A Deterministic Equivalent for the Analysis of Non-Gaussian Correlated MIMO Multiple Access Channels

Large dimensional random matrix theory (RMT) has provided an efficient analytical tool to understand multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels and to aid the design of MIMO wireless communication systems. However, previous studies based on large dimensional RMT rely on the assumption that the transmit correlation matrix is diagonal or the propagation channel matrix is Gaussian. There is an increasing interest in the channels where the transmit correlation matrices are generally nonnegative definite and the channel entries are non-Gaussian. This class of channel models appears in several applications in MIMO multiple access systems, such as small cell networks (SCNs). To address these problems, we use the generalized Lindeberg principle to show that the Stieltjes transforms of this class of random matrices with Gaussian or non-Gaussian independent entries coincide in the large dimensional regime. This result permits to derive the deterministic equivalents (e.g., the Stieltjes transform and the ergodic mutual information) for non-Gaussian MIMO channels from the known results developed for Gaussian MIMO channels, and is of great importance in characterizing the spectral efficiency of SCNs.Comment: This paper is the revision of the original manuscript titled "A Deterministic Equivalent for the Analysis of Small Cell Networks". We have revised the original manuscript and reworked on the organization to improve the presentation as well as readabilit

Near-Field Communications: A Tutorial Review

Extremely large-scale antenna arrays, tremendously high frequencies, and new types of antennas are three clear trends in multi-antenna technology for supporting the sixth-generation (6G) networks. To properly account for the new characteristics introduced by these three trends in communication system design, the near-field spherical-wave propagation model needs to be used, which differs from the classical far-field planar-wave one. As such, near-field communication (NFC) will become essential in 6G networks. In this tutorial, we cover three key aspects of NFC. 1) Channel Modelling: We commence by reviewing near-field spherical-wave-based channel models for spatially-discrete (SPD) antennas. Then, uniform spherical wave (USW) and non-uniform spherical wave (NUSW) models are discussed. Subsequently, we introduce a general near-field channel model for SPD antennas and a Green's function-based channel model for continuous-aperture (CAP) antennas. 2) Beamfocusing and Antenna Architectures: We highlight the properties of near-field beamfocusing and discuss NFC antenna architectures for both SPD and CAP antennas. Moreover, the basic principles of near-field beam training are introduced. 3) Performance Analysis: Finally, we provide a comprehensive performance analysis framework for NFC. For near-field line-of-sight channels, the received signal-to-noise ratio and power-scaling law are derived. For statistical near-field multipath channels, a general analytical framework is proposed, based on which analytical expression for the outage probability, ergodic channel capacity, and ergodic mutual information are derived. Finally, for each aspect, the topics for future research are discussed.Comment: 45 pages, 35 figures; submitted to possible IEEE journa

Capacity and performance analysis of advanced multiple antenna communication systems

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna systems have been shown to be able to substantially increase date rate and improve reliability without extra spectrum and power resources. The increasing popularity and enormous prospect of MIMO technology calls for a better understanding of the performance of MIMO systems operating over practical environments. Motivated by this, this thesis provides an analytical characterization of the capacity and performance of advanced MIMO antenna systems. First, the ergodic capacity of MIMO Nakagami-m fading channels is investigated. A unified way of deriving ergodic capacity bounds is developed under the majorization theory framework. The key idea is to study the ergodic capacity through the distribution of the diagonal elements of the quadratic channel HHy which is relatively easy to handle, avoiding the need of the eigenvalue distribution of the channel matrix which is extremely difficult to obtain. The proposed method is first applied on the conventional point-to-point MIMO systems under Nakagami-m fading, and later extended to the more general distributed MIMO systems. Second, the ergodic capacity of MIMO multi-keyhole and MIMO amplify-and-forward (AF) dual-hop systems is studied. A set of new statistical properties involving product of random complex Gaussian matrix, i.e., probability density function (p.d.f.) of an unordered eigenvalue, p.d.f. of the maximum eigenvalue, expected determinant and log-determinant, is derived. Based on these, analytical closedform expressions for the ergodic capacity of the systems are obtained and the connection between the product channels and conventional point-to-point MIMO channels is also revealed. Finally, the effect of co-channel interference is investigated. First, the performance of optimum combining (OC) systems operating in Rayleigh-product channels is analyzed based on novel closed-form expression of the cumulative distribution function (c.d.f.) of the maximum eigenvalue of the resultant channel matrix. Then, for MIMO Rician channels and MIMO Rayleigh-product channels, the ergodic capacity at low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime is studied, and the impact of various system parameters, such as transmit and receive antenna number, Rician factor, channel mean matrix and interference-tonoise- ratio, is examined

Resource allocation for 5G technologies under statistical queueing constraints

As the launch of fifth generation (5G) wireless networks is approaching, recent years have witnessed comprehensive discussions about a possible 5G standard. Many transmission scenarios and technologies have been proposed and initial over-the-air experimental trials have been conducted. Most of the existing literature studies on 5G technologies have mainly focused on the physical layer parameters and quality of service (QoS) requirements, e.g., achievable data rates. However, the demand for delay-sensitive data traffic over wireless networks has increased exponentially in the recent years, and is expected to further increase by the time of 5G. Therefore, other constraints at the data-link layer concerning the buffer overflow and delay violation probabilities should also be regarded. It follows that evaluating the performance of the 5G technologies when such constraints are considered is a timely task. Motivated by this fact, in this thesis we explore the performance of three promising 5G technologies when operating under certain QoS at the data-link layer. We follow a cross-layer approach to examine the interplay between the physical and data-link layers when statistical QoS constraints are inflicted in the form of limits on the delay violation and buffer overflow probabilities. Noting that wireless systems, generally, have limited physical resources, in this thesis we mainly target designing adaptive resource allocation schemes to maximize the system performance under such QoS constraints. We initially investigate the throughput and energy efficiency of a general class of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems with arbitrary inputs. As a cross-layer evaluation tool, we employ the effective capacity as the main performance metric, which is the maximum constant data arrival rate at a buffer that can be sustained by the channel service process under specified QoS constraints. We obtain the optimal input covariance matrix that maximizes the effective capacity under a short-term average power budget. Then, we perform an asymptotic analysis of the effective capacity in the low signal-to-noise ratio and large-scale antenna (massive MIMO) regimes. Such analysis has a practical importance for 5G scenarios that necessitate low latency, low power consumption, and/or ability to simultaneously support massive number of users. Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has attracted significant attention in the recent years as a promising multiple access technology for 5G. In this thesis, we consider a two-user power-domain NOMA scheme in which both transmitters employ superposition coding and the receiver applies successive interference cancellation (SIC) with a certain order. For practical concerns, we consider limited transmission power budgets at the transmitters, and assume that both transmitters have arbitrarily distributed input signals. We again exploit the effective capacity as the main cross-layer performance measure. We provide a resource management scheme that can jointly obtain the optimal power allocation policies at the transmitters and the optimal decoding order at the receiver, with the goal of maximizing the effective capacity region that provides the maximum allowable sustainable arrival rate region at the transmitters' buffers under QoS guarantees. In the recent years, visible light communication (VLC) has emerged as a potential transmission technology that can utilize the visible light spectrum for data transmission along with illumination. Different from the existing literature studies on VLC, in this thesis we consider a VLC system in which the access point (AP) is unaware of the channel conditions, thus the AP sends the data at a fixed rate. Under this assumption, and considering an ON-OFF data source, we provide a cross-layer study when the system is subject to statistical buffering constraints. To this end, we employ the maximum average data arrival rate at the AP buffer and the non-asymptotic bounds on buffering delay as the main performance measures. To facilitate our analysis, we adopt a two-state Markov process to model the fixed-rate transmission strategy, and we then formulate the steady-state probabilities of the channel being in the ON and OFF states. The coexistence of radio frequency (RF) and VLC systems in typical indoor environments can be leveraged to support vast user QoS needs. In this thesis, we examine the benefits of employing both technologies when operating under statistical buffering limitations. Particularly, we consider a multi-mechanism scenario that utilizes RF and VLC links for data transmission in an indoor environment. As the transmission technology is the main physical resource to be concerned in this part, we propose a link selection process through which the transmitter sends data over the link that sustains the desired QoS guarantees the most. Considering an ON-OFF data source, we employ the maximum average data arrival rate at the transmitter buffer and the non-asymptotic bounds on data buffering delay as the main performance measures. We formulate the performance measures under the assumption that both links are subject to average and peak power constraints

MIMO techniques for higher data rate wireless communications

The demand for higher data rate, higher spectral efficiency and better quality of service in wireless communications is growing fast in the past few years. However, obtaining these requirements become challenging for wireless communication systems due to the problems of channel multi-path fading, higher power loss and power bandwidth limitations. A lot of research interest has been directed towards implementing new techniques in wireless communication systems, such as MIMO an OFDM, to overcome the above mentioned problems. Methods of achieving higher data rate and better spectral efficiency have been dealt with in the thesis. The work comprised three parts; the first part focuses on channel modelling, the second looks at fading mitigation techniques, and the third part deals with adaptive transmission schemes for different diversity techniques. In the first part, we present multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) space-time geometrical channel model with hyperbolically distributed scatterers (GBHDS) for a macro-cell mobile environment. The model is based on one-ring scattering assumption. This MIMO model provides statistics of the time of arrival (TOA) and direction of arrival (DOA). Our analytical results are validated with measurement data and compared to different geometrical based signal bounce macro-cell (GBSSBM) channel models including Gaussian scatterer density (GSD) channel model, the geometrical based exponential (GBE) channel model. On the other hand, for the same channel model we investigate the analytical methods which capture physical wave and antenna configuration at both ends representing in a matrix form. In the second part, we investigate the proposed channel model using joint frequency and spatial diversity system. . We combine STBC with OFDM to improve the error performance in the fading channels. We consider two different fading scenarios namely frequency selective and time selective fading channels. For the first scenario we propose a new technique to suppress the frequency error offset caused by the motion of mobile (Doppler shift). On the other hand, we examine the performance of STBC-OFDM in time selective macro-cell channel environment. In the last part, we evaluate the spectral efficiency for different receiver diversity namely maximal ratio combiner (MRC), selection combiner (SC), and Hybrid (MRC/SC). We derive closed form expressions for the single user capacity, taking into account the effect of imperfect channel estimation at the receiver. The channel considered is a slowly varying spatially independent flat Rayleigh fading channel. Three adaptive transmission schemes are analysed: 1) optimal power rate and rate adaptation (opra), constant power with optimal rate adaptation (ora), and 3) channel inversion with fixed rate (cifr). Furthermore, we derive analytical results for capacity statistics including moment generating function (MGF), complementary cumulative distribution function (CDF) and probability density function (pdf)

Ultra-Reliable Short-Packet Communications: Fundamental Limits and Enabling Technologies

The paradigm shift from 4G to 5G communications, anticipated to enable ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC), will enforce a radical change in the design of wireless communication systems. Unlike in 4G systems, where the main objective is to provide a large transmission rate, in URLLC, as implied by its name, the objective is to enable transmissions with low latency and, simultaneously, very high reliability. Since low latency implies the use of short data packets, the tension between blocklength and reliability is studied in URLLC.Several key enablers for URLLC communications have been designated in the literature. Of special importance are diversity-enabling technologies such as multiantenna systems and feedback protocols. Furthermore, it is not only important to introduce additional diversity by means of the above examples, one must also guarantee that thescarce number of channel uses are used in an optimal way. Therefore, it is imperative to develop design guidelines for how to enable reliable detection of incoming data, how to acquire channel-state information, and how to construct efficient short-packet channel codes. The development of such guidelines is at the heart of this thesis. This thesis focuses on the fundamental performance of URLLC-enabling technologies. Specifically, we provide converse (upper) bounds and achievability (lower) bounds on the maximum coding rate, based on finite-blocklength information theory, for systems that employ the key enablers outlined above. With focus on the wireless channel, modeled via a block-fading assumption, we are able to provide answers to questions like: howto optimally utilize spatial and frequency diversity, how far from optimal short-packet channel codes perform, how multiantenna systems should be designed to serve a given number of users, and how to design feedback schemes when the feedback link is noisy. In particular, this thesis is comprised out of four papers. In Paper A, we study the short-packet performance over the Rician block-fading channel. In particular, we present achievability bounds for pilot-assisted transmission with several different decoders that allow us to quantify the impact, on the achievable performance, of imposed pilots and mismatched decoding. Furthermore, we design short-packet channel codes that perform within 1 dB of our achievability bounds. Paper B studies multiuser massive multiple-input multiple-output systems with short packets. We provide an achievability bound on the average error probability over quasistatic spatially correlated Rayleigh-fading channels. The bound applies to arbitrary multiuser settings, pilot-assisted transmission, and mismatched decoding. This makes it suitable to assess the performance in the uplink/downlink for arbitrary linear signal processing. We show that several lessons learned from infinite-blocklength analyses carry over to the finite-blocklength regime. Furthermore, for the multicell setting with randomly placed users, pilot contamination should be avoided at all cost and minimum mean-squared error signal processing should be used to comply with the stringent requirements of URLLC.In Paper C, we consider sporadic transmissions where the task of the receiver is to both detect and decode an incoming packet. Two novel achievability bounds, and a novel converse bound are presented for joint detection-decoding strategies. It is shown that errors associated with detection deteriorates performance significantly for very short packet sizes. Numerical results also indicate that separate detection-decoding strategies are strictly suboptimal over block-fading channels.Finally, in Paper D, variable-length codes with noisy stop-feedback are studied via a novel achievability bound on the average service time and the average error probability. We use the bound to shed light on the resource allocation problem between the forward and the feedback channel. For URLLC applications, it is shown that enough resources must be assigned to the feedback link such that a NACK-to-ACK error becomes rarer than the target error probability. Furthermore, we illustrate that the variable-length stop-feedback scheme outperforms state-of-the-art fixed-length no-feedback bounds even when the stop-feedback bit is noisy

Multiple Access in Aerial Networks: From Orthogonal and Non-Orthogonal to Rate-Splitting

Recently, interest on the utilization of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has aroused. Specifically, UAVs can be used in cellular networks as aerial users for delivery, surveillance, rescue search, or as an aerial base station (aBS) for communication with ground users in remote uncovered areas or in dense environments requiring prompt high capacity. Aiming to satisfy the high requirements of wireless aerial networks, several multiple access techniques have been investigated. In particular, space-division multiple access(SDMA) and power-domain non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) present promising multiplexing gains for aerial downlink and uplink. Nevertheless, these gains are limited as they depend on the conditions of the environment. Hence, a generalized scheme has been recently proposed, called rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA), which is capable of achieving better spectral efficiency gains compared to SDMA and NOMA. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of key multiple access technologies adopted for aerial networks, where aBSs are deployed to serve ground users. Since there have been only sporadic results reported on the use of RSMA in aerial systems, we aim to extend the discussion on this topic by modelling and analyzing the weighted sum-rate performance of a two-user downlink network served by an RSMA-based aBS. Finally, related open issues and future research directions are exposed.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, submitted to IEEE Journa