D-Fi: A diversity-aware Wi-Fi using an OFDM-based Bloom filter

Abstract

To exploit frequency diversity in Wi-Fi channels, instantaneous channel quality must be estimated. However, there is a trade-off between acquiring channel quality information and improving protocol efficiency because channel estimation consumes time and frequency resource that ideally should be used for data transfer. In this paper, we present D-Fi (Diversity-aware Wi-Fi), a novel Wi-Fi PHY/MAC protocol, that capitalizes on frequency diversity gains while sustaining protocol efficiency. The D-Fi design allows to estimate channel quality while D-Fi is performing channel contention using an OFDM-based Bloom filter. To resolve the ambiguity caused by the Bloom filter, we adopt two methods: (i) An analysis-based multi channel backoff method enables to explore/exploit frequency diversity while reducing the occurrence of the ambiguity. (ii) Applying machine learning (ML) methods to the D-Fi PHY/MAC protocol corrects the ambiguity taken place already and makes our protocol reliable. We have shown the feasibility of D-Fi by implementing it on the USRP/GNURadio platform. Experiments and trace-driven simulations show that D-Fi successfully achieves frequency diversity gains without losing improved protocol efficiency.