LTE-Advanced radio access enhancements: A survey

Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-Advanced) is the next step in LTE evolution and allows operators to improve network performance and service capabilities through smooth deployment of new techniques and technologies. LTE-Advanced uses some new features on top of the existing LTE standards to provide better user experience and higher throughputs. Some of the most significant features introduced in LTE-Advanced are carrier aggregation, enhancements in heterogeneous networks, coordinated multipoint transmission and reception, enhanced multiple input multiple output usage and deployment of relay nodes in the radio network. Mentioned features are mainly aimed to enhance the radio access part of the cellular networks. This survey article presents an overview of the key radio access features and functionalities of the LTE-Advanced radio access network, supported by the simulation results. We also provide a detailed review of the literature together with a very rich list of the references for each of the features. An LTE-Advanced roadmap and the latest updates and trends in LTE markets are also presented

Design of isofrequency reconfigurable repeaters

The advances in the communications systems has brought new requirements and challenges in terms of compactness and efficient systems that looking for increase the signal coverage area. The reconfigurable antennas are a promising solution for the communication systems when looking to improve the channel capacity and/or to extend the signal coverage. The main advantages of the reconfigurable antennas are the capabilities to change their frequency, polarization and radiation beam steering at a low cost. The reconfigurable antennas can be designed to operate in a determined changing environment keeping good electromagnetic characteristics. The design of reconfigurable RF repeaters is a relevant application of this reconfigurable antenna principle. This thesis is devoted to study and propose new repeater architectures in which a set of reconfigurable parasitic elements as part of the repeater are used for reducing the electromagnetic coupling between the Rx and Tx antennas. It is shown that the use of the parasitic elements as a reconfigurable mechanism gives the flexibility to adapt the repeater electromagnetic characteristics to changing environments while keeping a good system performance. The determination of the minimum number of parasitic elements is an important parameter and it is determined by a modal analysis to define the minimum number of parasitic elements able to fulfill specific repeater electromagnetic characteristics. In order to validate the analytical results, different reconfigurable repeater prototypes controlled electronically are manufactured. A reconfigurable repeater prototype that is using eight reconfigurable parasitic elements has been designed for operating at different scatterer environments. The repeater reconfigurable capabilities are studied to evaluate the repeater performance in realistic indoor locations. Finally, in order to obtain a repeater with reconfigurable frequency isolation capabilities between the Rx and Tx antennas over a wide frequency range, a repeater prototype based on a pixeled layer as reconfigurable mechanism has been designed and measured

Full-duplex wireless communications: challenges, solutions and future research directions

The family of conventional half-duplex (HD) wireless systems relied on transmitting and receiving in different time-slots or frequency sub-bands. Hence the wireless research community aspires to conceive full-duplex (FD) operation for supporting concurrent transmission and reception in a single time/frequency channel, which would improve the attainable spectral efficiency by a factor of two. The main challenge encountered in implementing an FD wireless device is the large power difference between the self-interference (SI) imposed by the device’s own transmissions and the signal of interest received from a remote source. In this survey, we present a comprehensive list of the potential FD techniques and highlight their pros and cons. We classify the SI cancellation techniques into three categories, namely passive suppression, analog cancellation and digital cancellation, with the advantages and disadvantages of each technique compared. Specifically, we analyse the main impairments (e.g. phase noise, power amplifier nonlinearity as well as in-phase and quadrature-phase (I/Q) imbalance, etc.) that degrading the SI cancellation. We then discuss the FD based Media Access Control (MAC)-layer protocol design for the sake of addressing some of the critical issues, such as the problem of hidden terminals, the resultant end-to-end delay and the high packet loss ratio (PLR) due to network congestion. After elaborating on a variety of physical/MAC-layer techniques, we discuss potential solutions conceived for meeting the challenges imposed by the aforementioned techniques. Furthermore, we also discuss a range of critical issues related to the implementation, performance enhancement and optimization of FD systems, including important topics such as hybrid FD/HD scheme, optimal relay selection and optimal power allocation, etc. Finally, a variety of new directions and open problems associated with FD technology are pointed out. Our hope is that this treatise will stimulate future research efforts in the emerging field of FD communication

Miniaturized Radio Repeater Design for Enhanced Ad-hoc Wireless Communication.

In complex communication channel environments the radio-link coverage at microwave frequencies is mainly restricted by the exorbitant path-loss between communication nodes due to non-line-of-sight propagation and multi-path communication. Radio repeaters are commonly used to enhance the signal coverage, but the current systems are bulky and power hungry as the received signal is down-converted, amplified and retransmitted at a different frequency. This thesis deals with development of a low-power subwavelength radio repeater that can handle multiple channels simultaneously without requiring a specific communication protocol. First, a metamaterial-based electromagnetic band-gap isolator is introduced, which prohibits substrate mode propagation between two low-profile miniaturized antennas. This isolator achieves 24dB of isolation improvement between the transmit and receive antennas that are a quarter-wavelength apart and allows for 32dB of active amplifier gain between the antennas. Also using a novel near-field cancellation technique an electromagnetic null-plane between two antennas of a transmit array is created, which reduces the mutual coupling by -86dB. This radio repeater can achieve more than 50dB of active amplification. Lastly, a dual-channel radio repeater with a radar cross section of more than 26dBsm for both channels is developed.PhDElectrical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97901/1/yjsong_1.pd

Design And Analysis Of Modified-Proportional Fair Scheduler For LTELTE-Advanced

Nowadays, Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-Advanced) is well known as a cellular network that can support very high data rates in diverse traffic conditions. One of the key components of Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), Radio Resource Management (RRM), is critical in achieving the desired performance by managing key components of both PHY and MAC layers. The technique that can be done to achieve this is through packet scheduling which is the key scheme of RRM for LTE traffic processing whose function is to allocate resources for both frequency and time dimensions. Packet scheduling for LTE-Advanced has been a dynamic research area in recent years, because in evidence, the increasing demands of data services and number of users which is likely to explode the progress of the LTE system traffic. However, the existing scheduling system is increasingly congested with the increasing number of users and requires the new scheduling system to ensure a more efficient data transmission. In LTE system, Round Robin (RR) scheduler has a problem in providing a high data rate to User Equipment’s (UEs). This is because some resources will be wasted because it schedules the resources from/ to UEs while the UEs are suffering from severe deep fading and less than the required threshold. Meanwhile, for Proportional Fair (PF) scheduler, the process of maximizing scheme of data rate could be very unfair and UE that experienced a bad channel quality conditions can be starved. So, the mechanism applied in PF scheduler is to weight the current data rate achievable by a UE by the average rate received by a UE. The main contribution of this study is the design of a new scheduling scheme and its performance is compared with the PF and RR downlink schedulers for LTE by utilizing the LTE Downlink System Level Simulator. The proposed new scheduling algorithm, namely the Modified-PF scheduler, divides a single sub-frame into multiple time slots and allocates the resource block (RB) to the targeted UE in all time slots for each sub-frame based on the instantaneous Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) feedback received from UEs. Besides, the proposed scheduler is also capable to reallocate RB cyclically in turn to target UE within a time slot in order to ensure the process of distributing packet data consistently. The simulation results showed that the Modified-PF scheduler provided the best performance in terms of throughput in the range of up to 90% improvement and almost 40% increment for spectral efficiency with comparable fairness as compared to PF and RR schedulers. Although PF scheduler had the best fairness index, the Modified-PF scheduler provided a better compromise between the throughput in /spectral efficiency and fairness. This showed that the newly proposed scheme improved the LTE output performances while at the same time maintained a minimal required fairness among the UEs

Cooperative Relaying In Power Line Environment: A Survey and Tutorial

Exchange of information is essential in any society and the demand for faster, cheaper, and secure communications is increasing every day. With other hi-tech initiatives like IPv6 and Internet-of-Things (IOT) already in the horizon, demand for broadband is set to escalate beyond its current level. Inherently laden in the challenges posed by this technology are fresh opportunities in terms of penetration of data services into rural communities and development of innovative strategies for more efficient use of the grid. Though still in its developmental phase/stage, Power Line Communication (PLC) has grown beyond theoretical fantasy to become a reality. The proofs are the readily available PLC systems that can be purchased off the shelfto achieve in-house networking and the much talked about, smart metering technology; generally regarded as the “new bride” in utilities industry. One of the biggest gains of PLC is its use of existing electrical cables, thereby eliminating cost of installation and maintenance of data cables. However, given that the power infrastructure was traditionally built to deliver electricity, data signals do suffer various forms of distortions and impairments as they transit it. This paper presents a tutorial on the deployed wireless system technique which is to be adapted to PLC scenario for the purpose of managing the available source energy for achieving reliable communication system. One of these techniques is the cooperative diversity. Its application and deployment in power line environment is explored. The improvement achieved through cooperative diversity in some PLC systems were presented along with the associated limitations. Finally, future areas of research which will further improve the reliability of PLC systems and reduce its power consumption during transmission is shown