FPGA Assisted Real Time RF Wireless Data Analytics System: Design, Implementation, and Statistical Analyses
A wide range of new ultra reliable low latency communication (URLLC) applications in next generation (NG) wireless systems demand real time radio frequency (RF) data analytics of channel utilization (CU) that can help in making proactive resource allocation decisions. However, such real time RF data analytics require processing of tens of millions of in phase and quadrature (IQ) samples per second and sending huge quantities of samples to a resource allocating entity is not practical. We present design and implementation of an RF data analytics system which utilizes field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) at the network edge to process real time streaming IQ samples from RF transceiver. FPGAs process millions of samples per second and output low overhead descriptive statistics of wireless CU, such as mean CU values, maximum CU values, and entire histograms to obtain probability distribution of CU values, to a resource controller server where a quantile estimation based technique is used to detect congestion in CU in real time. The FPGA based modules are implemented on Xilinx's Zynq 7000 devices mounted with RF transceivers. We evaluate the performance of the implemented analytics system using extensive measurements, testing, and statistical analyses that are performed in both laboratory and over the air environments.
IEEE Access