Implementing cooperative diversity antenna arrays with commodity hardware

Cooperation among single-antenna transceivers and formation of distributed antenna arrays has recently attracted considerable interest. Such distributed antenna arrays are envisioned to provide resistance to slow wireless fading and improve performance of point-to-point wireless communication across various dimensions. Despite the plethora of recently proposed theoretical approaches that promise gains due to diversity at the physical layer though cooperation (cooperative diversity), there is not much work in the implementation of cooperative antenna arrays with existing wireless transceivers. In this article we summarize the main challenges in implementation of cooperative diversity antenna arrays for realistic wireless networks. We then present the basic building blocks of a cooperative diversity demonstration realized in the lab, utilizing commodity radio hardware. Our work sheds light onto the synergies needed between the physical, link, and routing layers that significantly simplify the overall network operation and decrease the transceiver complexity in cooperative diversity antenna arrays, making feasible the utilization of (existing) commodity radio hardware