Multi-Radio Coexistence: Challenges and Opportunities

In this paper, we study the emerging heterogeneous multi-radio network, focusing on interference issues due to simultaneous operation of multiple radios. A comprehensive review is given on the sources of coexistence interference, including transmitter noise, receiver blocking, and inter-modulation. We compare various coexistence techniques, and relevant standardization efforts. Then, we propose a media independent coexistence service (MICE) layer, and suggest that the performance of a multi-radio system can be further improved if necessary support and modification is added to individual wireless technology, e.g. air interface / wireless protocols. Specifically, we show that the proposed coexistence-aware TXOP adaptation achieves up to 50% improvement of the transmission efficiency in a WiFi/Bluetooth dual-radio device, where the 802.15.2 PTA (packet traffic arbitration) technique is used for coexistence.