Experimental Outdoor Performance Evaluation of TVWS Narrowband Data Communication using SDR Platform

TL;DR

This study evaluates outdoor TVWS narrowband data communication using SDR in suburban environments, demonstrating high reliability and throughput suitable for low-data IoT applications, and provides a benchmarking tool for future research.

Contribution

It presents an SDR-based outdoor experimental setup for TVWS narrowband communication and introduces a benchmark tool for performance evaluation in real-world scenarios.

Findings

Achieved up to 97 Kbps throughput in outdoor tests.

Packet error and loss rates under 1% in NLOS conditions.

Validated suitability for low-data rate IoT applications.

Abstract

Large-scale deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) networks in the industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band leads to spectrum congestion and requires multiple gateways to cover wide areas. This will increase cost, complexity, and energy consumption. TV White Spaces (TVWS) provides an abundant spectrum that is sufficient for low data rate IoT applications. This low-frequency band offers coverage over larger areas due to the ability of wireless signals to penetrate obstacles and terrain. In this paper, we examine the performance of narrowband data communications in TVWS through an outdoor experiment in a suburban area with line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) propagation scenarios. We implement a software-defined radio (SDR) testbed and develop a GNU radio benchmark tool to perform outdoor experiments for TVWS narrowband data communication between a gateway and wireless nodes at various locations. The results reveal that the system can achieve a throughput of up to 97 Kbps with a packet error rate (PER) and packet loss rate (PLR) under 1% over NLOS paths, making it suitable for low-data rate applications. This work offers valuable insights for designing the physical layer of narrowband white space devices (WSDs). The developed benchmark tool will also greatly assist other researchers in evaluating the performance of SDR-based communication systems.