The Ohio State University, ElectroScience Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Cascaded Network Analysis of a Wideband RF Self-Interference Cancellation (RF-SIC) Filter for STAR Systems
Stephen J. Watt, Elias A. Alwan, John L. Volakis
STAR INTRODUCTION

ANALYSIS OBJECTIVE

NETWORK ANALYSIS

SIMULATED CANCELLATION

With the projected growth of mobile traffic in an

increasingly congested spectrum, simultaneous transmit
and receive (STAR) offers potential to double spectral
efficiency [1]-[3]. The primary challenge in realizing STAR
is cancellation of high-power self-interference (SI) from the
transmitter that reduces signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and
saturates the receiver hardware.

Traditional optimization algorithms for RF cancellation

circuits have non-convex performance surfaces,
causing convergence to local optima. To achieve
wideband performance, the filter optimization must be
modified to achieve the global optimum cancellation.

The filter S21, and consequently the interference

cancellation, can be determined by representing each filter
component as a two-port network. This analysis leverages
two well-known properties of the ABCD-parameters and Yparameters [5]:

Next, the filter delays and attenuators are optimized in

ADS to achieve wideband cancellation. Specifically, the
filter S21, S21F,sim, is optimized to match the antenna
S21, S21A,sim:
21, = 21,

Currently, STAR systems operate over narrow bandwidths

(< 100 MHz) by applying multiple stages of interference
cancellation:

RF Cancellation

Digital Cancellation

Self-Interference (SI) Signal from Transmitter

,1

1,

Using these properties, the RF-SIC filter is iteratively

simplified to a single two-port network and the S21 is
calculated. The resulting analysis yields an S21 that is
within 2% of ADS simulations from 2 GHz to 8 GHz.

Antenna Isolation

Baseband Cancellation

:
:
Finally, the optimized filter cancellation is tested in AWR
Virtual System Simulator (VSS) as part of a STAR
system.

Filter Network Simplification: 1st Iteration

In this work, a numerical method of calculating the filter

S21 is described to enable wideband cancellation using
custom optimization code [4].

Required SI Cancellation for STAR

21, = 21, 180

> 100 dB
Cancellation Required

REFERENCES
1 D. Bharadia and S. Katti, Full Duplex MIMO Radios, in 2014 USENIX
Conference on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, April 2014,
pp. 359-372.
2 M. Duarte, Full-duplex Wireless: Design, Implementation and Characterization,
Ph.D. dissertation, Rice University, 2012.
3 J. Zhou, T. H. Chuang, T. Dinc, and H. Krishnaswamy, Integrated Wideband SelfInterference Cancellation in the RF Domain for FDD and Full-Duplex Wireless, IEEE
Journal of Solid-State Circuits, vol. 50, no. 12, pp. 3015-3031, Dec 2015.
4 S. J. Watt, E. A. Alwan, W. Khalil, and J. L. Volakis, Wideband SelfInterference Cancellation Filter for Simultaneous Transmit and Receive
Systems, in 2015 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and
Propagation, July 2015, pp. 129-130.

Stages Targeted Cancellation

1. Antenna Isolation 50 dB
2. RF Cancellation 30 dB

Comparison to Advanced Design System (ADS)

CONCLUSION

3. Baseband Cancellation 20 dB

4. Digital Cancellation 25 dB
Total Cancellation = 125 dB
< 2% Error

https://electroscience.osu.edu/
watt.70@osu.edu, alwan.2@osu.edu, volakis.1@osu.edu

5 D. Pozar, Microwave Engineering. John Wiley and Sons, 2012.

A network analysis method is presented for a multi-tap

interference cancellation filter to enable wideband STAR.
Network calculations yield S21 data within 2% of ADS
circuit simulations, and system simulations show 15 dB of
interference cancellation across a 1 GHz bandwidth.
Future work will aim to incorporate this network analysis in
a custom filter optimization.