TD-SCDMA Relay Networks

PhDWhen this research was started, TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) was still in the research/ development phase, but now, at the time of writing this thesis, it is in commercial use in 10 large cities in China including Beijing and Shang Hai. In all of these cities HSDPA is enabled. The roll-out of the commercial deployment is progressing fast with installations in another 28 cities being underway now. However, during the pre-commercial TD-SCDM trail in China, which started from year 2006, some interference problems have been noticed especially in the network planning and initialization phases. Interference is always an issue in any network and the goal of the work reported in this thesis is to improve network coverage and capacity in the presence of interference. Based on an analysis of TD-SCDMA issues and how network interference arises, this thesis proposes two enhancements to the network in addition to the standard N-frequency technique. These are (i) the introduction of the concentric circle cell concept and (ii) the addition of a relay network that makes use of other users at the cell boundary. This overall approach not only optimizes the resilience to interference but increases the network coverage without adding more Node Bs. Based on the cell planning parameters from the research, TD-SCDMA HSDPA services in dense urban area and non-HSDPA services in rural areas were simulated to investigate the network performance impact after introducing the relay network into a TD-SCDMA network. The results for HSDPA applications show significant improvement in the TDSCDMA relay network both for network capacity and network interference aspects compared to standard TD-SCDMA networks. The results for non- HSDPA service show that although the network capacity has not changed after adding in the relay network (due to the code limitation in TD-SCDMA), the TD-SCDMA relay network has better interference performance and greater coverage

Técnicas de processamento com múltiplas antenas para o sistema LTE

Mestrado em Engenharia Electrónica e TelecomunicaçõesPerformance, mobilidade e partilha podem ser consideras como as três palavras-chave nas comunicações móveis de hoje em dia. Uma das necessidades fundamentais do ser humano é a partilha de experiencias e informação. Com a evolução ao nível do hardware móvel, a crescente popularidade de smartphones, tablets e outros dispositivos moveis, fez com que a exigência em termos de capacidade e taxa de transferência por parte das redes móveis não parasse de crescer. As limitações das redes 3G fizeram com que não conseguissem corresponder a tais exigências e como tal, a transição para uma tecnologia mais robusta e eficiente passou a ser inevitável. A resposta escolhida como solução a longo prazo é a rede designada por LTE, desenvolvida pela organização 3GPP é assumido que será a rede de telecomunicações predominante no futuro. As vantagens mais sonantes são, naturalmente, elevadas taxas de transmissão, maior eficiência espectral, redução da latência e de custos de operação. As principais tecnologias em que o LTE se baseia, são o OFDM e sua variante para múltiplo acesso, OFDMA, usado para o downlink e o SC-FDMA para o uplink. Além disso, usa sistemas com múltiplas antenas para impulsionar a eficiência espectral. Apesar de já implementado em alguns países por diversas operadoras, constantes pesquisas continuam a ser realizadas com o intuito de melhorar a sua performance. Nesta dissertação é proposto um esquema duplo de codificação na frequência e no espaço (D-SFBC) para um cenário baseado em OFDM com 4 antenas de transmissão e duas antenas de recepção (4 × 2 D-SFBC) para o downlink. No cenário considerado, 4 símbolos de dados são transmitidos utilizando unicamente 2 sub-portadoras, fazendo com que, este sistema seja limitado pela interferência. Para de forma eficiente descodificar os símbolos de dados transmitidos, foi desenvolvido um equalizador iterativo no domínio da frequência. Duas abordagens são consideradas: cancelamento da interferência em paralelo (PIC) e sucessivo cancelamento de interferência (SIC). Uma vez que apenas 2 sub-portadoras são usadas para transmitir quatro símbolos de dados em paralelo, o esquema desenvolvido duplica a taxa de dados quando comparado com o esquema 2 × 2 SFBC, especificado no standard do LTE. Os esquemas desenvolvidos foram avaliados sob as especificações para LTE e usando codificação de canal. Os resultados mostram que os esquemas implementados neste trabalho utilizando um equalizador iterativo supera os convencionais equalizadores lineares na eliminação da interferência adicional introduzida, em apenas 2 ou 3 iterações.Performance, mobility and sharing can be assumed as the three keywords in the mobile communications nowadays. One of the fundamental needs of human beings is to share experiences and information. With the evolution of mobile hardware level, the growing popularity of smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, has made that the demand in terms of capacity and throughput by mobile networks did not stop growing. Thus, the limitations of 3G stops it of being the answer of such demand, and a transition to a powerful technology has become unavoidable. The answer chosen is LTE, developed by the 3GPP organization is assumed to be the predominant telecommunications network in the future. The most relevant advantages are high transmission rates, higher spectral efficiency, reducing latency and operating costs. The key technologies in which LTE is based, are OFDM and its variant schemes for multiple access, OFDMA, used for downlink, and SC-FDMA for the uplink. It also uses multiple antennas systems in order to improve spectral efficiency. Although already implemented in some countries by several operators, continuous research is conducted in order to improve their performance. In this dissertation it is proposed a double space-frequency block coding (D-SFBC) scheme for an OFDM based scenario with 4 transmit antennas and 2 receive antennas (4×2 D-SFBC) for the downlink. In the considered scenario, 4 data symbols are transmitted by using only 2 subcarriers and thus the system is interference limited. To efficiently decode the transmitted data symbols an iterative equalizer designed in frequency domain is developed. Two approaches are considered: parallel interference cancellation (PIC) and successive interference cancellation (SIC). Since only 2 subcarriers are used to transmit 4 data symbols in parallel the developed scheme achieve the double data rate when compared with the 2×2 SFBC, specified in the LTE standard. The developed schemes were evaluated under the main LTE specifications and using channel coding. The results have show that the schemes implemented in this work using an interactive equalizer outperforms the conventional linear equalizers in the interference removal, just by using 2 or 3 iterations

Interference mitigation in cognitive femtocell networks

“A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy”.Femtocells have been introduced as a solution to poor indoor coverage in cellular communication which has hugely attracted network operators and stakeholders. However, femtocells are designed to co-exist alongside macrocells providing improved spatial frequency reuse and higher spectrum efficiency to name a few. Therefore, when deployed in the two-tier architecture with macrocells, it is necessary to mitigate the inherent co-tier and cross-tier interference. The integration of cognitive radio (CR) in femtocells introduces the ability of femtocells to dynamically adapt to varying network conditions through learning and reasoning. This research work focuses on the exploitation of cognitive radio in femtocells to mitigate the mutual interference caused in the two-tier architecture. The research work presents original contributions in mitigating interference in femtocells by introducing practical approaches which comprises a power control scheme where femtocells adaptively controls its transmit power levels to reduce the interference it causes in a network. This is especially useful since femtocells are user deployed as this seeks to mitigate interference based on their blind placement in an indoor environment. Hybrid interference mitigation schemes which combine power control and resource/scheduling are also implemented. In a joint threshold power based admittance and contention free resource allocation scheme, the mutual interference between a Femtocell Access Point (FAP) and close-by User Equipments (UE) is mitigated based on admittance. Also, a hybrid scheme where FAPs opportunistically use Resource Blocks (RB) of Macrocell User Equipments (MUE) based on its traffic load use is also employed. Simulation analysis present improvements when these schemes are applied with emphasis in Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks especially in terms of Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR)

Performance evaluation of a 40 GHz broadband cellular system

Doutoramento em Engenharia ElectrónicaO trabalho apresentado nesta tese enquadra-se na área das comunicações móveis celulares e tem subjacente a utilização de um protótipo de um sistema de comunicações móveis de banda larga desenvolvido no âmbito do projecto Europeu SAMBA. Este protótipo apresenta como principais características inovadoras as taxas de transmissão, a frequência de operação, a mobilidade e os protocolos de handover rádio. Inicialmente são descritos aspectos relacionados com a evolução das comunicações móveis ao longo do tempo e apresentados conceitos teóricos fundamentais para compreender o comportamento do canal rádio móvel e os mecanismos de propagação. São identificados os tipos de desvanecimento e descritos os vários parâmetros que permitem caracterizar o canal rádio. A descrição do impacto do desvanecimento e as formas de o mitigar são apresentadas para contextualizar o trabalho desenvolvido em termos da especificação do protótipo e as opções escolhidas. As características globais do protótipo são apresentadas o que inclui a descrição do interface rádio, da arquitectura, dos módulos de RF, dos módulos de processamento de banda base, protocolos e algoritmo de transferência rádio. O protótipo foi avaliado em vários cenários com diferentes características. No cenário exterior foi analisada uma rua urbana típica do tipo canyon. Em termos de configuração do sistema foram consideradas e analisadas várias alturas da Estação Base, anglos de inclinação das antenas, várias velocidades da Terminal Móvel, operação com e sem linha de vista e a penetração do sinal rádio em ruas transversais. No cenário interior foram realizados testes similares e medidas relativas às transferências que só foram executadas para este cenário por questões logísticas. Numa primeira abordagem foi analisada a cobertura oferecida por cada célula e posteriormente activada a funcionalidade de transferência. Foram também efectuados estudos com uma única Estação Base cobrindo toda a área. Em termos de caracterização do canal rádio em banda larga são apresentadas medidas da resposta impulsiva para dois cenários interiores e complementados por outros estudos via simulação utilizando uma ferramenta de ray tracing. Nas medidas foi utilizado um método de medição do canal no domínio da frequência. A relação entre o Espalhamento do Atraso e a Banda de Coerência em diferentes cenários foi analisada em detalhe e feita a verificação em termos da violação do limite teórico de Fleury. Como consequência dos tópicos abordados, esta tese apresenta um estudo abrangente de aspectos relacionados com o comportamento do canal rádio na faixa dos 40 GHz e a análise das opções técnicas do protótipo em termos do seu desempenho no âmbito dos sistemas de comunicações móveis 4G.The work presented in this thesis addresses the area of mobile cellular broadband communications and encompasses the utilization of a prototype developed in the framework of the European project SAMBA. This prototype has as main innovative characteristics the transmission rates, the frequency band of operation, the mobility and the radio handover protocols. Initially are described aspects related with the historical evolution of the mobile communications and presented fundamental theoretical concepts to understand the behaviour of the radio channel and the propagation mechanisms. The different types of fading are identified as well as the various parameters that allow the characterisation of the radio channel. The fading impact and its mitigation techniques are presented to contextualise the work developed in terms of the specification of the features implemented in the prototype and the options available. The global characteristic of the prototype are presented namely the radio interface, the architecture, the RF modules, the baseband modules, protocols and the algorithm for the radio handover. The prototype was evaluated in various scenarios with different characteristics. In the outdoor scenario a canyon type street was analysed. Several heights of the Base Station, antenna tilting angles, Mobile Terminal velocities, operation in line-of-sight and non line-of-sight and the penetration of the signal in a transversal street. In the indoor scenario similar measurements were performed. The handover feature was analysed just for this scenario due to logistic reasons. In a first phase the coverage provided by each Base Station was analysed and subsequently activated the handover functionality. Studies using a single Base Station to cover the whole pavilion were also performed. In terms of broadband analysis, channel impulse response measurements were performed using a frequency domain technique in two scenarios and complemented by others analysed only using a ray tracing simulation tool. The relationship between the radio channel Delay Spread and the Coherence Bandwidth was analysed in different scenarios and the possible violation of the Fleury lower bond checked. As a consequence of the several topics covered in this thesis, a deep study of the aspects related with the behaviour of the radio channel in the 40 GHz band and the performance of the technical options implemented in the prototype is presented in the framework of 4G mobile communication systems

Radio Communications

In the last decades the restless evolution of information and communication technologies (ICT) brought to a deep transformation of our habits. The growth of the Internet and the advances in hardware and software implementations modified our way to communicate and to share information. In this book, an overview of the major issues faced today by researchers in the field of radio communications is given through 35 high quality chapters written by specialists working in universities and research centers all over the world. Various aspects will be deeply discussed: channel modeling, beamforming, multiple antennas, cooperative networks, opportunistic scheduling, advanced admission control, handover management, systems performance assessment, routing issues in mobility conditions, localization, web security. Advanced techniques for the radio resource management will be discussed both in single and multiple radio technologies; either in infrastructure, mesh or ad hoc networks

Orthogonal multicarrier modulation for high-rates mobile and wireless communications

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN037085 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo