# DORE: An Experimental Framework to Enable Outband D2D Relay in Cellular Networks

## TL;DR

This paper presents DORE, an experimental framework for outband D2D relay in cellular networks, demonstrating its effectiveness through SDR-based experiments and highlighting its benefits for delay-sensitive applications.

## Contribution

It introduces DORE, the first experimental framework for outband D2D relay, including resource optimization tools and protocols integrated into 3GPP architecture.

## Key findings

- Outband D2D relaying is effective for delay-sensitive cellular applications.
- DORE achieves significant gains with few active relay nodes.
- Experimental validation confirms analytical predictions of D2D performance.

## Abstract

Device-to-Device communications represent a paradigm shift in cellular networks. In particular, analytical results on D2D performance for offloading and relay are very promising, but no experimental evidence validates these results to date. This paper is the first to provide an experimental analysis of outband D2D relay schemes. Moreover, we design DORE, a complete framework for handling channel opportunities offered by outband D2D relay nodes. DORE consists of resource allocation optimization tools and protocols suitable to integrate QoS-aware opportunistic D2D communications within the architecture of 3GPP Proximity-based Services. We implement DORE using an SDR framework to profile cellular network dynamics in the presence of opportunistic outband D2D communication schemes. Our experiments reveal that outband D2D communications are suitable for relaying in a large variety of delay-sensitive cellular applications, and that DORE enables notable gains even with a few active D2D relay nodes.