period and thus, is named Block-Type Pilot Channel Estimation. The second way is

5 Deterministic model- Fix attenuation of the power for a given distance.

6 For m=1, the distribution is reduced to Rayleigh fading.
16 Related Work

Figure 2.11: Block-type Pilot Channel Esti- Figure 2.12: Comb-type Pilot Channel Esti-
mation. mation.

inserting pilot tones uniformly distributed into each OFDM symbol and is termed Comb-Type Pi-
lot Channel Estimation. The first one is more adequate to slow-fading radio channels and since
the the training block contains all pilots,. it does not requires channel interpolation in frequency
domain. The estimation of the channel can be based on Least Square (LS) or Minimum Mean-
Square Error (MMSE). The MMSE performs better but is more complex than LS [40]. The second
one is more adequate to fast-fading channels, i.e, channel can change even within an OFDM block.
Since only some sub-carriers contain the pilot signal, the channel response of non-pilot subcarriers
will be interpolated. The estimation of the channel can be based on LS, MMSE or Least Mean-
Square (LMS). The interpolation of the channel can be achieved through Linear Interpolation (LI),
Second-Order Interpolation(SOI), Low-Pass Interpolation(LPI), Spline Cubic Interpolation(SCI),
and Time Domain Interpolation(TDI) [40]. Comparing the two ways to perform the channel es-
timation, presented here, one can conclude that the comb-type is more sensitive to frequency
selectivity than the block-type [39]. However, as previously mentioned, the purpose for which
they are used is different.

2.4 Hidden Node Problem

As described in IEEE Std 802.11 - 2007, a hidden station7 is a station (STA) whose trans-
missions cannot be detected using carrier sense (CS) by a second STA, but whose transmissions
interfer with transmissions from the second STA to a third STA [27]. Take as example the topology
of figure 2.13 with node B being surrounded by two nodes: Each node is within communication
range of node B, but the nodes cannot communicate with each other, as they do not have a physical
connection to each other. The problem is when nodes A and C start to send packets simultane-
ously to node B. Suppose node A starts his transmission. Since node C is too far away to detect
the transmission of A, it assumes that the channel is idle and begins his transmission, therefore
7 Also known as node.
2.4 Hidden Node Problem 17

causing a collision in node B with node A’s transmission. From the point of view of A, C is a
hidden node since C cannot detect node A’s transmission. In wireless networks it is not feasible to
implement Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) since that would
imply complex and expensive radio transceivers that could sense the medium and send at the same
time. Instead, 802.11 uses Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA)
to coordinate the access to the medium to detect multiple access in order to avoid collision. Users
sense the channel and delay transmission if they detect that another user is currently transmitting.
In figure 2.13 since node A and C cannot sense the carrier, one cannot use only CSMA/CA because
it would not work, and collisions occur, scrambling data. To overcome the problem of collisions

Figure 2.13: Hidden Node.

brought by hidden nodes, an optional four-way handshake mechanism, implemented prior to trans-
mission [41], is used in IEEE 802.11. Take, as example, figure 2.14. If a node wants to send a data
packet, it will first wait for the channel to become available and then transmit a RTS packet. The
receiver, assuming it listen to an available channel, will immediately respond with a CTS packet
that allows the first node to start the transmission. This CTS packet does an important additional
function, that is to inform neighboring nodes especially hidden nodes relatively to the transmitter
that they will have to remain silent for the duration of the transmission. After the transmitter sends
the data packet, the receiver sends an Acknowledgement (ACK) packet back to the transmitter to
verify that it has correctly received the packet, after which the channel again becomes available.
Additional random backoff is used to avoid all nodes transmitting as soon as the channel becomes
available [25]. RTS/CTS is not a complete solution and may decrease throughput even further
than the hidden node problem [42]. However, in safety-oriented VANETs applications most traffic
will probably be broadcast traffic, which is sent without a prior RTS/CTS handshake and without
acknowledgments. RTS/CTS are designed for unicast communication and like is described in [32]
such a handshake is only appropriate if the amount of data transmitted is much higher than the
overhead introduced by the RTS/CTS handshake, reminding that, in VANETs, periodically, only
a few data is sent with the current position and movement, and possibly with additional location
information. Furthermore, the vehicle that is transmitting cannot guarantee the correct reception at
the vehicles in the neighborhood because they could be unknown to the transmitter and feedback
18 Related Work

mechanisms are not implemented. Therefore, collisions due to hidden nodes are much more likely
to occur. Thus, one can see that implementing a receiver that can successfuly capture packets from
collisions will ease the impact of hidden nodes in 802.11p. Although conventional medium access
in ad-hoc mode may be sufficient in scenarios with low vehicle and message density, in high-load
scenarios, an increased loss of messages may occur.

Figure 2.14: Four-way handshake.

The purpose for this chapter was to understand when and how the hidden node problem hap-
pens and how it affects the packet reception. However, there are other reasons, unrelated to hidden
node, for packet loss described in [32]. Among them are exposed stations, fully interfered receiver
and near adjacent stations. In [36], it is approached another reason for packet loss in IEEE 802.11
Ad-Hoc Networks, which is the uncoordinated medium access.

2.5 Interference Cancellation

Interference cancellation techniques exploit the fact that interfering signals have structure de-
termined by the data that they carry, distinguishing interference from noise which permits mitiga-
tion of the effects interference, improvability of the effective SINR of a signal and reduction of bit
errors [3].
Along this chapter, it is presented an overview of the SINR model and the Successive Interfer-
ence Cancellation (SIC) technique applied for both Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) as
well as for OFDM. CDMA is approached briefly, from a historical point of view, since it was in
this multiple-access scheme that SIC emerged.

2.5.1 SINR model

The rules governing the availability and quality of connections in a wireless network are de-
scribed by physical models such as the Signal-to-Interference and Noise Ratio (SINR) model [43].
SINR is defined as the ratio between a signal S and interference I plus noise N.

S
SINRS = (2.1)
I +N
2.5 Interference Cancellation 19

It reflects the capability of a device (a receiver) to recover the data of that received transmission.
Note that in equation 2.1, interference is the sum of the power of all interfering transmitters I =
∑ Ii to a given received transmission.
i

2.5.2 Capture Effect

IEEE 802.11 systems can start the frame reception only when the Signal-to-Interference Ratio
(SIR) is high enough to detect the preamble (preamble detection) [44]. If the preamble detection
is successful the receiver synchronizes with the signal. If this preamble is missed but the received
signal power is above a preconfigured level CCA (Clear Channel Assessment threshold), then
the receiver can still sense that there is an ongoing transmission, this is called energy detection.
The carrier sensing mechanism employed in IEEE 802.11 systems is carried out by using pream-
ble detection and energy detection. Although preamble detection can be successful the receiver
must also retrieve the PLCP header successfully and perform a MAC Cyclic Redundancy Check
(CRC) to assume that a frame was correctly received. Basically, the capture effect, also named
co-channel interefence tolerance, is the phenomenon where a signal can be received in spite of
the interference8 . In [45] it was shown that exploiting the capture effect improved throughput in
flooding experiments by 10% and [46] shows capture effect increase throughput and decrease de-
lay in 802.11 networks.
To the best of knowledge, capture effect experiments for VANETs with 802.11p have not
been made yet. However, there are experiments with 802.11a [44, 47] and taking into account
the similarities of its PHY layer with 802.11p, presented in chapter 2.2.1, it can be assumed that
their results are close to possible results with 802.11p. [47] argues that the stronger frame can
be successfully decoded regardless of the timing relation with the weaker frame however, [44]
specifies that if the stronger, but second, frame arrives after the first frame’s preamble time the
Message-in-Message (MIM) mode must be implemented in 802.11 PHY.

2.5.3 SIC
Two of the most noticeable Multi-User Detection (MUD) techniques known from CDMA
communications are the Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC) and Parallel Interference Can-
cellation (PIC) detection techniques.
SIC is a nonlinear type of MUD scheme in which users are decoded successively. SIC is a
physical layer technique that allows a receiver to decode packets that arrive simultaneously, which
in nowadays systems, except for the spread spectrum system, remains a collision. Consider that
two packets arrive concurrently at the receiver. Normally, using capture effects, only the strongest
signal at the receiver can be decoded, treating the other signal as interference. SIC permits the re-
covery even of the weaker signal by subtracting the stronger signal to the combined signal (highest
SINR) and extracting the weaker signal from the residue. Although filtering, energy detection, and
synchronization happen just like in a conventional receiver, after decoding of the headers for the
8 Other transmitters, which induce colisions.
20 Related Work

leading packet, in order to determine whether one or multiple senders are present, the calculated
transmission length is used. If multiple senders are detected (a collision) as it can be shown by
the dashed lines in figure 2.15 (extracted from [3]), the bits of the stronger signal are decoded
and the original (stronger) signal is then reconstructed from these bits, generating an ideal copy
of the signal and then subtracted (i.e., cancelled) from the combined signal. This, results in the
remaining transmissions plus an approximation error which act as a feedback for the detector. The
approximation error is due to the reconstruction of the strongest signal [3].

Figure 2.15: Block diagram of SIC.

This is an iterative process that allows recover multiple packets and hence it is named succes-
sive interference cancellation.
When it reaches the last (and therefore, the weakest) packet the signal is demodulated and
re-synchronized. The interference cancellation is never perfect and residual errors propagate due
to the successive nature of the decoding [48]. By a superficial analysis of a general SIC block
diagram presented in figure 2.15 one can identify the following major steps [3]:

• Detecting a collision - This is done by scanning for sharp changes in the amplitude variation
of the incoming signal. A leap in the energy means that a stronger transmission has started
and a fading in the energy means the end of a packet. In order for a packet to be received it
must have sufficient SINR.

• Decoding the strongest signal - If one signal has SINR sufficient that it can be received,
one just needs standard single packet reception techniques to decode this strongest signal.
However, this kind of receivers does not implement re-synchronization, i.e., an interfering
transmission will be drop even if it has sufficient SINR to be decoded.

• Modeling a captured signal - As shown in section 2.3 signals during medium’s propagation
become distorted in different ways. An approximation of the channel can be done recurring
to channel models 2.3.2. Although first intuition is to try to model everything possible (all
complex channel effects) to obtain accuracy, this may become easily infeasible due to the
complexity added. So, a tradeoff between accuracy and complexity has to be done, which
results sometimes on preference for deterministic models and in other times on preference
for probabilistic models.
2.5 Interference Cancellation 21

• Canceling the stronger signal - Last step but not the least. This step is done by cancelling out
the signal from the strong interferer. This is done by aligning the phase of the model with
received samples and then, subtracting the waves thus cancelling the interfering channel.

[49] refers that SIC with single-user decoding achieves the Shannon capacity region boundaries for
both the broadcast (downlink) and multiple access (uplink) multi-user channel scenarios. When
compared to a conventional receiver a SIC receiver requires few additional hardware but it provides
significant improvement. Furthermore, there are a few implementation difficulties. A additional
bit delay is required per stage of cancellation and there is the need to reoder the signals whenever
the power profiles changes. Thus, delay and complexity come into play in the implementation of
SIC [50]
PIC is another non-linear MUD technique wherein the transmitted signal of each user is de-
tected in parallel over a number of iterations. PIC mechanism will not be explained here. For more
details, one can find it, for example, in [51].

Figure 2.16: Block diagram of PIC for CDMA.

Comparing SIC with PIC, one can conclude that PIC has decreased latency, but higher com-
plexity. For a system with K users, while SIC has complexity and latency proportional to K, PIC
has latency proportional to P cancellation stages and complexity proportional to PK. Just for
record, to ease these trade-offs it was implemented, by some authors [52, 53], multistage SIC.

2.5.4 SIC for CDMA

CDMA is the primary multiple-access scheme at the physical layer of second and third gener-
ation cellular systems. Since all users have mutually orthogonal codes, each achieves interference-
free single-user performance. However, systems that implement conventional single-user detec-
tion techniques have a limitation in capacity because are limited by Multi-Access Interference
(MAI) and the near-far effect. MAI arises from the fact that is not feasible on mobile environ-
ments to maintain orthogonal spreading codes at the receiver [50]. Multi-User Detection studies
the demodulation of one or more digital signals in the presence of multi-user interference. MUD
addresses interference cancellation where MAI occurs (non-orthogonal CDMA).
22 Related Work

SIC improves performance for all users since that in the beginning, for the initial users (stronger
signals), the later users are of less power which means less MAI for the initial users and when the
time comes for the later users (weaker signals) the early users interference have been cancelled
out. Therefore, SIC can increase the capacity of a CDMA system. The main reason for its popu-
larity is its low complexity and in its simplest form, SIC uses decisions produced by single-user
matched filters.
The bit decisions used to estimate the MAI can be hard or soft. The hard-decision approach
feeds back a bit decision and is nonlinear, on the contrary soft-decision approach is linear and uses
soft data estimates for the joint estimation of the data and amplitudes. Soft-decision approaches are
easier to implement and prevents unreliable tentative decoding. Figure 2.17 (extracted from [54])
shows a standard CDMA matched-filter receiver with SIC (based on hard decisions).

Figure 2.17: SIC using a standard CDMA matched filter receiver.

The receiver to be able to demodulate the waveform of the kth user uses a matched-filter re-
ceiver. Estimation for the received signal of user k can be done by re-encoding, re-modulating
and performing a post-decoding channel estimate on the decoded signal. This estimation on the
received signal zk (t) is then cancelled on the remain received signal in order to improve the de-
modulation of the following users. The process ends when all K users are decoded [54]. In an
AWGN channel only users powers matters since the performance is determined by the SINR. Us-
ing the Central Limit Theorem, it was shown in [55] that the channel estimation algorithm is not
important since that for a sufficiently large number of interfering users and/or a large processing
gain, the residual interference can be accurately modeled by an appropriate Gaussian distribution.

2.5.5 SIC for OFDM

SIC is also applicable in the context of communicating over narrowband channels as observed
for OFDM subcarriers.

Many papers have proposed low complexity SIC schemes for OFDM systems; however, the
majority addresses the suppression of ICI. Since the complexity of SIC is proportional to the num-
ber of OFDM subcarriers N, the realization of this detector can become impractical, especially
2.5 Interference Cancellation 23

when large number of subcarriers is considered. For instance, [56] and [57] propose low complex-
ity MMSE-SIC equalizers and [58] proposes a qSIC equalizer where only the dominant ICI term
is considered.
[59] proposed an iterative multipacket receiver (figure 2.18) capable of extracting the packets
involved in successive collisions, combining multipacket separation with interference cancellation.
The receiver (typically the base station) requests all N users involved in the collision to retransmit
interleaved versions of their packets N − 1 times and informs in which time-slots they must send
them to avoid further collisions with new users. The interleaved versions are used to guarantee
that the correlation between received retransmissions is as low as possible and this proposal takes
as granted that the transmissions occur over severely time-dispersive channels where the channel
frequency response can change significantly after just a few subcarriers. The packets are separated
using Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) based techniques.

Figure 2.18: Iteractive receiver structure.

The Multipacket Detector apply the MMSE criterion for the first iteration and an interference
canceller for the next ones. For user detection, it is used OFDM blocks with pilots multiplexed
with data.
According to the authors, this approach permits high throughputs because the total number of
transmissions can be equal to the number of packets involved in the collision. Reliable detection is
also achieved in this proposal. However, there is the need for retransmission and the packet delay
grows fast for large system loads.

The purpose of this thesis is not to address ICI cancellation neither to the mandatory use of
retransmissions but instead is to improve current capture effect techniques, in situations of high
congestion ( and high probability of collision), decoding two or more simultaneously arriving
packets, similar to [3] did for Zigbee but employing on OFDM-based VANET communications.
For this purpose and to best of knowledge there is no such work in the literature. The recent
standardization of IEEE 802.11p and latest development of a simulator that can emulate accurately
the physical layer based in OFDM transmission are among the possible reasons for this.
24 Related Work
Chapter 3

Methodology

3.1 NS-3

Network simulators are used for diverse reasons including validation of approximate analysis,
understanding of complex interactions, and evaluation among alternatives. NS-3 [60] is a popular,
well maintained and open license (GPLv2) discrete-event simulator. It is designed to be fast,
flexible and accurate. It has a good documentation [61].

Figure 3.1: NS-3 architecture.

NS-3 is a new simulator, intended to replace NS-2 and is not backwards compatible to NS-
2, dropping its historic burdens. NS-3 is fully C++ but creates optional language bindings like

25
26 Methodology

Python. NS-3 architecture is shown in figure 3.1 (extracted from [62]). However, NS-3 abstract
significantly the physical layer and the channel [63].

3.2 NS-3 with PhySim-WiFi module

The module PhySim-WiFi contains a physical layer implementation of the OFDM PHY spec-
ification for the 5 GHz band and also emulates the wireless channel. NS-3 considers the packet
as an inseparable collection of bits as well as the smallest simulation unit, which does not per-
mit to distinguish individually the bits with errors, thus, the frame is fully received or not at all.
PhySim-WiFi for NS-3 addresses this issue, and represents a frame in terms of bits and complex
time samples, which allows the application of more accurate channel models and also the study of
low-level receiver techniques and their impact on the proper reception of packets [63]. It is easy
to notice that without this module for NS-3 it would be more difficult to simulate the implementa-
tion of SIC and test its performance in the improvement of the hidden node problem in VANETs.
Therefore, this research work has origin from the development of such module.
The PhySim-WiFi implementation does not requires major modifications to NS-3 since it is a drop-
in replacement of the default YansWifiPhy model.
In this chapter, first it will be presented the architecture of the physical layer emulation within
NS-3, in figure 3.2 (extracted from [63]), and then two most important parts for the objective of
this work: channel modeling and reception.

Figure 3.2: Architecture of the physical layer emulation within NS-3.

The physical layer emulator imitates the behavior of a real IEEE 802.11 chipset. In figure 3.2,
in step 1, the frame is transformed into a sequence of bits. In step 2, after modulation the bits are
encoded into a sequence of complex time domain samples. These samples are the input for the
3.2 NS-3 with PhySim-WiFi module 27

channels models. Event 3 and 4 represent the demodulation and the comparison of transmitted and
received bits, respectively. This comparison permits to know if the frame was received successfully
or not [63].

3.2.1 Channel models

The wireless channel module permits chaining several propagation loss models, i.e., the output
of one model serves as input for the next model (Figure 3.3 (extracted from [63])). The PhySim-
WiFi implementation makes use of the IT++ processing library [64]. IT++ library provides a large
collection of channel models. PhySim-WiFi supports basic pathloss models but also large- and
small-scale fading models as well as multi-tap channel models. Multi-tap channel models permits
the modeling of time and frequency-selective channels.

Figure 3.3: Channel modelling.

3.2.2 Reception
The four events of the reception process are shown in figure 3.4 (extracted from [63]). The first
event occurs when the first sample of the frame arrives, which is added to the InterferenceManager.
The second event begins after the duration of the preamble, in which the emulator checks whether
signal detection and synchronization was successful. If these were successful, then the detected
frame length and data rate are used to decode the data symbols and to decide whether all symbols
can be decoded successfully as well. During first event the physical layer is still considered to
be Idle. The Idle state is maintained if no signal header is successfully decoded and the energy
detected at the receiver is below the CCA threshold. Between second and third events the physical
layer is in the Sync state and from third event until fourth event is in Receiver (Rx) state [65].
As explained in [63], it is only necessary small additions to the state machine of the receiver
to the physical layer emulator support the frame capture capabilities.
Nowadays, there are research articles that introduce simulation models that analytically rep-
resents the probability of packet reception in a IEEE 802.11p network. However, due to limited
computacional efforts when considering all the important factors they limit the considered inputs.
28 Methodology

Figure 3.4: Frame Reception.

In particular, [66], limits to four inputs: distance between sender and receiver; transmission power;
transmission rate; and vehicular traffic density. They describe the building of the model which
uses a large set of simulations traces and is based on linear least squares (LLS) approximation
techniques and then validate it comparing the simulations results with the model output.

3.3 Simulation model

For this report, it already was made some simulations in order to familiarize with the simulator
and the module PhySim-WiFi. The simulations were made with the parameters of IEEE 802.11a.
Simple interefence simulations were made based on the wifi-simple-interference code available on
the distribution package. Figure 3.5 shows the topology of the simulations.

Figure 3.5: Topology of the simulations without carrier sensing.

Node A was the transmitter, Node B was the receiver and Node C acted as the interferer. Node
A and C are both at the distance of 100 meters from the receiver. For this to be a hidden node
problem, the carrier sense was not done by node C. The channel model was a clear channel model.
The difference of time of the packets arrived at the receiver belonging to each transmitter, was
configured by a delta value (t1 − t0 ). It was possible to conclude that the simulator implements the
capture effect. However, like is referred in the manual [65], the physical layer does not support
the packet capture capability of recent chipsets yet. For the same distance and same transmitted
power, it was only possible to receive the two packets if delta ≥ 0.67ms. For smaller values of
delta, the reception would depend on the SINR. When the power of the senders were approximate,
3.3 Simulation model 29

there was no packet successfully received.

As said before, these simulations were only to "get to know" the simulator and its general
ideas, thus, there is nothing important to conclude from the simulations. Furthermore, the topology
was fixed, which is practically impossible due to the dynamical environments in VANETs.
One of the research questions is to try to understand the geographical relationship between the
interferer and the receiver because one thing that is explained in [49] and has to be taken into
account is that when compared with other MUD techniques (PIC, for instance) SIC is not efficient
if packets from different users are received with equal power at the receiver.
30 Methodology
Chapter 4

Problem Formulation

During the master thesis it will be developed a successive interference cancellation algorithm
for VANET environments. Remember that VANET uses 802.11p PHY, which is a variation of the
OFDM based IEEE 802.11a standard. PhySim-WiFi module will be used because it implements an
accurate physical layer and also emulates the wireless channel in NS-3. The interference cancel-
lation will focus in recover the packets involved in collisions, which can be due to many reasons
including the hidden node problem. Thus, in first, it must be understand how do collisions occur,
in which situations and the amount of unsynchronized interferences. A metric will be developed.
The research shall answer the following questions:

Research Question 1: What is the typical amount of unsynchronized packet transmissions in

VANET environments?
Research Question 2: In which situations collisions occur and what is the geographic rela-
tionship between a sender and an unsynchronized interferer?
Research Question 3: Can the hidden problem have a significative importance in vehicular
communications?

With the context of the work it is important to determine where most of such interferer’s are
located, and evaluate the significance of the hidden node.

Research Question 4: Can interference cancellation be applied effectively to vehicular com-

munications as well, in particular to an OFDM-based IEEE 802.11p system under fast-fading
channel conditions?

The main contribution of this research is to develop an interference cancellation algorithm

within the accurate physical layer simulator for NS-3, called PhySim-WiFi. From the research for
the preparation of this work, one can conclude that SIC is a very powerful instrument for CDMA

31
32 Problem Formulation

systems as well as for the mitigation of ICI in OFDM systems but is it a system feasible to im-
plement in VANETs, taking into account their specificities? Will it introduce excessive latency
inherent of SIC algorithm? Can the receiver demodulate the signals effectively? For this last
question, it will be necessary to know what is the geographic relationship between a sender and
an unsynchronized interferer since SIC performs better if the packets from different users have
unequal received power levels.

Research Question 5: How many packets that collide due to unsynchronized transmissions can
actually be recovered by interference cancellation?

The purpose of this question is to evaluate how many of the packets, that collide due to un-
synchronized transmissions, can actually be recovered by interference cancellation to perform
evaluation of the SIC algorithm developed and assert itself as a reference for further studies.
Chapter 5

Workplan

5.1 Task List

It is expected to perform the following tasks:

1. Evaluate the significance of the hidden terminal problem.

• Determine the amount of unsynchronized packet transmissions in different scenarios.

• Determine the situations as well as the geographic relationship between a sender and
an unsynchronized interferer.
• Develop a metric.

2. Develop an interference cancellation algorithm within the NS-3 with the module PhySim-
WiFi.

• Develop code.
• Perform operational tests.
• Optimization.

3. Performance evaluation.

4. Write the master thesis.

5.2 Calendar
The work will last approximately six months. Therefore, based on the tasks presented in the
previous section, figure 5.1 presents a possible calendar and duration of each task is presented in
the following Gantt chart:

33
34 Workplan

Figure 5.1: Possible calendar and duration of each task.

Sometimes there will be more than one subtask performed at the same time. However, this
calendar is subject to change due to the unforeseen difficulties that may appear.
Chapter 6

Conclusions

From this report, one can conclude that VANET systems will probably be very important in
the future, although, challenges regarding fast-fading channels, high mobility nodes and efficient
communication in high load situations must be approached. Currently, the project has not yet
entered a phase of implementation, thus, the research effort was mainly focused on the state of
the art and on the understanding of the whole system needed to be implemented for this project.
However, initial simulations using the physical layer implementation PhySim-WiFi for NS-3 were
performed and provided initial insight into the simulation tools to be used in the course of the
work. Therefore, it can be assumed that this report fulfilled its objectives since it provided a very
significant preparation for the subject that will be addressed in the thesis.

35
36 Conclusions
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