Digital Twin Assisted Self-Interference Cancellation for Wideband Full Duplex Radios

Authors

  • Md Rakibur Rahman Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Florida International University, Miami, FL – 33174, USA
  • Satheesh Bojja Venkatakrishnan Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Florida International University, Miami, FL – 33174, USA
  • John L. Volakis Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Florida International University, Miami, FL – 33174, USA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13052/2026.ACES.J.410701

Keywords:

De-embedding, digital twin, high isolation, in-band full-duplex (IBFD), self-interference cancellation (SIC), wideband

Abstract

Achieving high self-interference cancellation (SIC) in broadband in-band full-duplex (IBFD) radios requires a multi-stage passive architecture using real-world components. A fundamental challenge in such systems is that practical components (cables, connectors, splitters) deviate from their ideal behavior due to fabrication tolerances and parasitic effects. As such, they introduce phase and amplitude mismatches that severely degrade isolation performance. Even deviations of a few degrees in phase or a fraction of a dB in amplitude can reduce achievable cancellation by 10 dB or more.

To bridge this gap, we develop a digital twin framework that models the idealized system behavior and enables compensation through de-embedding of the fabricated hardware. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method improves the average isolation by 15 dB across a 1 GHz bandwidth within the X-band. Overall, a peak IBFD isolation of 65 dB is achieved, thus validating the effectiveness of the digital twin framework.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Md Rakibur Rahman, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Florida International University, Miami, FL – 33174, USA

Md Rakibur Rahman (Member, IEEE) received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Applied Physics, Electronics, and Communication Engineering from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2010 and 2012, respectively. From 2012 to 2017, he worked as a telecommunications engineer in Bangladesh. He later pursued a second Master’s degree (2022) and a Ph.D. (2024) in Electrical Engineering at Florida International University (FIU), Miami, FL, USA. Following his Ph.D., he worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at the RFCOM Lab at FIU until April 2025. He is currently working as a Wireless Systems Engineer at Apple. Since 2018, his research has focused on developing simultaneous transmit and receive (STAR) radio and secure wireless communication links. His research interests include spectral-efficient radio communication, in-band full-duplex radio (IBFD), interference mitigation in wireless links, ultra-wideband wireless communication, software-defined radio (SDR), high-speed wireless communication system benchmarks, RF transceiver design, and the modeling and design of high-performance RF components using advanced circuit-EM simulation tools.

Satheesh Bojja Venkatakrishnan, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Florida International University, Miami, FL – 33174, USA

Satheesh Bojja Venkatakrishnan (Senior Member, IEEE) was born in Tiruchirappalli, India, in 1987. He received the bachelor’s degree in electronics and communication engineering from the National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli, in 2009, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from The Ohio State University (OSU), Columbus, OH, USA, in 2017. He was a Scientist at DRDO, India, from 2009 to 2013, working on the development and implementation of active electronic steerable antennas. He is currently a Research Assistant Professor of electrical and computer engineering at Florida International University. His current research interests include receiver design for communication circuits, RF systems, and digital signal processing using FPGAs. He is also working on simultaneous transmit and receive systems (STAR), to improve the spectral efficiency. He has been a Phi Kappa Phi Member, since 2015, and is also an Associate Member of USNC–URSI. He was a recipient of the IEEE Electromagnetic Theory Symposium (EMTS2019) Young Scientist Award. He won the 2nd prize in International Union of Radio Science General Assembly and Scientific Symposium (URSI-GASS) Student Paper Competition held at Montreal, Canada, in August 2017. He also received the Honorable Mention in the Student Paper Competition at the IEEE Antenna and Propagation Symposium (AP-S/URSI), in 2015 and 2016, and the Student Fellowship Travel Grant Award at the U.S. National Committee for the International Union of Radio Science (USNC–URSI), in 2016 and 2017.

John L. Volakis, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Florida International University, Miami, FL – 33174, USA

John L. Volakis (S’77-M’82-SM’89-F96) obtained his B.E. Degree, summa cum laude, in 1978 from Youngstown State Univ., Youngstown, Ohio, M.Sc. in 1979 from The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, Ohio and the Ph.D. degree in 1982, also from the Ohio State Univ.

Prof. Volakis started his career at Rockwell International North American Aircraft Operations (1982–84), now Boeing. In 1984, he was appointed Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, becoming a full Professor in 1994. He also served as the Director of the Radiation Laboratory from 1998 to 2000. From January 2003 to Aug. 2017 he was the Roy and Lois Chope Chair Professor of Engineering at the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio and served as the Director of the ElectroScience Laboratory from 2003 to 2016. From 2017–2023 he was the Dean of the College of Engineering and Computing. Since 2023, he is a Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering at Florida International University (FIU).

Over the years, he carried out research in computational methods, antennas, wireless communications and propagation, electromagnetic compatibility and interference, design optimization, RF materials, multi-physics engineering, millimeter waves, terahertz and medical sensing. His publications include 9 books, over 450 journal papers and 950 conference papers, 33 book chapters and 32 patents/disclosures. Among his co-authored books are: Approximate Boundary Conditions in Electromagnetics, 1995; Finite Element Methods for Electromagnetics, 1998; 4th and 5th ed. Antenna Engineering Handbook, 2007 and 2019; Small Antennas, 2010; Integral Equation Methods for Electromagnetics, 2011; and Wearable Antennas and Electronics, Artech House, 2022. He has graduated/mentored over 100 doctoral students/post-docs with 44 of them receiving best paper awards at conferences. His service to Professional Societies include: 2004 President of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (2004), Chair of USNC/URSI Commission B (2015–2017), Chair and Vice Chair of the International Radio Science Union (URSI) Commission B (2017–23), twice the general Chair of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Symposium, IEEE APS Distinguished Lecturer, IEEE APS Fellows Committee Chair, IEEE-wide Fellows committee member & Associate Editor of several journals. He was listed by ISI among the top 250 most referenced authors (2004). Among his awards are: The Univ. of Michigan College of Engineering Research Excellence award (1993), Scott award from The Ohio State Univ. College of Engineering for Outstanding Academic Achievement (2011), IEEE AP Society C-T. Tai Teaching Excellence award (2011), IEEE Henning Mentoring award (2013), IEEE Antennas & Propagation Distinguished Achievement award (2014), The Ohio State University Distinguished Scholar Award (2016), The Ohio State Univ. ElectroScience Lab. George Sinclair Award (2017), URSI Booker Gold Medal (2020), Advanced Computational Electromagnetics Society Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow, and National Academy of Inventors Fellow (2021).

References

G. R. B. Injila, “In band full duplex (IBFD) technology for next generation wireless networks: A survey in cellular networks,” China Communications, vol. 20, no. 5, pp. 20–39, 2023.

M. R. Rahman, S. Bojja Venkatakrishnan, T. Nakatani, and J. L. Volakis, “Wideband Self Interference Cancellation (SIC) RF front end for Simultaneous Transmit and Receive (STAR) radios,” in 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI Radio Science Meeting (AP-S/URSI), pp. 948–949, 2022.

M. R. Rahman, S. Bojja-Venkatakrishnan, and J. L. Volakis, “Ultra-wideband RF Self interference cancellation filter for STAR radios,” in 2021 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI Radio Science Meeting (APS/URSI), pp. 523–524, 2021.

K. E. Kolodziej, B. T. Perry, and J. S. Herd, “In-band full-duplex technology: Techniques and systems survey,” IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 67, no. 7, pp. 3025–3041, 2019.

C. W. Morgenstern, Y. Rong, A. Herschfelt, A. C. Molnar, A. B. Apsel, D. G. Landon, and D. W. Bliss, “Analog-domain self-interference cancellation for practical multi-tap full-duplex system: Theory, modeling, and algorithm,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 41, no. 9, pp. 2796–2807, 2023.

B. Debaillie, D.-J. van den Broek, C. Lavín, B. van Liempd, E. A. M. Klumperink, C. Palacios, J. Craninckx, B. Nauta, and A. Pärssinen, “Analog/RF solutions enabling compact full-duplex radios,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 32, no. 9, pp. 1662–1673, 2014.

A. Hovsepian, E. A. Alwan, and J. L. Volakis, “A wideband, scanning array of four-arm spiral elements for simultaneous transmit and receive,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 537–541, 2020.

X.-K. Zhang, Y.-H. Ke, X.-Y. Wang, S.-C. Tang, and J.-X. Chen, “Broadband dual-polarized dielectric patch antenna with high isolation for full-duplex communication,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 878–882, 2023.

K. J. Tang, L. H. Ye, W. J. Zhu, J.-F. Li, and D.-L. Wu, “Broadband dual-polarized magnetoelectric dipole antenna for in-band full-duplex application,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 22, no. 9, pp. 2210–2214, 2023.

S. Bojja Venkatakrishnan, E. A. Alwan, and J. L. Volakis, “Wideband RF self-interference cancellation circuit for phased array simultaneous transmit and receive systems,” IEEE Access, vol. 6, pp. 3425–3432, 2018.

M. N. A. Tarek and E. A. Alwan, “Wideband, low profile coupling suppression circuit for simultaneous transmit and receive system based on hybrid finite impulse response and resonator topology,” IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 126508–126515, 2022.

K. E. Kolodziej, J. G. McMichael, and B. T. Perry, “Multitap RF canceller for in-band full-duplex wireless communications,” IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 15, no. 6, pp. 4321–4334, 2016.

H. Li, J. Van Kerrebrouck, O. Caytan, H. Rogier, J. Bauwelinck, P. Demeester, and G. Torfs, “Self-interference cancellation enabling high-throughput short-reach wireless full-duplex communication,” IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 17, no. 10, pp. 6475–6486, 2018.

A. Kiayani, M. Z. Waheed, L. Anttila, M. Abdelaziz, D. Korpi, V. Syrjälä, M. Kosunen, K. Stadius, J. Ryynänen, and M. Valkama, “Adaptive nonlinear RF cancellation for improved isolation in simultaneous transmit–receive systems,” IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 66, no. 5, pp. 2299–2312, 2018.

Y. Liu, X. Quan, W. Pan, and Y. Tang, “Digitally assisted analog interference cancellation for in-band full-duplex radios,” IEEE Communications Letters, vol. 21, no. 5, pp. 1079–1082, 2017.

X. Yu, J. Ye, L. Yan, T. Zhou, X. Zou, and W. Pan, “Photonic-assisted multipath self-interference cancellation for wideband MIMO radio-over-fiber transmission,” Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 462–469, 2022.

Y. Xing, S. Li, X. Xue, and X. Zheng, “Photonic-assisted RF self-interference cancellation based on optical spectrum processing,” Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 40, no. 7, pp. 2015–2022, 2022.

X. Hu, D. Zhu, S. Liu, H. Xiao, and S. Pan, “Photonics-assisted simultaneous RF channelization and self-interference cancellation,” Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 41, no. 18, pp. 5902–5910, 2023.

C. W. Morgenstern, Y. Rong, A. Herschfelt, A. C. Molnar, A. B. Apsel, D. G. Landon, and D. W. Bliss, “Analog-domain self-interference cancellation for practical multi-tap full-duplex system: Theory, modeling, and algorithm,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 41, no. 9, pp. 2796–2807, 2023.

B. R. Barricelli, E. Casiraghi, and D. Fogli, “A survey on digital twin: Definitions, characteristics, applications, and design implications,” IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 167653–167671, 2019.

M. R. Rahman, S. Bojja-Venkatakrishnan, and J. L. Volakis, “Miniature footprint of multi-stage self interference cancellation in a STAR radio,” in 2023 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI Radio Science Meeting (USNC-URSI), pp. 77–78, 2023.

M. R. Rahman, S. Bojja-Venkatakrishnan, M. Pulugurtha, and J. L. Volakis, “Miniaturization of RF SIC filter on high-K ceramic substrate for STAR application,” in 2024 United States National Committee of URSI National Radio Science Meeting (USNC-URSI NRSM), p. 105, 2024.

D. M. Pozar, Microwave Engineering, 3rd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2005.

J.-T. Lim, H.-W. Choi, J.-H. Song, and C.-Y. Kim, “An in-band full-duplex low noise amplifier integrated with an electrical balance duplexer without explicit matching,” IEEE Microwave and Wireless Technology Letters, vol. 33, no. 8, pp. 1175–1178, 2023.

M. Abedian, M. Khalily, P. Xiao, F. Wang, R. Tafazolli, and A. A. Kishk, “MM-wave high isolated dual polarized dielectric resonator antenna for in-band full-duplex systems,” IEEE Access, vol. 11, pp. 38218–38225, 2023.

M. N. A. Tarek, M. R. Guerra, A. Nunez, M. N. Uddin, and E. A. Alwan, “Improving isolation in monostatic simultaneous transmit and receive systems using a quasi-symmetrical self-interference cancellation architecture,” IEEE Journal of Microwaves, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 655–664, 2023.

K. Y. Yang, W. J. Zhu, L. H. Ye, J.-F. Li, and D.-L. Wu, “Metamaterial-based low-profile broadband in-band full-duplex antenna,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 22, no. 8, pp. 1942–1946, 2023.

C. J. Ma, S. Y. Zheng, and Y. M. Pan, “Millimeter-wave co-polarized in-band full-duplex antenna based on a mode superposition method,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 71, no. 6, pp. 4675–4685, 2023.

D. Wu, Y.-X. Sun, R. Lian, B. Xiao, M. Li, and K.-D. Xu, “Metasurface antenna with cocircularly polarized radiation characteristics for wideband monostatic simultaneous transmit and receive applications,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 71, no. 4, pp. 3304–3313, 2023.

Y.-N. Chen, C. Ding, H. Zhu, and Y. Liu, “A ±45∘-polarized antenna system with four isolated channels for In-Band Full-Duplex (IBFD),” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 71, no. 4, pp. 3000–3010, 2023.

Q. Tan and K.-M. Luk, “Wideband co-linearly polarized magneto-electric dipole antenna for in-band full-duplex applications,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 71, no. 2, pp. 1907–1912, 2023.

Downloads

Published

2026-07-30

How to Cite

[1]
M. R. . Rahman, S. B. . Venkatakrishnan, and J. L. . Volakis, “Digital Twin Assisted Self-Interference Cancellation for Wideband Full Duplex Radios”, ACES Journal, vol. 41, no. 07, pp. 603–613, Jul. 2026.

Issue

2026: Vol 41 Iss 7

Section

General Submission

Categories