Mobile Relay for LTE: Proof of Concept and Performance Measurements

Even with dense base station deployments, public transport users often have a low quality for mobile services. Due to the insulation of the vehicle, passengers experience little to no connectivity on their end devices and low data bitrate. We thus propose a mobile relay architecture based on two imbricated levels of LTE networks and adapted to public transport systems. This architecture is evaluated on an actual LTE test-bed, consisting in standard radio interfaces, off-the-shelf terminals and the Amarisoft software suite. One of the specifics of a mobile relay is the use of a radio link between the core network and the base stations, with all the limitations of this medium. This work therefore evaluates the impact on data rate of signaling mechanisms and of tunneling in that context.