Implementation of LS, MMSE and SAGE Channel Estimators for Mobile MIMO-OFDM

The use of decision directed (DD) channel estimation in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) downlink receiver is studied in this paper. The 3GPP long term evolution (LTE) based pilot structure is used as a benchmark. The space-alternating generalized expectation-maximization (SAGE) algorithm is used to improve the performance from that of the pilot symbol based least-squares (LS) channel estimator. The DD channel estimation improves the performance with high user velocities, where the pilot symbol density is not sufficient. Minimum mean square error (MMSE) filtering can also be used in estimating the channel in between pilot symbols. The DD channel estimation can be used to reduce the pilot overhead without any performance degradation by transmitting data instead of pilot symbols. The pilot overhead is reduced to a third of the LTE pilot overhead, obtaining a ten percent increase in throughput. The pilot based LS, MMSE and the SAGE channel estimators are implemented and the performance-complexity trade-offs are studied

Decision-Directed Channel Estimation Implementation for Spectral Efficiency Improvement in Mobile MIMO-OFDM

Channel estimation algorithms and their implementations for mobile receivers are considered in this paper. The 3GPP long term evolution (LTE) based pilot structure is used as a benchmark in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) receiver. The decision directed (DD) space alternating generalized expectation-maximization (SAGE) algorithm is used to improve the performance from that of the pilot symbol based least-squares (LS) channel estimator. The performance is improved with high user velocities, where the pilot symbol density is not sufficient. Minimum mean square error (MMSE) filtering is also used in estimating the channel in between pilot symbols. The pilot overhead can be reduced to a third of the LTE pilot overhead with DD channel estimation, obtaining a ten percent increase in data throughput. Complexity reduction and latency issues are considered in the architecture design. The pilot based LS, MMSE and the SAGE channel estimators are implemented with a high level synthesis tool, synthesized with the UMC 0.18 μm CMOS technology and the performance-complexity trade-offs are studied. The MMSE estimator improves the performance from the simple LS estimator with LTE pilot structure and has low power consumption. The SAGE estimator has high power consumption but can be used with reduced pilot density to increase the data rate.National Science FoundationTekesElektrobitRenesas Mobile EuropeAcademy of FinlandNokia Siemens NetworksXilin

Estimation and detection techniques for doubly-selective channels in wireless communications

A fundamental problem in communications is the estimation of the channel. The signal transmitted through a communications channel undergoes distortions so that it is often received in an unrecognizable form at the receiver. The receiver must expend significant signal processing effort in order to be able to decode the transmit signal from this received signal. This signal processing requires knowledge of how the channel distorts the transmit signal, i.e. channel knowledge. To maintain a reliable link, the channel must be estimated and tracked by the receiver. The estimation of the channel at the receiver often proceeds by transmission of a signal called the 'pilot' which is known a priori to the receiver. The receiver forms its estimate of the transmitted signal based on how this known signal is distorted by the channel, i.e. it estimates the channel from the received signal and the pilot. This design of the pilot is a function of the modulation, the type of training and the channel. [Continues.

Visible Light Communication (VLC)

Visible light communication (VLC) using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) or laser diodes (LDs) has been envisioned as one of the key enabling technologies for 6G and Internet of Things (IoT) systems, owing to its appealing advantages, including abundant and unregulated spectrum resources, no electromagnetic interference (EMI) radiation and high security. However, despite its many advantages, VLC faces several technical challenges, such as the limited bandwidth and severe nonlinearity of opto-electronic devices, link blockage and user mobility. Therefore, significant efforts are needed from the global VLC community to develop VLC technology further. This Special Issue, “Visible Light Communication (VLC)”, provides an opportunity for global researchers to share their new ideas and cutting-edge techniques to address the above-mentioned challenges. The 16 papers published in this Special Issue represent the fascinating progress of VLC in various contexts, including general indoor and underwater scenarios, and the emerging application of machine learning/artificial intelligence (ML/AI) techniques in VLC

PRE-FILTERING IN MC-CDMA DOWNLINK TRANSMISSIONS

Future wireless communication systems are expected to support high-speed and high-quality multimedia services. In theseapplications the received signal is typically affected byfrequency-selective fading, which must be properly counteracted toavoid a severe degradation of the system performance. MC-CDMA is a multiplexing technique that combines OFDM with direct sequence CDMA. It is robust to frequency-selective fading thanks to the underlying OFDM modulation and exploits frequency diversity by spreading the data of different users in the frequency domain. For these reasons it is considered as a promising candidate for the physical layer of future high-speed wireless communications. Recent publications show that MC-CDMA is particularly suitable for downlink transmissions, i.e., from the base station to the mobile terminals. In these applications orthogonal spreading codes are usually employed to provide protection against co-channel interference. In the presence of multipath propagation, however, signals undergo frequency-selective fading and the code orthogonality is lost. This gives rise to multiple-access interference, which strongly limits the system performance. In the past few years several advanced multi-user detection techniques have been proposed and discussed for interference mitigation. However, in spite of their effectiveness, all these methods are quite unattractive for downlink applications since they would entail high complexity and excessive power consumption at the remote units. As an alternative to multi-user detection, pre-filtering techniques can be employed in downlink transmissions to mitigate multiple-access interference and channel distortions. The idea behind pre-filtering is to vary the gain assigned to each subcarrier so that interference is reduced and the signal at the receiver appears undistorted. In this way, simple and low complex single-user detectors can be employed at the remote units, thereby moving most of the computational burden to the base station, where power consumption and computational resources are not critical issues. In general terms, the main contribution of this dissertation is threefold. First, we propose and discuss several linear and non-linear pre-filtering schemes for the downlink of MC-CDMA systems equipped with multiple transmit antennas and operating in a time-division-duplex mode. The resulting schemes are derived according to different optimization criteria and aim at combating the detrimental effects of MAI while maintaining the complexity of the remote units as low as possible. A second contribution comes from providing a unified framework for investigating pre-filtering in the downlink of both MC-CDMA and OFDMA systems. The use of a unified framework comprising both MC-CDMA and OFDMA allows a fair comparison between these multiple-access technologies under the same operating conditions. It turns out that OFDMA outperforms MC-CDMA when the system resources are optimally assigned to the active users according to the actual channel realization. As we shall see, in order to work properly, all the proposed schemes require explicit knowledge of the channel responses of the active users. In time-division-duplex systems this information can be achieved by exploiting the channel reciprocity between alternative uplink and downlink transmissions. If channel variations are sufficiently slow, the channel estimates of the active users can be derived at the base station during an uplink time-slot and reused for pre-filtering in the subsequent downlink time-slot. Thus, a third contribution comes from addressing the problem of channel acquisition in the uplink of an MC-CDMA system equipped with multiple receive antennas

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

Cognitive Radio Systems

Cognitive radio is a hot research area for future wireless communications in the recent years. In order to increase the spectrum utilization, cognitive radio makes it possible for unlicensed users to access the spectrum unoccupied by licensed users. Cognitive radio let the equipments more intelligent to communicate with each other in a spectrum-aware manner and provide a new approach for the co-existence of multiple wireless systems. The goal of this book is to provide highlights of the current research topics in the field of cognitive radio systems. The book consists of 17 chapters, addressing various problems in cognitive radio systems

Advanced receivers for distributed cooperation in mobile ad hoc networks

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are rapidly deployable wireless communications systems, operating with minimal coordination in order to avoid spectral efficiency losses caused by overhead. Cooperative transmission schemes are attractive for MANETs, but the distributed nature of such protocols comes with an increased level of interference, whose impact is further amplified by the need to push the limits of energy and spectral efficiency. Hence, the impact of interference has to be mitigated through with the use PHY layer signal processing algorithms with reasonable computational complexity. Recent advances in iterative digital receiver design techniques exploit approximate Bayesian inference and derivative message passing techniques to improve the capabilities of well-established turbo detectors. In particular, expectation propagation (EP) is a flexible technique which offers attractive complexity-performance trade-offs in situations where conventional belief propagation is limited by computational complexity. Moreover, thanks to emerging techniques in deep learning, such iterative structures are cast into deep detection networks, where learning the algorithmic hyper-parameters further improves receiver performance. In this thesis, EP-based finite-impulse response decision feedback equalizers are designed, and they achieve significant improvements, especially in high spectral efficiency applications, over more conventional turbo-equalization techniques, while having the advantage of being asymptotically predictable. A framework for designing frequency-domain EP-based receivers is proposed, in order to obtain detection architectures with low computational complexity. This framework is theoretically and numerically analysed with a focus on channel equalization, and then it is also extended to handle detection for time-varying channels and multiple-antenna systems. The design of multiple-user detectors and the impact of channel estimation are also explored to understand the capabilities and limits of this framework. Finally, a finite-length performance prediction method is presented for carrying out link abstraction for the EP-based frequency domain equalizer. The impact of accurate physical layer modelling is evaluated in the context of cooperative broadcasting in tactical MANETs, thanks to a flexible MAC-level simulato