Construction and Analysis of a Real - Time Relay for Efficient Antenna Sharing

In this thesis, I present and analyze a real-time intermediate node that promotes low latency transmission of information between two endpoints. Traditional relaying via digital decoding and retransmission has inherent time delay due to limitations in processing requirements at the transceiver, however this delay can be minimized by high speed analog amplification and forwarding rather than by processing the content of the information packets. I use a heterodyne system where the radio signal from the originating node is translated to a new frequency band to retransmit. Latency measurements of less than one microsecond and signal-to-noise ratio loss of 2.3 dB are found. Comparisons with a time domain multiplexing digital relaying scheme show that analog relaying may be advantageous in applications demanding low latency. Thesis Supervisor: Andrew Lippman Title: Senior Research Scientist, MIT Media Laboratory