Network throughput of TDD/TDMA two-way multi-hop relay network with MIMO network coding in indoor environment

This paper develops the first prototype hardware for TDD/TDMA two-way multi-hop relay network with MIMO network coding, and network throughput is measured in an indoor environment. Since conventional wireless multi-hop relay networks have a drawback of low data rate, TDD/TDMA two-way multi-hop relay networks have been studied as a solution to realize high data rate recently. In these networks, forward and backward streams are spatially multiplexed by using interference cancellation techniques such as MIMO beamforming or MIMO network coding. In this paper, 3-nodes demonstrator of TDD/TDMA two-way multi-hop relay network with MIMO network coding is implemented using the prototype hardwares. In the demonstrator, each transmitter and receiver performs network coded broadcast and MIMO multiple access respectively. By using the demonstrator, network throughput is measured in an indoor environment to prove the realization of the TDD/TDMA two-way multi-hop relay network with MIMO network coding. From the results of the network throughput measurement, we can find that TDD/TDMA two-way multi-hop relay network using MIMO network coding can achieve network throughput close to the upper bound even with low end-to-end SNR. From these results, the realization and effectiveness of the TDD/TDMA two-way multi-hop relay network with MIMO network coding can be proved in the real indoor environment.