An Sdr-Based Turbo-Sic Implementation: Towards A 5g New Radio Advanced Receiver For Uplink Boosting

Significant uplink capacity improvements for the fifth generation (5G) wireless networks can be achieved by assigning the same time-frequency resources to several users simultaneously. Especially in the case of massive Machine-Type Communications (mMTC) for emerging Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications, where a very large number of devices must be provided with connectivity, the re-utilization of radio resources by concurrent transmissions from several devices is imperative for achieving economic viability. In this context, advanced signal processing in the evolved NodeB (eNB), namely multi-user detection (MUD), is a key enabler to reduce the mutual interference between users and appropriately decode the superposed signals. Turbo-SIC is a very efficient MUD scheme that applies successive interference cancellation (SIC), based on soft outputs of a turbo decoder. In this paper we introduce the implementation of an uplink Turbo-SIC receiver that follows the basic specifications of Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems. Using an LTE compliant open-source software defined radio (SDR) platform, named OpenAirInterface (OAI), we are able to show that Turbo-SIC offers several dBs of advantage over conventional receivers while its basic real-time processing requirements fit the capabilities of present general purpose processors.