Measuring LTE and WiFi coexistence in Unlicensed spectrum

Abstract

The exponential growth in mobile services demand, along with the scarce licensed spectrum in the sub-6GHz bands, mandate the exploitation of bands other than the traditionally used by mobile broadband technologies. An example of such operation is the opportunistic access of the unlicensed bands by the LTE technology, as a means to increase the delivered end-user capacity and enhancing the overall quality of experience. In this paper, we present some extensive testbed measurements used for modeling the coexistence of LTE and WiFi technologies when operating within the same unlicensed environment. The experiments deal with different bandwidth settings for both the WiFi and LTE technologies, when LTE is operating closely or inside the primary or secondary channels of IEEE 802.11, taking into account the different threshold values for the Clear Channel Assessment functions that WiFi entails. We present exhaustive experimental measurements, collected under a real testbed setup, and present a cognitive algorithm for minimizing the impact of the two technologies to each other. © 2017 IEEE.