Software Defined Radio Implementation of Signaling Splitting in Hyper-Cellular Network

Abstract

This paper presents the design and implementation of signaling splitting scheme in hyper-cellular network on a software defined radio platform. Hyper-cellular network is a novel architecture of future mobile communication systems in which signaling and data are decoupled at the air interface to mitigate the signaling overhead and allow energy efficient operation of base stations. On an open source software defined radio platform, OpenBTS, we investigate the feasibility of signaling splitting for GSM protocol and implement a novel system which can prove the proposed concept. Standard GSM handsets can camp on the network with the help of signaling base station, and data base station will be appointed to handle phone calls on demand. Our work initiates the systematic approach to study hyper-cellular concept in real wireless environment with both software and hardware implementations.