LabVIEW based Software-Defined Physical/MAC layer architecture for prototyping dense LTE Networks

Abstract

We propose to adopt and extend the Software Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm to manage interference within dense heterogeneous deployments of wireless network cells. Specifically, we present a network architecture and the initial research results we have achieved by using software-defined physical and MAC layers to build a small scale LTE testbed. To build the testbed presented in this paper, we have used LabVIEW and the open-source NS-3 LENA LTE stack for real time emulation of dense deployments. The testbed has been designed to serve as a powerful validation and demonstration tool for algorithms pro- posed within the framework of the CROWD project for tack- ling the challenges of dense and heterogeneous wireless deployments. Our testbed specifically allows to study the performance of cross layer PHY/MAC control algorithms within a realistic cellular environment.