Real-time software implementation of an IEEE 802.11a baseband receiver on Intel multicore

Abstract

We present a software-only implementation of an IEEE 802.11a (WiFi) receiver optimized for Intel multicore platforms. The receiver is about 50 times faster than a straightforward C implementation, i.e., an implementation that has the same functionality, but leaves optimization completely to the compiler. Our hand-optimized implementation achieves real-time for all data rates up to the maximum of 54 Mbit/s on a Core i7, clocked at 3.3 GHz, and for up to 12 Mbit/s on an Atom, clocked at 1.6 GHz, using two cores in both cases. To achieve this performance we use up to two threads, up to 16-way vectorization using Intel's SSE, and various other optimizations.

Open-source implementation of an ad-hoc IEEE802.11a/g/p software-defined radio on low-power and low-cost general purpose processors

“…High speed Single Instruction Multi Data (SIMD) functions are very efficient and allow parallel operations, and their use was proposed in work [16], [19], [23], [36]. They are usually employed for the most critical task requiring acceleration.…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, the GNU Radio framework (as well as other SDR implementations) is fully optimized for the X86 processor architecture, where the compiler toolchain can fully exploit specific architectural features to improve efficiency. For instance, in [19] the authors describe a SDR code optimized for the X86 architecture, targeting multicore acceleration; but it is not released as an open-source. Conversely, Advanced Reduced instruction set computing Machine (ARM)-based processors still suffer from a lack of good compiler support, and from the lack of specific features available in X86 counterparts [20], [21].…”