Multi-service systems: an enabler of flexible 5G air-interface

Multi-service system is an enabler to flexibly support diverse communication requirements for the next generation wireless communications. In such a system, multiple types of services co-exist in one baseband system with each service having its optimal frame structure and low out of band emission (OoBE) waveforms operating on the service frequency band to reduce the inter-service-band-interference (ISvcBI). In this article, a framework for multi-service system is established and the challenges and possible solutions are studied. The multi-service system implementation in both time and frequency domain is discussed. Two representative subband filtered multicarrier (SFMC) waveforms: filtered orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (F-OFDM) and universal filtered multi-carrier (UFMC) are considered in this article. Specifically, the design methodology, criteria, orthogonality conditions and prospective application scenarios in the context of 5G are discussed. We consider both single-rate (SR) and multi-rate (MR) signal processing methods. Compared with the SR system, the MR system has significantly reduced computational complexity at the expense of performance loss due to inter-subband-interference (ISubBI) in MR systems. The ISvcBI and ISubBI in MR systems are investigated with proposed low-complexity interference cancelation algorithms to enable the multi-service operation in low interference level conditions

Filtered OFDM systems, algorithms and performance analysis for 5G and beyond

Filtered orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (F-OFDM) system is a promising waveform for 5G and beyond to enable multi-service system and spectrum efficient network slicing. However, the performance for F-OFDM systems has not been systematically analyzed in literature. In this paper, we first establish a mathematical model for F-OFDM system and derive the conditions to achieve the interference-free one-tap channel equalization. In the practical cases (e.g., insufficient guard interval, asynchronous transmission, etc.), the analytical expressions for inter-symbol-interference (ISI), inter-carrier-interference (ICI) and adjacent-carrier-interference (ACI) are derived, where the last term is considered as one of the key factors for asynchronous transmissions. Based on the framework, an optimal power compensation matrix is derived to make all of the subcarriers having the same ergodic performance. Another key contribution of the paper is that we propose a multi-rate F-OFDM system to enable low complexity low cost communication scenarios such as narrow band Internet of Things (IoT), at the cost of generating inter-subband-interference (ISubBI). Low computational complexity algorithms are proposed to cancel the ISubBI. The result shows that the derived analytical expressions match the simulation results, and the proposed ISubBI cancelation algorithms can significantly save the original F-OFDM complexity (up to 100 times) without significant performance los

A Communication Monitor for Wireless Sensor Networks Based on Software Defined Radio

Link quality estimation of reliability-crucial wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is often limited by the observability and testability of single-chip radio transceivers. The estimation is often based on collection of packer-level statistics, including packet reception rate, or vendor-specific registers, such as CC2420's Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) and Link Quality Indicator (LQI). The speed or accuracy of such metrics limits the performance of reliability mechanisms built in wireless sensor networks. To improve link quality estimation in WSNs, we designed a powerful wireless communication monitor based on Software Defined Radio (SDR). We studied the relations between three implemented link quality metrics and packet reception rate under different channel conditions. Based on a comparison of the metrics' relative advantages, we proposed using a combination of them for fast and accurate estimation of a sensor network link

Uplink User Capacity in a CDMA System with Hotspot Microcells: Effects of Finite Transmit Power and Dispersion

This paper examines the uplink user capacity in a two-tier code division multiple access (CDMA) system with hotspot microcells when user terminal power is limited and the wireless channel is finitely-dispersive. A finitely-dispersive channel causes variable fading of the signal power at the output of the RAKE receiver. First, a two-cell system composed of one macrocell and one embedded microcell is studied and analytical methods are developed to estimate the user capacity as a function of a dimensionless parameter that depends on the transmit power constraint and cell radius. Next, novel analytical methods are developed to study the effect of variable fading, both with and without transmit power constraints. Finally, the analytical methods are extended to estimate uplink user capacity for multicell CDMA systems, composed of multiple macrocells and multiple embedded microcells. In all cases, the analysis-based estimates are compared with and confirmed by simulation results.Comment: To appear in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communication

A baseband wireless spectrum hypervisor for multiplexing concurrent OFDM signals

The next generation of wireless and mobile networks will have to handle a significant increase in traffic load compared to the current ones. This situation calls for novel ways to increase the spectral efficiency. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a wireless spectrum hypervisor architecture that abstracts a radio frequency (RF) front-end into a configurable number of virtual RF front ends. The proposed architecture has the ability to enable flexible spectrum access in existing wireless and mobile networks, which is a challenging task due to the limited spectrum programmability, i.e., the capability a system has to change the spectral properties of a given signal to fit an arbitrary frequency allocation. The proposed architecture is a non-intrusive and highly optimized wireless hypervisor that multiplexes the signals of several different and concurrent multi-carrier-based radio access technologies with numerologies that are multiple integers of one another, which are also referred in our work as radio access technologies with correlated numerology. For example, the proposed architecture can multiplex the signals of several Wi-Fi access points, several LTE base stations, several WiMAX base stations, etc. As it able to multiplex the signals of radio access technologies with correlated numerology, it can, for instance, multiplex the signals of LTE, 5G-NR and NB-IoT base stations. It abstracts a radio frequency front-end into a configurable number of virtual RF front ends, making it possible for such different technologies to share the same RF front-end and consequently reduce the costs and increasing the spectral efficiency by employing densification, once several networks share the same infrastructure or by dynamically accessing free chunks of spectrum. Therefore, the main goal of the proposed approach is to improve spectral efficiency by efficiently using vacant gaps in congested spectrum bandwidths or adopting network densification through infrastructure sharing. We demonstrate mathematically how our proposed approach works and present several simulation results proving its functionality and efficiency. Additionally, we designed and implemented an open-source and free proof of concept prototype of the proposed architecture, which can be used by researchers and developers to run experiments or extend the concept to other applications. We present several experimental results used to validate the proposed prototype. We demonstrate that the prototype can easily handle up to 12 concurrent physical layers