Timing and Carrier Synchronization in Wireless Communication Systems: A Survey and Classification of Research in the Last 5 Years

Timing and carrier synchronization is a fundamental requirement for any wireless communication system to work properly. Timing synchronization is the process by which a receiver node determines the correct instants of time at which to sample the incoming signal. Carrier synchronization is the process by which a receiver adapts the frequency and phase of its local carrier oscillator with those of the received signal. In this paper, we survey the literature over the last 5 years (2010–2014) and present a comprehensive literature review and classification of the recent research progress in achieving timing and carrier synchronization in single-input single-output (SISO), multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), cooperative relaying, and multiuser/multicell interference networks. Considering both single-carrier and multi-carrier communication systems, we survey and categorize the timing and carrier synchronization techniques proposed for the different communication systems focusing on the system model assumptions for synchronization, the synchronization challenges, and the state-of-the-art synchronization solutions and their limitations. Finally, we envision some future research directions

Space time transceiver design over multipath fading channels

Imperial Users onl

Novel algorithms in wireless CDMA systems for estimation and kernel based equalization

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.A powerful technique is presented for joint blind channel estimation and carrier offset method for code- division multiple access (CDMA) communication systems. The new technique combines singular value decomposition (SVD) analysis with carrier offset parameter. Current blind methods sustain a high computational complexity as they require the computation of a large SVD twice, and they are sensitive to accurate knowledge of the noise subspace rank. The proposed method overcomes both problems by computing the SVD only once. Extensive simulations using MatLab demonstrate the robustness of the proposed scheme and its performance is comparable to other existing SVD techniques with significant lower computational as much as 70% cost because it does not require knowledge of the rank of the noise sub-space. Also a kernel based equalization for CDMA communication systems is proposed, designed and simulated using MatLab. The proposed method in CDMA systems overcomes all other methods

Low-cost blind carrier frequency offset estimator for mimo multicarrier systems

Master'sMASTER OF ENGINEERIN

Channel and frequency offset estimation schemes for multicarrier systems

Doutoramento em Engenharia ElectrotécnicaO presente trabalho aborda o problema da estimação de canal e da estimação de desvio de frequência em sistemas OFDM com múltiplas configurações de antenas no transmissor e no receptor. Nesta tese é apresentado o estudo teórico sobre o impacto da densidade de pilotos no desempenho da estimação de canal em sistemas OFDM e são propostos diversos algoritmos para estimação de canal e estimação de desvio de frequência em sistemas OFDM com antenas únicas no transmissor e receptor, com diversidade de transmissão e MIMO. O estudo teórico culmina com a formulação analítica do erro quadrático médio de um estimador de canal genérico num sistema OFDM que utilize pilotos dedicados, distribuidos no quadro transmitido em padrões bi-dimensionais. A formulação genérica é concretizada para o estimador bi-dimensional LS-DFT, permitindo aferir da exactidão da formulação analítica quando comparada com os valores obtidos por simulação do sistema abordado. Os algoritmos de estimação investigados tiram partido da presença de pilotos dedicados presentes nos quadros transmitidos para estimar com precisão os parâmetros pretendidos. Pela sua baixa complexidade, estes algoritmos revelam-se especialmente adequados para implementação em terminais móveis com capacidade computacional e consumo limitados. O desempenho dos algoritmos propostos foi avaliado por meio de simulação do sistema utilizado, recorrendo a modelos aceites de caracterização do canal móvel multipercurso. A comparação do seu desempenho com algoritmos de referência permitir aferir da sua validade. ABSTRACT: The present work focus on the problem of channel estimation and frequency offset estimation in OFDM systems, with different antenna configurations at both the transmitter and the receiver. This thesis presents the theoretical study of the impact of the pilot density in the performance of the channel estimation in OFDM systems and proposes several channel and frequency offset algorithms for OFDM systems with single antenna at both transmitter and receiver, with transmitter diversity and MIMO. The theoretical study results in the analytical formulation of the mean square error of a generic channel estimator for an OFDM system using dedicated pilots, distributed in the transmitted frame in two-dimensional patterns. The generic formulation is implemented for the two-dimensional LS-DFT estimator to verify the accuracy of the analytical formulation when compared with the values obtained by simulation of the discussed system. The investigated estimation algorithms take advantage of the presence of dedicated pilots present in the transmitted frames to accurately estimate the required parameters. Due to its low complexity, these algorithms are especially suited for implementation in mobile terminals with limited processing power and consumption. The performance of the proposed algorithms was evaluated by simulation of the used system, using accepted multipath mobile channel models. The comparison of its performance with the one of reference algorithms measures its validity

Detection of OFDM Signals Using Pilot Tones and Applications to Spectrum Sensing for Cognitive Radio Systems

Nowadays there are an increasing number of wireless devices which support wireless networking and the need for higher data rate communication is increasing rabidly. As more and more systems go wireless, approaching technologies will face spectral crowding and existence of wireless devices will be an important issue. Because of the limited bandwidth availability, accepting the request for higher capacity and data rates is a challenging task, demanding advanced technologies that can offers new methods of using the available radio spectrum. Cognitive radio introduces a key solution to the spectral increasing issue by presenting the opportunistic usage of spectrum that is not heavily occupied by licensed users. It is a latest idea in wireless communications systems which objective to have more adaptive and aware communication devices which can make better use of available natural resources. Cognitive radio appears to be an attractive solution to the spectral congestion problem by introducing the notion of opportunistic spectrum use. Cognitive radios can operate as a secondary systems on top of existence system which are called primary (or licensed) systems. In this case, secondary (cognitive) users need to detect the unused spectrum in order to be able to access it. Because of its many advantages, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) has been successfully used in numerous wireless standards and technologies. It\u27s shown that OFDM will play an important role in realizing the cognitive radio concept as well by providing a proven, scalable, and adaptive technology for air interface. Researches show that OFDM technique is considered as a candidate for cognitive radio systems. The objective of this dissertation is to explore detecting of OFDM modulated signals using pilot tones information. Specifically we applying Time-Domain Symbol Cross-Correlation (TDSC) method in the confect of actual 4G wireless standards such as WIMAX and LTE. This detection is only based upon the knowledge of pilot structures without knowledge of received signal so that, it can be performed on every portion of the received signal. The approach induces Cross-Correlation between pilots subcarriers and exploits the deterministic and periodic characteristics of pilot mapping in the time frequency domain

Linear Transmit-Receive Strategies for Multi-user MIMO Wireless Communications

Die Notwendigkeit zur Unterdrueckung von Interferenzen auf der einen Seite und zur Ausnutzung der durch Mehrfachzugriffsverfahren erzielbaren Gewinne auf der anderen Seite rueckte die raeumlichen Mehrfachzugriffsverfahren (Space Division Multiple Access, SDMA) in den Fokus der Forschung. Ein Vertreter der raeumlichen Mehrfachzugriffsverfahren, die lineare Vorkodierung, fand aufgrund steigender Anzahl an Nutzern und Antennen in heutigen und zukuenftigen Mobilkommunikationssystemen besondere Beachtung, da diese Verfahren das Design von Algorithmen zur Vorcodierung vereinfachen. Aus diesem Grund leistet diese Dissertation einen Beitrag zur Entwicklung linearer Sende- und Empfangstechniken fuer MIMO-Technologie mit mehreren Nutzern. Zunaechst stellen wir ein Framework zur Approximation des Datendurchsatzes in Broadcast-MIMO-Kanaelen mit mehreren Nutzern vor. In diesem Framework nehmen wir das lineare Vorkodierverfahren regularisierte Blockdiagonalisierung (RBD) an. Durch den Vergleich von Dirty Paper Coding (DPC) und linearen Vorkodieralgorithmen (z.B. Zero Forcing (ZF) und Blockdiagonalisierung (BD)) ist es uns moeglich, untere und obere Schranken fuer den Unterschied bezueglich Datenraten und bezueglich Leistung zwischen beiden anzugeben. Im Weiteren entwickeln wir einen Algorithmus fuer koordiniertes Beamforming (Coordinated Beamforming, CBF), dessen Loesung sich in geschlossener Form angeben laesst. Dieser CBF-Algorithmus basiert auf der SeDJoCo-Transformation und loest bisher vorhandene Probleme im Bereich CBF. Im Anschluss schlagen wir einen iterativen CBF-Algorithmus namens FlexCoBF (flexible coordinated beamforming) fuer MIMO-Broadcast-Kanaele mit mehreren Nutzern vor. Im Vergleich mit bis dato existierenden iterativen CBF-Algorithmen kann als vielversprechendster Vorteil die freie Wahl der linearen Sende- und Empfangsstrategie herausgestellt werden. Das heisst, jede existierende Methode der linearen Vorkodierung kann als Sendestrategie genutzt werden, waehrend die Strategie zum Empfangsbeamforming frei aus MRC oder MMSE gewaehlt werden darf. Im Hinblick auf Szenarien, in denen Mobilfunkzellen in Clustern zusammengefasst sind, erweitern wir FlexCoBF noch weiter. Hier wurde das Konzept der koordinierten Mehrpunktverbindung (Coordinated Multipoint (CoMP) transmission) integriert. Zuletzt stellen wir drei Moeglichkeiten vor, Kanalzustandsinformationen (Channel State Information, CSI) unter verschiedenen Kanalumstaenden zu erlangen. Die Qualitaet der Kanalzustandsinformationen hat einen starken Einfluss auf die Guete des Uebertragungssystems. Die durch unsere neuen Algorithmen erzielten Verbesserungen haben wir mittels numerischer Simulationen von Summenraten und Bitfehlerraten belegt.In order to combat interference and exploit large multiplexing gains of the multi-antenna systems, a particular interest in spatial division multiple access (SDMA) techniques has emerged. Linear precoding techniques, as one of the SDMA strategies, have obtained more attention due to the fact that an increasing number of users and antennas involved into the existing and future mobile communication systems requires a simplification of the precoding design. Therefore, this thesis contributes to the design of linear transmit and receive strategies for multi-user MIMO broadcast channels in a single cell and clustered multiple cells. First, we present a throughput approximation framework for multi-user MIMO broadcast channels employing regularized block diagonalization (RBD) linear precoding. Comparing dirty paper coding (DPC) and linear precoding algorithms (e.g., zero forcing (ZF) and block diagonalization (BD)), we further quantify lower and upper bounds of the rate and power offset between them as a function of the system parameters such as the number of users and antennas. Next, we develop a novel closed-form coordinated beamforming (CBF) algorithm (i.e., SeDJoCo based closed-form CBF) to solve the existing open problem of CBF. Our new algorithm can support a MIMO system with an arbitrary number of users and transmit antennas. Moreover, the application of our new algorithm is not only for CBF, but also for blind source separation (BSS), since the same mathematical model has been used in BSS application.Then, we further propose a new iterative CBF algorithm (i.e., flexible coordinated beamforming (FlexCoBF)) for multi-user MIMO broadcast channels. Compared to the existing iterative CBF algorithms, the most promising advantage of our new algorithm is that it provides freedom in the choice of the linear transmit and receive beamforming strategies, i.e., any existing linear precoding method can be chosen as the transmit strategy and the receive beamforming strategy can be flexibly chosen from MRC or MMSE receivers. Considering clustered multiple cell scenarios, we extend the FlexCoBF algorithm further and introduce the concept of the coordinated multipoint (CoMP) transmission. Finally, we present three strategies for channel state information (CSI) acquisition regarding various channel conditions and channel estimation strategies. The CSI knowledge is required at the base station in order to implement SDMA techniques. The quality of the obtained CSI heavily affects the system performance. The performance enhancement achieved by our new strategies has been demonstrated by numerical simulation results in terms of the system sum rate and the bit error rate

Modelling and performances assessment of OFDM and fast-OFDM wireless communication systems.

This thesis is mainly concerned with the design, modelling and performance assessment of modulation techniques for use in wireless communication systems. The work is divided, broadly in three areas; a multimode system proposal, an assessment of a new modulation scheme and a system optimisation technique. A multimode system architecture employing GSM and EDGE systems and an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) system is proposed. The OFDM system is designed to have similar frame structure, channel allocation and spectrum shape to those of the GSM and EDGE systems. The multimode system is evaluated under typical multipath fading environments specified for GSM/EDGE and adjacent-channel and co-channel interference. The results indicated that the proposed OFDM system can be perfectly integrated within the GSM/EDGE network core. Furthermore, a novel modulation technique is investigated. Fast-OFDM (FOFDM) is a variation of OFDM, which offers twice the bandwidth efficiency when compared to OFDM. However, the bandwidth efficiency only applies to one dimensional modulation schemes (BPSK or M-ASK). The suitability of FOFDM for wireless communications is assessed by studying its performance under receiver front-end distortions and multipath fading environments. The performance of the FOFDM system is compared with the performance of a similar OFDM system. The results indicated that under small distortion conditions, the performance of FOFDM and OFDM is comparable. Finally, the effect of interpolation filtering on OFDM systems in noise limited and interference limited environments is investigated. The aim of this study is to highlight that interference should be taken into consideration when designing systems for wireless communications. In addition, this study can be utilised in software defined radio schemes, offering optimised performance. Overall, this thesis presents work over a range of research areas, providing system proposals, modulation comparisons and system optimisation techniques that can be used by developers of future mobile systems