A Channel Sounding System for Highly Interfered License-Exempt Frequency Bands

Conference: Smart SysTech 2018 - European Conference on Smart Objects, Systems and Technologies
06/12/2018 - 06/13/2018 at Munich, Germany

Proceedings: Smart SysTech 2018

Pages: 8Language: englishTyp: PDF

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Authors:
Robert, Joerg; Ghany, Ahmed Abdel; Rauh, Sebastian; Heuberger, Albert (Lehrstuhl für Informationstechnik mit dem Schwerpunkt Kommunikationselektronik (LIKE), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91058 Erlangen, Germany)

Abstract:
The Internet of Things (IoT) requires connectivity everywhere. An interesting solution to achieve this aim are Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN). Tiny devices with transmit powers of 10 mW are able to transmit sensor data over distances of several kilometers in license-exempt frequency bands. The planning of LPWAN requires suitable channel models, which are currently not available. Hence, extensive channel measurements are required. However, the lack of free unused spectrum for channel sounding close to the typical LPWAN frequency bands requires the use of the license-exempt bands also for the channel sounding. As these bands are also used by other communication systems, significant levels of interference can be expected practically everywhere. Consequently, we developed a channel sounding system based on a software-defined radio approach that is able to provide accurate channel sounding results even in highly interfered license-exempt channels. We present different candidate algorithms that may be suitable to obtain the required robustness and compared them using simulation results. The results show that precise channel sounding is achievable in densely occupied license-exempt channels.