Deployment and design of multiantenna solutions for fixed WiMAX systems

WiMax has already attracted the attention of operators and manifacturing industries for its promise of large throughput and coverage in broadband wireless access. However, towards the goal of an efficient deployment of this technology, a thorough analysis of its performance in presence of frequency reuse under realistic traffic conditions is mandatory. In particular, an important performance limiting factor is the inter-cell interference, which has strong non-stationary features. This paper investigates the deployment of multi-antenna base stations and the related design of signal processing algorithms for interference mitigation, for the uplink of IEEE 802.16-2004 systems. Extensive numerical results for realistic interference models show the advantages of the proposed multi-antenna system

Performance improvements in SNR of a Multipath channel using OFDM-MIMO

The Non Line of Sight (NLOS) broadband wireless access provided by Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) operating in 2-11 GHz frequency is susceptible to the effects of multipath propagation, diffraction fading, vegetation attenuation, shadowing loss etc. In order to overcome these effects effective fade mitigation techniques, have to be implemented. The Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing- Multiple Input Multiple Output (OFDM-MIMO) is an efficient method that helps in combatting the fading and providing higher SNR to the WiMAX system. According to the IEEE 802.16 specification, for QPSK modulation, a threshold SNR of 6 dB is required for the link to operate. In the present work the use of OFDM-MIMO achieves a SNR above this operating threshold.

Performance improvements in SNR of a Multipath channel using OFDM-MIMO

The Non Line of Sight (NLOS) broadband wireless access provided by Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) operating in 2-11 GHz frequency is susceptible to the effects of multipath propagation, diffraction fading, vegetation attenuation, shadowing loss etc. In order to overcome these effects effective fade mitigation techniques, have to be implemented. The Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing- Multiple Input Multiple Output (OFDM-MIMO) is an efficient method that helps in combatting the fading and providing higher SNR to the WiMAX system. According to the IEEE 802.16 specification, for QPSK modulation, a threshold SNR of 6 dB is required for the link to operate. In the present work the use of OFDM-MIMO achieves a SNR above this operating threshold.

Contributions to channel modelling and performance estimation of HAPS-based communication systems regarding IEEE Std 802.16TM

New and future telecommunication networks are and will be broadband type. The existing terrestrial and space radio communication infrastructures might be supplemented by new wireless networks that make and will make use of aeronautics-technology. Our study/contribution is referring to radio communications based on radio stations aboard a stratospheric platform named, by ITU-R, HAPS (High Altitude Platform Station). These new networks have been proposed as an alternative technology within the ITU framework to provide various narrow/broadband communication services. With the possibility of having a payload for Telecommunications in an aircraft or a balloon (HAPS), it can be carried out radio communications to provide backbone connections on ground and to access to broadband points for ground terminals. The latest implies a complex radio network planning. Therefore, the radio coverage analysis at outdoors and indoors becomes an important issue on the design of new radio systems. In this doctoral thesis, the contribution is related to the HAPS application for terrestrial fixed broadband communications. HAPS was hypothesised as a quasi-static platform with height above ground at the so-called stratospheric layer. Latter contribution was fulfilled by approaching via simulations the outdoor-indoor coverage with a simple efficient computational model at downlink mode. This work was assessing the ITU-R recommendations at bands recognised for the HAPS-based networks. It was contemplated the possibility of operating around 2 GHz (1820 MHz, specifically) because this band is recognised as an alternative for HAPS networks that can provide IMT-2000 and IMT-Advanced services. The global broadband radio communication model was composed of three parts: transmitter, channel, and receiver. The transmitter and receiver parts were based on the specifications of the IEEE Std 802.16TM-2009 (with its respective digital transmission techniques for a robust-reliable link), and the channel was subjected to the analysis of radio modelling at the level of HAPS and terrestrial (outdoors plus indoors) parts. For the channel modelling was used the two-state characterisation (physical situations associated with the transmitted/received signals), the state-oriented channel modelling. One of the channel-state contemplated the environmental transmission situation defined by a direct path between transmitter and receiver, and the remaining one regarded the conditions of shadowing. These states were dependent on the elevation angle related to the ray-tracing analysis: within the propagation environment, it was considered that a representative portion of the total energy of the signal was received by a direct or diffracted wave, and the remaining power signal was coming by a specular wave, to last-mentioned waves (rays) were added the scattered and random rays that constituted the diffuse wave. At indoors case, the variations of the transmitted signal were also considering the following matters additionally: the building penetration, construction material, angle of incidence, floor height, position of terminal in the room, and indoor fading; also, these indoors radiocommunications presented different type of paths to reach the receiver: obscured LOS, no LOS (NLOS), and hard NLOS. The evaluation of the feasible performance for the HAPS-to-ground terminal was accomplished by means of thorough simulations. The outcomes of the experiment were presented in terms of BER vs. Eb/N0 plotting, getting significant positive conclusions for these kind of system as access network technology based on HAPS

Multiuser MIMO-OFDM for Next-Generation Wireless Systems

This overview portrays the 40-year evolution of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) research. The amelioration of powerful multicarrier OFDM arrangements with multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems has numerous benefits, which are detailed in this treatise. We continue by highlighting the limitations of conventional detection and channel estimation techniques designed for multiuser MIMO OFDM systems in the so-called rank-deficient scenarios, where the number of users supported or the number of transmit antennas employed exceeds the number of receiver antennas. This is often encountered in practice, unless we limit the number of users granted access in the base station’s or radio port’s coverage area. Following a historical perspective on the associated design problems and their state-of-the-art solutions, the second half of this treatise details a range of classic multiuser detectors (MUDs) designed for MIMO-OFDM systems and characterizes their achievable performance. A further section aims for identifying novel cutting-edge genetic algorithm (GA)-aided detector solutions, which have found numerous applications in wireless communications in recent years. In an effort to stimulate the cross pollination of ideas across the machine learning, optimization, signal processing, and wireless communications research communities, we will review the broadly applicable principles of various GA-assisted optimization techniques, which were recently proposed also for employment inmultiuser MIMO OFDM. In order to stimulate new research, we demonstrate that the family of GA-aided MUDs is capable of achieving a near-optimum performance at the cost of a significantly lower computational complexity than that imposed by their optimum maximum-likelihood (ML) MUD aided counterparts. The paper is concluded by outlining a range of future research options that may find their way into next-generation wireless systems

Performance evaluation of fixed WiMax physical layer under high fading channels

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.A radio channel characteristic modelling is essential in every network planning. This project deals with the performance of WiMax networks in an outdoor environment while using fading channel models. The radio channels characteristics are analyzed by simulations have been done using Matlab programming. Stanford University Interim(SUI) Channels set was proposed to simulate the fixed broadband wireless access channel environments where IEEE 802.16d is to be deployed. It has six channel models that are grouped into three categories according to three typical different outdoor Terrains, in order to give a comprehensive study of fading channels on the overall performance of the system, WiMax system has been tested under SUI channels that modified into account for 30o directional antennas, with 90% cell coverage and with 99.9% reliability in its geographical covered area. Furthermore, in order to combat the fading which occurs in urban areas and improve the capacity and the throughput of the system, multiples antennas at both ends of communication link are used, the transmission gain obtained when using multiple antennas instead of only a single antenna. Space-time coding and maximum ratio combining for more than one transmit and receive antenna is implemented to allow performance investigations in various MIMO scenarios. It has been concluded that uses multiple antennas at the receiver offers a significant improvement of 3 dB of gain in the channel SNR. This thesis also contain implementation of all compulsory features of the WiMax OFDM physical layer specified in IEEE 802.16-2004 using Matlab coding. In order to combat the temporal variations in quality on a multipath fading channel, an adaptive modulation technique is used. This technique employs multiple modulation schemes to instantaneously adapt to the variations in the channel SNR, thus maximizing the system throughput and improving BER performance. WiMax transceiver has been tested with and without encoding and studied the effect of encoding on multipath channel. Testing the system with flexible channel bandwidth has been part of this thesis. Finally it has been explained in this thesis the affect of increasing the size of cyclic prefix on overall performance of WiMax system

Cooperative control of relay based cellular networks

PhDThe increasing popularity of wireless communications and the higher data requirements of new types of service lead to higher demands on wireless networks. Relay based cellular networks have been seen as an effective way to meet users’ increased data rate requirements while still retaining the benefits of a cellular structure. However, maximizing the probability of providing service and spectrum efficiency are still major challenges for network operators and engineers because of the heterogeneous traffic demands, hard-to-predict user movements and complex traffic models. In a mobile network, load balancing is recognised as an efficient way to increase the utilization of limited frequency spectrum at reasonable costs. Cooperative control based on geographic load balancing is employed to provide flexibility for relay based cellular networks and to respond to changes in the environment. According to the potential capability of existing antenna systems, adaptive radio frequency domain control in the physical layer is explored to provide coverage at the right place at the right time. This thesis proposes several effective and efficient approaches to improve spectrum efficiency using network wide optimization to coordinate the coverage offered by different network components according to the antenna models and relay station capability. The approaches include tilting of antenna sectors, changing the power of omni-directional antennas, and changing the assignment of relay stations to different base stations. Experiments show that the proposed approaches offer significant improvements and robustness in heterogeneous traffic scenarios and when the propagation environment changes. The issue of predicting the consequence of cooperative decisions regarding antenna configurations when applied in a realistic environment is described, and a coverage prediction model is proposed. The consequences of applying changes to the antenna configuration on handovers are analysed in detail. The performance evaluations are based on a system level simulator in the context of Mobile WiMAX technology, but the concepts apply more generally