Blind channel identification/equalization with applications in wireless communications

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Hybrid solutions to instantaneous MIMO blind separation and decoding: narrowband, QAM and square cases

Future wireless communication systems are desired to support high data rates and high quality transmission when considering the growing multimedia applications. Increasing the channel throughput leads to the multiple input and multiple output and blind equalization techniques in recent years. Thereby blind MIMO equalization has attracted a great interest.Both system performance and computational complexities play important roles in real time communications. Reducing the computational load and providing accurate performances are the main challenges in present systems. In this thesis, a hybrid method which can provide an affordable complexity with good performance for Blind Equalization in large constellation MIMO systems is proposed first. Saving computational cost happens both in the signal sep- aration part and in signal detection part. First, based on Quadrature amplitude modulation signal characteristics, an efficient and simple nonlinear function for the Independent Compo- nent Analysis is introduced. Second, using the idea of the sphere decoding, we choose the soft information of channels in a sphere, and overcome the so- called curse of dimensionality of the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm and enhance the final results simultaneously. Mathematically, we demonstrate in the digital communication cases, the EM algorithm shows Newton -like convergence.Despite the widespread use of forward -error coding (FEC), most multiple input multiple output (MIMO) blind channel estimation techniques ignore its presence, and instead make the sim- plifying assumption that the transmitted symbols are uncoded. However, FEC induces code structure in the transmitted sequence that can be exploited to improve blind MIMO channel estimates. In final part of this work, we exploit the iterative channel estimation and decoding performance for blind MIMO equalization. Experiments show the improvements achievable by exploiting the existence of coding structures and that it can access the performance of a BCJR equalizer with perfect channel information in a reasonable SNR range. All results are confirmed experimentally for the example of blind equalization in block fading MIMO systems

Advancements of MultiRate Signal processing for Wireless Communication Networks: Current State Of the Art

With the hasty growth of internet contact and voice and information centric communications, many contact technologies have been urbanized to meet the stringent insist of high speed information transmission and viaduct the wide bandwidth gap among ever-increasing high-data-rate core system and bandwidth-hungry end-user complex. To make efficient consumption of the limited bandwidth of obtainable access routes and cope with the difficult channel environment, several standards have been projected for a variety of broadband access scheme over different access situation (twisted pairs, coaxial cables, optical fibers, and unchanging or mobile wireless admittance). These access situations may create dissimilar channel impairments and utter unique sets of signal dispensation algorithms and techniques to combat precise impairments. In the intended and implementation sphere of those systems, many research issues arise. In this paper we present advancements of multi-rate indication processing methodologies that are aggravated by this design trend. The thesis covers the contemporary confirmation of the current literature on intrusion suppression using multi-rate indication in wireless communiquE9; networks

Signal-perturbation-free semi-blind channel estimation for MIMO-OFDM systems

Multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) has been considered as a strong candidate for the beyond 3G (B3G) wireless communication systems, due to its high data-rate wireless transmission performance. It is well known that the advantages promised by MIMO-OFDM systems rely on the precise knowledge of the channel state information (CSI). In real wireless environments, however, the channel condition is unknown. Therefore, channel estimation is of crucial importance in MIMO-OFDM systems. Semi-blind channel estimation as a combination of the training-based or pilot-assisted method and the pure blind approach is considered to be a feasible solution for practical wireless systems due to its better estimation accuracy as well as spectral efficiency. In this thesis, we address the semi-blind channel estimation issue of MIMO-OFDM systems with an objective to develop very efficient channel estimation approaches. In the first part of the dissertation, several nulling-based semi-blind approaches are presented for the estimation of time-domain MIMO-OFDM channels. By incorporating a blind constraint that is derived from MIMO linear prediction (LP) into a training-based least-square method, a semi-blind solution for the time-domain channel estimation is first obtained. It is revealed through a perturbation analysis that the semi-blind solution is not subject to signal perturbation and therefore is superior to pure blind estimation methods. The LP-based semi-blind method is then extended for the channel estimation of MIMO-OFDM systems with pulse-shaping. By exploiting the pulse-shaping filter in the transmitter and the matched filter in the receiver, a very efficient semi-blind approach is developed for the estimation of sampling duration based multipath channels. A frequency-domain correlation matrix estimation algorithm is also presented to facilitate the computation of time-domain second-order statistics required in the LP-based method. The nulling-based semi-blind estimation issue of sparse MIMO-OFDM channels is also addressed. By disclosing and using a relationship between the positions of the most significant taps (MST) of the sparse channel and the lags of nonzero correlation matrices of the received signal, a novel estimation approach consisting of the MST detection and the sparse channel estimation, both in a semi-blind fashion, is developed. An intensive simulation study of all the proposed nulling-based methods with comparison to some existing techniques is conducted, showing a significant superiority of the new methodologies. The second part of the dissertation is dedicated to the development of two signal-perturbation-free (SPF) semi-blind channel estimation algorithms based on a novel transmit scheme that bears partial information of the second-order statistics of the transmitted signal to receiver. It is proved that the new transmit scheme can completely cancel the signal perturbation error in the noise-free case, thereby improving largely the estimation accuracy of correlation matrix for channel estimation in noisy conditions. It is also shown that the overhead caused by the transmission of the 8PF data is negligible as compared to that of regular pilot signals. By using the proposed transmit scheme, a whitening rotation (WR)-based algorithm is first developed for frequency-domain MIMO-OFDM channel estimation. It is shown through both theoretical analysis and simulation study that the new WR-based algorithm significantly outperforms the conventional WR-based method and the nulling-based semi-blind method. By using MIMO linear prediction, the new WR-based algorithm utilizing the 8PF transmit scheme is then extended for time-domain MIMO-OFDM channel estimation. Computer simulations show that the proposed signal-perturbation-free LP-based semi-blind solution performs much better than the LP semi-blind method without using the proposed transmit scheme, the LS method as well as the nulling-based semi-blind method in terms of the MSE of the channel estimate

Estimation and detection techniques for doubly-selective channels in wireless communications

A fundamental problem in communications is the estimation of the channel. The signal transmitted through a communications channel undergoes distortions so that it is often received in an unrecognizable form at the receiver. The receiver must expend significant signal processing effort in order to be able to decode the transmit signal from this received signal. This signal processing requires knowledge of how the channel distorts the transmit signal, i.e. channel knowledge. To maintain a reliable link, the channel must be estimated and tracked by the receiver. The estimation of the channel at the receiver often proceeds by transmission of a signal called the 'pilot' which is known a priori to the receiver. The receiver forms its estimate of the transmitted signal based on how this known signal is distorted by the channel, i.e. it estimates the channel from the received signal and the pilot. This design of the pilot is a function of the modulation, the type of training and the channel. [Continues.

Novel Estimation and Detection Techniques for 5G Networks

The thesis presents several detection and estimation techniques that can be incorporated into the fifth-generation (5G) networks. First, the thesis presents a novel system for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) to estimate the channel blindly. The system is based on modulating particular pairs of subcarriers using amplitude shift keying (ASK) and phase-shift keying (PSK) adjacent in the frequency domain, which enables the realization of a decision-directed (DD) one-shot blind channel estimator (OSBCE). The performance of the proposed estimator is evaluated in terms of the mean squared error (MSE), where an accurate analytical expression is derived and verified using Monte Carlo simulation under various channel conditions. The system has also extended to exploits the channel correlation over consecutive OFDM symbols to estimate the channel parameters blindly. Furthermore, a reliable and accurate approach has been introduced to evaluate the spectral efficiency of various communications systems. The metric takes into consideration the system dynamics, QoS requirements, and design constraints. Next, a novel efficient receiver design for wireless communication systems that incorporate OFDM transmission has been proposed. The proposed receiver does not require channel estimation or equalization to perform coherent data detection. Instead, channel estimation, equalization, and data detection are combined into a single operation, and hence, the detector performs a direct data detector (D3). The performance of the proposed D3 is thoroughly analyzed theoretically in terms of bit error rate (BER), where closed-form accurate approximations are derived for several cases of interest, and validated by Monte Carlo simulations. The computational complexity of D3 depends on the length of the sequence to be detected. Nevertheless, a significant complexity reduction can be achieved using the Viterbi algorithm (VA). Finally, the thesis proposes a low-complexity algorithm for detecting anomalies in industrial steelmaking furnaces operation. The algorithm utilizes the vibration measurements collected from several built-in sensors to compute the temporal correlation using the autocorrelation function (ACF). Furthermore, the proposed model parameters are tuned by solving multi-objective optimization using a genetic algorithm (GA). The proposed algorithm is tested using a practical dataset provided by an industrial steelmaking plant