23 research outputs found
Ultra Wideband Communications: from Analog to Digital
ï»żUltrabreitband-Signale (Ultra Wideband [UWB]) können einen
signifikanten Nutzen im Bereich drahtloser Kommunikationssysteme haben. Es
sind jedoch noch einige Probleme offen, die durch Systemdesigner und
Wissenschaftler gelöst werden mĂŒssen. Ein Funknetzsystem mit einer derart
groĂen Bandbreite ist normalerweise auch durch eine groĂe Anzahl an
Mehrwegekomponenten mit jeweils verschiedenen Pfadamplituden
gekennzeichnet. Daher ist es schwierig, die zeitlich verteilte Energie
effektiv zu erfassen. AuĂerdem ist in vielen FĂ€llen der naheliegende
Ansatz, ein kohÀrenter EmpfÀnger im Sinne eines signalangepassten Filters
oder eines Korrelators, nicht unbedingt die beste Wahl. In der vorliegenden
Arbeit wird dabei auf die bestehende Problematik und weitere
Lösungsmöglichkeiten eingegangen.
Im ersten Abschnitt geht es um âImpulse Radio UWBâ-Systeme mit
niedriger Datenrate. Bei diesen Systemen kommt ein inkohÀrenter EmpfÀnger
zum Einsatz. InkohÀrente Signaldetektion stellt insofern einen
vielversprechenden Ansatz dar, als das damit aufwandsgĂŒnstige und robuste
Implementierungen möglich sind. Dies trifft vor allem in AnwendungsfÀllen
wie den von drahtlosen Sensornetzen zu, wo preiswerte GerÀte mit langer
Batterielaufzeit nötigsind. Dies verringert den fĂŒr die KanalschĂ€tzung
und die Synchronisation nötigen Aufwand, was jedoch auf Kosten der
Leistungseffizienz geht und eine erhöhte Störempfindlichkeit gegenĂŒber
Interferenz (z.B. Interferenz durch mehrere Nutzer oder schmalbandige
Interferenz) zur Folge hat.
Um die Bitfehlerrate der oben genannten Verfahren zu bestimmen, wurde
zunÀchst ein inkohÀrenter Combining-Verlust spezifiziert, welcher
auftritt im Gegensatz zu kohÀrenter Detektion mit Maximum Ratio Multipath
Combining. Dieser Verlust hÀngt von dem Produkt aus der LÀnge des
Integrationsfensters und der Signalbandbreite ab.
Um den Verlust durch inkohÀrentes Combining zu reduzieren und somit die
Leistungseffizienz des EmpfÀngers zu steigern, werden verbesserte
Combining-Methoden fĂŒr Mehrwegeempfang vorgeschlagen. Ein analoger
EmpfÀnger, bei dem der Hauptteil des Mehrwege-Combinings durch einen
âIntegrate and Dumpâ-Filter implementiert ist, wird fĂŒr UWB-Systeme
mit Zeit-Hopping gezeigt. Dabei wurde die Einsatzmöglichkeit von dĂŒnn
besetzten Codes in solchen System diskutiert und bewertet. Des Weiteren
wird eine Regel fĂŒr die Code-Auswahl vorgestellt, welche die StabilitĂ€t
des Systems gegen Mehrnutzer-Störungen sicherstellt und gleichzeitig den
Verlust durch inkohÀrentes Combining verringert.
Danach liegt der Fokus auf digitalen Lösungen bei inkohÀrenter
Demodulation. Im Vergleich zum AnalogempfÀnger besitzt ein
DigitalempfÀnger einen Analog-Digital-Wandler im Zeitbereich gefolgt von
einem digitalen Optimalfilter. Der digitale Optimalfilter dekodiert den
Mehrfachzugriffscode kohÀrent und beschrÀnkt das inkohÀrente Combining
auf die empfangenen Mehrwegekomponenten im Digitalbereich. Es kommt ein
schneller Analog-Digital-Wandler mit geringer Auflösung zum Einsatz, um
einen vertretbaren Energieverbrauch zu gewÀhrleisten. Diese Digitaltechnik
macht den Einsatz langer Analogverzögerungen bei differentieller
Demodulation unnötig und ermöglicht viele Arten der digitalen
Signalverarbeitung. Im Vergleich zur Analogtechnik reduziert sie nicht nur
den inkohÀrenten Combining-Verlust, sonder zeigt auch eine stÀrkere
Resistenz gegenĂŒber Störungen. Dabei werden die Auswirkungen der
Auflösung und der Abtastrate der Analog-Digital-Umsetzung analysiert. Die
Resultate zeigen, dass die verminderte Effizienz solcher
Analog-Digital-Wandler gering ausfÀllt. Weiterhin zeigt sich, dass im
Falle starker Mehrnutzerinterferenz sogar eine Verbesserung der Ergebnisse
zu beobachten ist. Die vorgeschlagenen Design-Regeln spezifizieren die
Anwendung der Analog-Digital-Wandler und die Auswahl der Systemparameter in
AbhÀngigkeit der verwendeten Mehrfachzugriffscodes und der Modulationsart.
Wir zeigen, wie unter Anwendung erweiterter Modulationsverfahren die
Leistungseffizienz verbessert werden kann und schlagen ein Verfahren zur
UnterdrĂŒckung schmalbandiger Störer vor, welches auf Soft Limiting
aufbaut. Durch die Untersuchungen und Ergebnissen zeigt sich, dass
inkohÀrente EmpfÀnger in UWB-Kommunikationssystemen mit niedriger
Datenrate ein groĂes Potential aufweisen.
AuĂerdem wird die Auswahl der benutzbaren Bandbreite untersucht, um einen
Kompromiss zwischen inkohÀrentem Combining-Verlust und StabilitÀt
gegenĂŒber langsamen Schwund zu erreichen. Dadurch wurde ein neues Konzept
fĂŒr UWB-Systeme erarbeitet: wahlweise kohĂ€rente oder inkohĂ€rente
EmpfÀnger, welche als UWB-Systeme Frequenz-Hopping nutzen. Der wesentliche
Vorteil hiervon liegt darin, dass die Bandbreite im Basisband sich deutlich
verringert. Mithin ermöglicht dies einfach zu realisierende digitale
Signalverarbeitungstechnik mit kostengĂŒnstigen Analog-Digital-Wandlern.
Dies stellt eine neue Epoche in der Forschung im Bereich drahtloser
Sensorfunknetze dar.
Der Schwerpunkt des zweiten Abschnitts stellt adaptiven Signalverarbeitung
fĂŒr hohe Datenraten mit âDirect Sequenceâ-UWB-Systemen in den
Vordergrund. In solchen Systemen entstehen, wegen der groĂen Anzahl der
empfangenen Mehrwegekomponenten, starke Inter- bzw.
Intrasymbolinterferenzen. AuĂerdem kann die FunktionalitĂ€t des Systems
durch Mehrnutzerinterferenz und Schmalbandstörungen deutlich beeinflusst
werden. Um sie zu eliminieren, wird die âWidely Linearâ-Rangreduzierung
benutzt. Dabei verbessert die Rangreduzierungsmethode das
Konvergenzverhalten, besonders wenn der gegebene Vektor eine sehr groĂe
Anzahl an Abtastwerten beinhaltet (in Folge hoher einer Abtastrate).
ZusÀtzlich kann das System durch die Anwendung der R-linearen Verarbeitung
die Statistik zweiter Ordnung des nicht-zirkularen Signals vollstÀndig
ausnutzen, was sich in verbesserten SchÀtzergebnissen widerspiegelt.
Allgemeine kann die Methode der âWidely Linearâ-Rangreduzierung auch in
andern Bereichen angewendet werden, z.B. in âDirect
Sequenceâ-Codemultiplexverfahren (DS-CDMA), im MIMO-Bereich, im Global
System for Mobile Communications (GSM) und beim Beamforming.The aim of this thesis is to investigate key issues encountered in the
design of transmission schemes and receiving techniques for Ultra Wideband
(UWB) communication systems. Based on different data rate applications,
this work is divided into two parts, where energy efficient and robust
physical layer solutions are proposed, respectively.
Due to a huge bandwidth of UWB signals, a considerable amount of multipath
arrivals with various path gains is resolvable at the receiver. For low
data rate impulse radio UWB systems, suboptimal non-coherent detection is a
simple way to effectively capture the multipath energy. Feasible techniques
that increase the power efficiency and the interference robustness of
non-coherent detection need to be investigated. For high data rate direct
sequence UWB systems, a large number of multipath arrivals results in
severe inter-/intra-symbol interference. Additionally, the system
performance may also be deteriorated by multi-user interference and
narrowband interference. It is necessary to develop advanced signal
processing techniques at the receiver to suppress these interferences.
Part I of this thesis deals with the co-design of signaling schemes and
receiver architectures in low data rate impulse radio UWB systems based on
non-coherent detection.â We analyze the bit error rate performance of
non-coherent detection and characterize a non-coherent combining loss,
i.e., a performance penalty with respect to coherent detection with maximum
ratio multipath combining. The thorough analysis of this loss is very
helpful for the design of transmission schemes and receive techniques
innon-coherent UWB communication systems.â We propose to use optical
orthogonal codes in a time hopping impulse radio UWB system based on an
analog non-coherent receiver. The âanalogâ means that the major part of
the multipath combining is implemented by an integrate and dump filter. The
introduced semi-analytical method can help us to easily select the time
hopping codes to ensure the robustness against the multi-user interference
and meanwhile to alleviate the non-coherent combining loss.â The main
contribution of Part I is the proposal of applying fully digital solutions
in non-coherent detection. The proposed digital non-coherent receiver is
based on a time domain analog-to-digital converter, which has a high speed
but a very low resolution to maintain a reasonable power consumption.
Compared to its analog counterpart, itnot only significantly reduces the
non-coherent combining loss but also offers a higher interference
robustness. In particular, the one-bit receiver can effectively suppress
strong multi-user interference and is thus advantageous in separating
simultaneously operating piconets.The fully digital solutions overcome the
difficulty of implementing long analog delay lines and make differential
UWB detection possible. They also facilitate the development of various
digital signal processing techniques such as multi-user detection and
non-coherent multipath combining methods as well as the use of advanced
modulationschemes (e.g., M-ary Walsh modulation).â Furthermore, we
present a novel impulse radio UWB system based on frequency hopping, where
both coherent and non-coherent receivers can be adopted. The key advantage
is that the baseband bandwidth can be considerably reduced (e.g., lower
than 500 MHz), which enables low-complexity implementation of the fully
digital solutions. It opens up various research activities in the
application field of wireless sensor networks.
Part II of this thesis proposes adaptive widely linear reduced-rank
techniques to suppress interferences for high data rate direct sequence UWB
systems, where second-order non-circular signals are used. The reduced-rank
techniques are designed to improve the convergence performance and the
interference robustness especially when the received vector contains a
large number of samples (due to a high sampling rate in UWB systems). The
widely linear processing takes full advantage of the second-order
statistics of the non-circular signals and enhances the estimation
performance. The generic widely linear reduced-rank concept also has a
great potential in the applications of other systems such as Direct
Sequence Code Division Multiple Access (DS-CDMA), Multiple Input Multiple
Output (MIMO) system, and Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), or
in other areas such as beamforming
Multi Detector Fusion of Dynamic TOA Estimation using Kalman Filter
In this paper, we propose fusion of dynamic TOA (time of arrival) from
multiple non-coherent detectors like energy detectors operating at sub-Nyquist
rate through Kalman filtering. We also show that by using multiple of these
energy detectors, we can achieve the performance of a digital matched filter
implementation in the AWGN (additive white Gaussian noise) setting. We derive
analytical expression for number of energy detectors needed to achieve the
matched filter performance. We demonstrate in simulation the validity of our
analytical approach. Results indicate that number of energy detectors needed
will be high at low SNRs and converge to a constant number as the SNR
increases. We also study the performance of the strategy proposed using IEEE
802.15.4a CM1 channel model and show in simulation that two sub-Nyquist
detectors are sufficient to match the performance of digital matched filter
Recommended from our members
Ultra-wideband systems exploiting orthonormal waveforms
textElectrical and Computer Engineerin
Contribution Ă la conception d'un systĂšme de radio impulsionnelle ultra large bande intelligent
Faced with an ever increasing demand of high data-rates and improved adaptability among existing systems, which inturn is resulting in spectrum scarcity, the development of new radio solutions becomes mandatory in order to answer the requirements of these emergent applications. Among the recent innovations in the field of wireless communications,ultra wideband (UWB) has generated significant interest. Impulse based UWB (IR-UWB) is one attractive way of realizing UWB systems, which is characterized by the transmission of sub nanoseconds UWB pulses, occupying a band width up to 7.5 GHz with extremely low power density. This large band width results in several captivating features such as low-complexity low-cost transceiver, ability to overlay existing narrowband systems, ample multipath diversity, and precise ranging at centimeter level due to extremely fine temporal resolution.In this PhD dissertation, we investigate some of the key elements in the realization of an intelligent time-hopping based IR-UWB system. Due to striking resemblance of IR-UWB inherent features with cognitive radio (CR) requirements, acognitive UWB based system is first studied. A CR in its simplest form can be described as a radio, which is aware ofits surroundings and adapts intelligently. As sensing the environment for the availability of resources and then consequently adapting radioâs internal parameters to exploit them opportunistically constitute the major blocks of any CR, we first focus on robust spectrum sensing algorithms and the design of adaptive UWB waveforms for realizing a cognitive UWB radio. The spectrum sensing module needs to function with minimum a-priori knowledge available about the operating characteristics and detect the primary users as quickly as possible. Keeping this in mind, we develop several spectrum sensing algorithms invoking recent results on the random matrix theory, which can provide efficient performance with a few number of samples. Next, we design the UWB waveform using a linear combination of Bsp lines with weight coefficients being optimized by genetic algorithms. This results in a UWB waveform that is spectrally efficient and at the same time adaptable to incorporate the cognitive radio requirements. In the 2nd part of this thesis, some research challenges related to signal processing in UWB systems, namely synchronization and dense multipath channel estimation are addressed. Several low-complexity non-data-aided (NDA) synchronization algorithms are proposed for BPSK and PSM modulations, exploiting either the orthogonality of UWB waveforms or theinherent cyclostationarity of IR-UWB signaling. Finally, we look into the channel estimation problem in UWB, whichis very demanding due to particular nature of UWB channels and at the same time very critical for the coherent Rake receivers. A method based on a joint maximum-likelihood (ML) and orthogonal subspace (OS) approaches is proposed which exhibits improved performance than both of these methods individually.Face Ă une demande sans cesse croissante de haut dĂ©bit et dâadaptabilitĂ© des systĂšmes existants, qui Ă son tour se traduit par lâencombrement du spectre, le dĂ©veloppement de nouvelles solutions dans le domaine des communications sans fil devient nĂ©cessaire afin de rĂ©pondre aux exigences des applications Ă©mergentes. Parmi les innovations rĂ©centes dans ce domaine, lâultra large bande (UWB) a suscitĂ© un vif intĂ©rĂȘt. La radio impulsionnelle UWB (IR-UWB), qui est une solution intĂ©ressante pour rĂ©aliser des systĂšmes UWB, est caractĂ©risĂ©e par la transmission des impulsions de trĂšs courte durĂ©e, occupant une largeur de bande allant jusquâĂ 7,5 GHz, avec une densitĂ© spectrale de puissance extrĂȘmement faible. Cette largeur de bande importante permet de rĂ©aliser plusieurs fonctionnalitĂ©s intĂ©ressantes, telles que lâimplĂ©mentation Ă faible complexitĂ© et Ă coĂ»t rĂ©duit, la possibilitĂ© de se superposer aux systĂšmes Ă bande Ă©troite, la diversitĂ© spatiale et la localisation trĂšs prĂ©cise de lâordre centimĂ©trique, en raison de la rĂ©solution temporelle trĂšs fine.Dans cette thĂšse, nous examinons certains Ă©lĂ©ments clĂ©s dans la rĂ©alisation d'un systĂšme IR-UWB intelligent. Nous avons tout dâabord proposĂ© le concept de radio UWB cognitive Ă partir des similaritĂ©s existantes entre l'IR-UWB et la radio cognitive. Dans sa dĂ©finition la plus simple, un tel systĂšme est conscient de son environnement et s'y adapte intelligemment. Ainsi, nous avons tout dâabord focalisĂ© notre recherchĂ© sur lâanalyse de la disponibilitĂ© des ressources spectrales (spectrum sensing) et la conception dâune forme dâonde UWB adaptative, considĂ©rĂ©es comme deux Ă©tapes importantes dans la rĂ©alisation d'une radio cognitive UWB. Les algorithmes de spectrum sensing devraient fonctionner avec un minimum de connaissances a priori et dĂ©tecter rapidement les utilisateurs primaires. Nous avons donc dĂ©veloppĂ© de tels algorithmes utilisant des rĂ©sultats rĂ©cents sur la thĂ©orie des matrices alĂ©atoires, qui sont capables de fournir de bonnes performances, avec un petit nombre d'Ă©chantillons. Ensuite, nous avons proposĂ© une mĂ©thode de conception de la forme d'onde UWB, vue comme une superposition de fonctions B-splines, dont les coefficients de pondĂ©ration sont optimisĂ©s par des algorithmes gĂ©nĂ©tiques. Il en rĂ©sulte une forme d'onde UWB qui est spectralement efficace et peut sâadapter pour intĂ©grer les contraintes liĂ©es Ă la radio cognitive. Dans la 2Ăšme partie de cette thĂšse, nous nous sommes attaquĂ©s Ă deux autres problĂ©matiques importantes pour le fonctionnement des systĂšmes UWB, Ă savoir la synchronisation et lâestimation du canal UWB, qui est trĂšs dense en trajets multiples. Ainsi, nous avons proposĂ© plusieurs algorithmes de synchronisation, de faible complexitĂ© et sans sĂ©quence dâapprentissage, pour les modulations BPSK et PSM, en exploitant l'orthogonalitĂ© des formes d'onde UWB ou la cyclostationnaritĂ© inhĂ©rente Ă la signalisation IR-UWB. Enfin, nous avons travaillĂ© sur l'estimation du canal UWB, qui est un Ă©lĂ©ment critique pour les rĂ©cepteurs Rake cohĂ©rents. Ainsi, nous avons proposĂ© une mĂ©thode dâestimation du canal basĂ©e sur une combinaison de deux approches complĂ©mentaires, le maximum de vraisemblance et la dĂ©composition en sous-espaces orthogonaux,dâamĂ©liorer globalement les performances
Interference management in impulse-radio ultra-wide band networks
We consider networks of impulse-radio ultra-wide band (IR-UWB) devices. We are interested in the architecture, design, and performance evaluation of these networks in a low data-rate, self-organized, and multi-hop setting. IR-UWB is a potential physical layer for sensor networks and emerging pervasive wireless networks. These networks are likely to have no particular infrastructure, might have nodes embedded in everyday life objects and have a size ranging from a few dozen nodes to large-scale networks composed of hundreds of nodes. Their average data-rate is low, on the order of a few megabits per second. IR-UWB physical layers are attractive for these networks because they potentially combine low-power consumption, robustness to multipath fading and to interference, and location/ranging capability. The features of an IR-UWB physical layer greatly differ from the features of the narrow-band physical layers used in existing wireless networks. First, the bandwidth of an IR-UWB physical layer is at least 500 MHz, which is easily two orders of magnitude larger than the bandwidth used by a typical narrow-band physical layer. Second, this large bandwidth implies stringent radio spectrum regulations because UWB systems might occupy a portion of the spectrum that is already in use. Consequently, UWB systems exhibit extremely low power spectral densities. Finally IR-UWB physical layers offer multi-channel capabilities for multiple and concurrent access to the physical layer. Hence, the architecture and design of IR-UWB networks are likely to differ significantly from narrow-band wireless networks. For the network to operate efficiently, it must be designed and implemented to take into account the features of IR-UWB and to take advantage of them. In this thesis, we focus on both the medium access control (MAC) layer and the physical layer. Our main objectives are to understand and determine (1) the architecture and design principles of IR-UWB networks, and (2) how to implement them in practical schemes. In the first part of this thesis, we explore the design space of IR-UWB networks and analyze the fundamental design choices. We show that interference from concurrent transmissions should not be prevented as in protocols that use mutual exclusion (for instance, IEEE 802.11). Instead, interference must be managed with rate adaptation, and an interference mitigation scheme should be used at the physical layer. Power control is useless. Based on these findings, we develop a practical PHY-aware MAC protocol that takes into account the specific nature of IR-UWB and that is able to adapt its rate to interference. We evaluate the performance obtained with this design: It clearly outperforms traditional designs that, instead, use mutual exclusion or power control. One crucial aspect of IR-UWB networks is packet detection and timing acquisition. In this context, a network design choice is whether to use a common or private acquisition preamble for timing acquisition. Therefore, we evaluate how this network design issue affects the network throughput. Our analysis shows that a private acquisition preamble yields a tremendous increase in throughput, compared with a common acquisition preamble. In addition, simulations on multi-hop topologies with TCP flows demonstrate that a network using private acquisition preambles has a stable throughput. On the contrary, using a common acquisition preamble exhibits an effect similar to exposed terminal issues in 802.11 networks: the throughput is severely degraded and flow starvation might occur. In the second part of this thesis, we are interested in IEEE 802.15.4a, a standard for low data-rate, low complexity networks that employs an IR-UWB physical layer. Due to its low complexity, energy detection is appealing for the implementation of practical receivers. But it is less robust to multi-user interference (MUI) than a coherent receiver. Hence, we evaluate the performance of an IEEE 802.15.4a physical layer with an energy detection receiver to find out whether a satisfactory performance is still obtained. Our results show that MUI severely degrades the performance in this case. The energy detection receiver significantly diminishes one of the most appealing benefits of UWB, specifically its robustness to MUI and thus the possibility of allowing for parallel transmissions. This performance analysis leads to the development of an IR-UWB receiver architecture, based on energy detection, that is robust to MUI and adapted to the peculiarities of IEEE 802.15.4a. This architecture greatly improves the performance and entails only a moderate increase in complexity. Finally, we present the architecture of an IR-UWB physical layer implementation in ns-2, a well-known network simulator. This architecture is generic and allows for the simulation of several multiple-access physical layers. In addition, it comprises a model of packet detection and timing acquisition. Network simulators also need to have efficient algorithms to accurately compute bit or packet error rates. Hence, we present a fast algorithm to compute the bit error rate of an IR-UWB physical layer in a network setting with MUI. It is based on a novel combination of large deviation theory and importance sampling
Modulation and Multiple Access Techniques for Ultra-Wideband Communication Systems
Two new energy detection (ED) Ultra-Wideband (UWB) systems are proposed in this dissertation. The first one is an ED UWB system based on pulse width modulation (PWM). The bit error rate (BER) performance of this ED PWM system is slightly worse than ED pulse position modulation (PPM) system in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels. However, the BER performance of this ED PWM system surpasses that of a PPM system in multipath channels since a PWM system does not suffer cross-modulation interference (CMI) as a PPM system. In the presence of synchronization errors, the BER performance of a PWM system also surpasses that of a PPM system. The second proposed ED UWB system is based on using two pulses, which are the different-order derivatives of the Gaussian pulse, to transmitted bit 0 or 1. These pulses are appropriately chosen to separate their spectra in frequency domain.The receiver is composed of two energy detection branches and each branch has a filter which captures the signal energy of either bit 0 or 1. The outputs of two branches are subtracted from each other to generate the decision statistic and the value of this statistic is compared to a threshold to determine the transmitted bits. This system is named as acf{GFSK} system in this dissertation and it exhibits the same BER performance as a PPM system in AWGN channels. In multipath channels, a GFSK system surpasses a PPM system because it does not suffer CMI. And the BER performance of a GFSK system is better than a PPM system in the presence of synchronization errors. When a GFSK system is compared to a PWM system, it will always achieve approximately 2 dB improvement in AWGN channels, multipath channels, and in the presence synchronization errors. However, a PWM system uses lower-order derivatives of the Gaussian pulse to transmit signal, and this leads to a simple pulse generator. In this dissertation, an optimal threshold is applied to improve PPM system performance. The research results show that the application of an optimal threshold can e
Differentially-encoded di-symbol time-division multiuser impulse radio in UWB channel
Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH
Modulation and Multiple Access Techniques for Ultra-Wideband Communication Systems
Two new energy detection (ED) Ultra-Wideband (UWB) systems are proposed in this dissertation. The first one is an ED UWB system based on pulse width modulation (PWM). The bit error rate (BER) performance of this ED PWM system is slightly worse than ED pulse position modulation (PPM) system in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels. However, the BER performance of this ED PWM system surpasses that of a PPM system in multipath channels since a PWM system does not suffer cross-modulation interference (CMI) as a PPM system. In the presence of synchronization errors, the BER performance of a PWM system also surpasses that of a PPM system. The second proposed ED UWB system is based on using two pulses, which are the different-order derivatives of the Gaussian pulse, to transmitted bit 0 or 1. These pulses are appropriately chosen to separate their spectra in frequency domain.The receiver is composed of two energy detection branches and each branch has a filter which captures the signal energy of either bit 0 or 1. The outputs of two branches are subtracted from each other to generate the decision statistic and the value of this statistic is compared to a threshold to determine the transmitted bits. This system is named as acf{GFSK} system in this dissertation and it exhibits the same BER performance as a PPM system in AWGN channels. In multipath channels, a GFSK system surpasses a PPM system because it does not suffer CMI. And the BER performance of a GFSK system is better than a PPM system in the presence of synchronization errors. When a GFSK system is compared to a PWM system, it will always achieve approximately 2 dB improvement in AWGN channels, multipath channels, and in the presence synchronization errors. However, a PWM system uses lower-order derivatives of the Gaussian pulse to transmit signal, and this leads to a simple pulse generator. In this dissertation, an optimal threshold is applied to improve PPM system performance. The research results show that the application of an optimal threshold can e
Noise-based Transmit Reference Modulation:A Feasibility Analysis
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) receive huge research interest for a multitude of applications, ranging from remote monitoring applications, such as monitoring of potential forest fires, floods and air pollution, to domestic and industrial monitoring of temperature, humidity, vibration, stress, etc. In the former set of applications, a large number of nodes can be involved which are usually deployed in remote or inaccessible environments. Due to logistic and cost reasons, battery replacement is undesired. Energy-efficient radios are needed, with a power-demand so little that batteries can last the lifetime of the node or that the energy can be harvested from the environment. Coherent direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) based radios are widely employed in monitoring applications, due to their overall resilience to channel impairments and robustness against interference. However, a DSSS rake receiver has stringent requirements on precise synchronization and accurate channel knowledge. To obviate the complexity of a coherent DSSS receiver, particularly for low data rate sensor networks, a DSSS scheme that has fast synchronization and possibly low power consumption, is much desired. In this regard, this thesis studies a noncoherent DSSS scheme called transmit reference (TR), which promises a simple receiver architecture and fast synchronization. In traditional TR, the modulated information signal is sent along an unmodulated reference signal, with a small time offset between them. In this thesis, we present and investigate a variant of TR, called noise-based frequency offset modulation (N-FOM), which uses pure noise as the spreading signal and a small frequency offset (instead of a time offset) to separate the information and reference signals. The detection is based on correlation of the received signal with a frequency-shifted version of itself, which collects the transmitted energy without compromising the receiver simplicity. Analytical expressions on performance metrics, supplemented by simulation results, improve understanding of the underlying mechanisms and provide insights into utility of N-FOM in low-power WSNs. In point-to-point line-of-sight (LOS) communication, it was observed that the communication scheme has a minimal utility. The energy-detector type of receiver mixes all in-band signals, which magnifies the overall noise. Particularly, the self-mixing of the transmitted signal also elevates the noise level, which increases with a further increase in the received signal energy. Therefore, for a fixed set of system parameters, the performance attains an asymptote with increasing transmission power. The phenomenon also establishes a non-monotonic relation between performance and the spreading factor. It was observed that a higher spreading factor in N-FOM is beneficial only in a high-SNR regime. After developing an understanding of the performance degrading mechanisms, few design considerations are listed. It is found that a suitable choice of the receiver front-end filter can maximize the SNR. However, the optimal filter depends on received signal and noise levels. A practically feasible â albeit suboptimal â filter is presented which gives close to the optimal performance. Next, timing synchronization is considered. The implications of synchronization errors are analyzed, and a synchronization strategy is devised. The proposed synchronization strategy has little overhead and can be easily implemented for symbol-level synchronization. The N-FOM LOS link model is extended to assess the performance degradation due to interference. Performance metrics are derived which quantify the effects of multiple-user interference, as well as that from external interferers, such as WiFi. Since the correlation operation mixes all in-band signals, the total interfering entities are quadratically increased. The research shows the vulnerability of N-FOM to interference, which makes it optimistic to operate in a crowded shared spectrum (such as the ISM 2.4\,GHz band). We also observe an upper limit on the number of mutually interfering links in a multiple access (MA) network, that can be established with an acceptable quality. The scheme is further investigated for its resilience against impairments introduced by a dense multipath environment. It is observed that despite the noise enhancement, the N-FOM system performs reasonably well in a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) communication. The detection mechanism exploits the multipath channel diversity and leads to an improved performance in a rich scattering environment. An analytical expression for outage probability is also derived. The results indicate that a healthy N-FOM link with very low outage probability can be established at a nominal value of the received bit SNR. It is also found that the choice of the frequency offset is central to the system design. Due to multiple practical implications associated with this parameter, the maximum data rate and the number of usable frequency offsets are limited, particularly in a MA NLOS communication scenario. The analysis evolves into a rule-of-thumb criterion for the data rate and the frequency offset. It is deduced that, due to its limited capability to coexist in a shared spectrum, N-FOM is not a replacement for coherent DSSS systems. The scheme is mainly suited to a low data rate network with low overall traffic, operating in an interference-free rich scattering environment. Such a niche of sensor applications could benefit from N-FOM where the design goal requires a simple detection mechanism and immunity to multipath fading