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

Collaborative modulation multiple access for single hop and multihop networks

While the bandwidth available for wireless networks is limited, the world has seen an unprecedented growth in the number of mobile subscribers and an ever increasing demand for high data rates. Therefore efficient utilisation of bandwidth to maximise link spectral efficiency and number of users that can be served simultaneously are primary goals in the design of wireless systems. To achieve these goals, in this thesis, a new non-orthogonal uplink multiple access scheme which combines the functionalities of adaptive modulation and multiple access called collaborative modulation multiple access (CMMA) is proposed. CMMA enables multiple users to access the network simultaneously and share the same bandwidth even when only a single receive antenna is available and in the presence of high channel correlation. Instead of competing for resources, users in CMMA share resources collaboratively by employing unique modulation sets (UMS) that differ in phase, power, and/or mapping structure. These UMS are designed to insure that the received signal formed from the superposition of all users’ signals belongs to a composite QAM constellation (CC) with a rate equal to the sum rate of all users. The CC and its constituent UMSs are designed centrally at the BS to remove ambiguity, maximize the minimum Euclidian distance (dmin) of the CC and insure a minimum BER performance is maintained. Users collaboratively precode their transmitted signal by performing truncated channel inversion and phase rotation using channel state information (CSI ) obtained from a periodic common pilot to insure that their combined signal at the BS belongs to the CC known at the BS which in turn performs a simple joint maximum likelihood detection without the need for CSI. The coherent addition of users’ power enables CMMA to achieve high link spectral efficiency at any time without extra power or bandwidth but on the expense of graceful degradation in BER performance. To improve the BER performance of CMMA while preserving its precoding and detection structure and without the need for pilot-aided channel estimation, a new selective diversity combining scheme called SC-CMMA is proposed. SC-CMMA optimises the overall group performance providing fairness and diversity gain for various users with different transmit powers and channel conditions by selecting a single antenna out of a group of L available antennas that minimises the total transmit power required for precoding at any one time. A detailed study of capacity and BER performance of CMMA and SC-CMMA is carried out under different level of channel correlations which shows that both offer high capacity gain and resilience to channel correlation. SC-CMMA capacity even increase with high channel correlation between users’ channels. CMMA provides a practical solution for implementing the multiple access adder channel (MAAC) in fading environments hence a hybrid approach combining both collaborative coding and modulation referred to as H-CMMA is investigated. H-CMMA divides users into a number of subgroups where users within a subgroup are assigned the same modulation set and different multiple access codes. H-CMMA adjusts the dmin of the received CC by varying the number of subgroups which in turn varies the number of unique constellation points for the same number of users and average total power. Therefore H-CMMA can accommodate many users with different rates while flexibly managing the complexity, rate and BER performance depending on the SNR. Next a new scheme combining CMMA with opportunistic scheduling using only partial CSI at the receiver called CMMA-OS is proposed to combine both the power gain of CMMA and the multiuser diversity gain that arises from users’ channel independence. To avoid the complexity and excessive feedback associated with the dynamic update of the CC, the BS takes into account the independence of users’ channels in the design of the CC and its constituent UMSs but both remain unchanged thereafter. However UMS are no longer associated with users, instead channel gain’s probability density function is divided into regions with identical probability and each UMS is associated with a specific region. This will simplify scheduling as users can initially chose their UMS based on their CSI and the BS will only need to resolve any collision when the channels of two or more users are located at the same region. Finally a high rate cooperative communication scheme, called cooperative modulation (CM) is proposed for cooperative multiuser systems. CM combines the reliability of the cooperative diversity with the high spectral efficiency and multiple access capabilities of CMMA. CM maintains low feedback and high spectral efficiency by restricting relaying to a single route with the best overall channel. Two possible variations of CM are proposed depending on whether CSI available only at the users or just at the BS and the selected relay. The first is referred to Precode, Amplify, and Forward (PAF) while the second one is called Decode, Remap, and Forward (DMF). A new route selection algorithm for DMF based on maximising dmin of random CC is also proposed using a novel fast low-complexity multi-stage sphere based algorithm to calculate the dmin at the relay of random CC that is used for both relay selection and detection

Carrier frequency offset estimation for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing systems

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is an attractive modulation scheme used in wideband communications because it essentially transforms the frequency selective channel into a flat fading channel. Furthermore, the combination of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) signal processing and OFDM seems to be an ideal solution for supporting reliable high data rate transmission for future wireless communication systems. However, despite the great advantages OFDM systems offer, such systems present challenges of their own. One of the most important challenges is carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation, which is crucial in building reliable wireless communication systems. In this thesis, we consider CFO estimation for the downlink and uplink OFDM systems. For the downlink channel, we focus on blind schemes where the cost functions are designed such that they exploit implicit properties associated with the transmitted signal where no training signal is required. By taking the unconditional maximum likelihood approach, we propose a virtual subcarrier based blind scheme for MIMO-OFDM systems in the presence of spatial correlation. We conclude that the presence of spatial correlation does not impact the CFO estimation significantly. We also propose a CFO estimator for OFDM systems with constant modulus signaling and extend it to MIMO-OFDM systems employing orthogonal space-time block coding. The curve fitting method is used which gives a closed-form expression for CFO estimation. Therefore, the proposed scheme provides an excellent trade-off between complexity and performance as compared to prominent existing estimation schemes. Furthermore, we design a blind CFO estimation scheme for differentially modulated OFDM systems based on the finite alphabet constraint. It can achieve better performance at high signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) at the expense of some additional computational complexity as compared to the schemes based on the constant modulus constraint. The constrained Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) is also derived for the blind estimation scheme. As for the uplink channel, which is a more challenging problem, we propose two training aided schemes. One is based on a scalar extended Kalman filter (EKF) and the other one is on the variable projection (VP) algorithm. For both schemes, we assume that the system uses an arbitrary subcarrier assignment scheme, which is more involved than the other two schemes, namely block and interleaved subcarrier assignment scheme. In the first scheme, to apply the scalar EKF algorithm, we represent the measurement equation as a function of a scalar state, i.e., each user's CFO, in lieu of a state vector which consists of both CFO and channel coefficients by replacing the unknown channel coefficients with a nonlinear function of CFO. This proposed scheme can achieve the CRLB at high SNR for two users with a complexity lower than that of the alternating-projection method. In the second scheme, the VP algorithm is used for CFO estimation which is followed with a robust minimum mean square error (MMSE) estimator for channel estimation. In the VP algorithm, the nonlinear least square cost function is optimized numerically by updating the CFOs and channel coefficients separately at each iteration. We demonstrate that this proposed scheme is superior to the existing methods in terms of convergence speed, computational complexity and estimation performance

Efficient transmission design for machine type communications in future wireless communication systems

With a wide range of potential applications, the machine type communication (MTC) is gaining a tremendous interest among mobile network operators, system designers, MTC specialist companies, and research institutes. The idea of having electronic devices and systems automatically connected to each other without human intervention is one of the most significant objectives for future wireless communications. Low data rate transmission and the requirement for low energy consumption are two typical characteristics for MTC applications. In terms of supporting low cots MTC devices, industrial standards will be more efficient if designers can re-use many features of existing radio access technologies. This will yield a cost effective solution to support MTC in future communication systems. This thesis investigates efficient MTC waveform and receiver designs for superior signal transmission quality with low operational costs. In terms of the downlink receiver design, this thesis proposes a novel virtual carrier (VC) receiver system for MTC receivers, which aims to reduce the maximum bandwidth to improve the data processing efficiency and cost-efficiency by using analogue filters to extract only sub-carriers of interest. For the VC receiver systems, we thus reduce the sampling rate in order to reduce the number of subsequent processing operations, which significantly reduces the analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) cost and power consumption while providing high signal to interference noise ratio (SINR) and low bit to error rate (BER) to support low data rate MTC devices. Our theoretical equations account for the interference effect of aliasing on the sub-carrier location, and this helps the system designer to evaluate what kind of filters and receiver sampling rate can be used to balance the energy cost and detection performance. In terms of the uplink waveform design, considering the enhanced number of MTC devices in the future communication systems, i.e. the fifth generation (5G) communications, the same tight synchronisation as used in today appears not to be cost-effective or even possible. Synchronisation signals, which aim to provide a perfect time or frequency synchronisation in the current fourth generation (4G) communication systems (known as the long-term evolution, LTE), is much more costly for low data rate MTC transmissions. The system bandwidth will be significantly reduced if a base station tries to synchronise all received signals among hundreds or thousands MTC devices in one transmission time period. In terms of relaxing the synchronisation requirements, this thesis compares and analyses the side-lobe reduction performance for several candidate multi-carrier waveforms to avoid these problems. We also propose the infinite impulse response universal filtered multi-carrier (UFMC) system and the overlap and add UFMC system, which significantly reduce the processing complexity compared with the state of the art UFMC techniques. This thesis derives closed-form expressions for the interference caused by time offsets between adjacent unsynchronised MTC users. Our analytical equations can be used in both simple and complex time-offset transmission scenarios, and enable the system designer to evaluate the SINR, the theoretical Shannon capacity and the BER performance

Etude et évaluation d un multiplexage fréquentiel basé sur l OFDM/OQAM

Cette thèse est consacrée à l étude de la modulation OFDM/OQAM en tant qu alternative à la modulation OFDM. Nous traitons plus particulièrement le contexte multiusagers. De ce point de vue, les aspects de synchronisation sont déterminants. Les différentes options plus le choix de la forme d onde sont donc examinés de ce point de vue. Un autre objectif est de montrer de manière précise comment la modulation OFDM/OQAM peut s adapter à une transmission de type cellulaire, en prenant comme référence le système 3GPP/LTE. Les principales contributions que nous avons apportées sont : 1) Une analyse des phénomènes de désynchronisation : nous analysons l effet de la désynchronisation, suivant les axes temporel et fréquentiel, sur les performances de l OFDM/OQAM au récepteur. 2) Méthode de synchronisation : nous analysons une méthode de synchronisation temporelle définie dans un contexte de transmission OFDM/OQAM mono-usager et nous l adaptons à un scénario de type multi-usagers. 3) Proposition d un schéma d accès multiple : nous proposons un schéma d accès multiple basé sur la modulation OFDM/OQAM, alternatif aux techniques connues OFDMA et SC-FDMA, pour la transmission en liaison montante dans un contexte de type 3GPP/LTE.This thesis is dedicated to the study of the OFDM/OQAM modulation as an alternative to the OFDM modulation. We treat more especially the multi-user environment. In this respect, synchronization aspects are crucial. The different options plus the choice of the waveform are examined in this point of view. Another objective is to precisely show how the OFDM/OQAM can be adapted to a cellular transmission type, taking as reference the 3GPP/LTE system. The main contributions we have made are : 1) Analysis of the desynchronization phenomena : we analyze the effect of desynchronization, according to the time and frequency axes, on the performance of OFDM/OQAM at the receiver side. 2) Synchronization method : we analyze a method of temporal synchronization defined in a single user OFDM/OQAM transmission and we adapt it to a multi-user scenario type. 3) Proposing for a multiple access scheme : we propose a multiple access scheme based on theOFDM/OQAM modulation, alternative to the known techniques OFDMA and SC-FDMA, for the UL transmission in a 3GPP/LTE context.PARIS-CNAM (751032301) / SudocSudocFranceF

Timing and Frequency Synchronization in Practical OFDM Systems

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) has been adopted by many broadband wireless communication systems for the simplicity of the receiver technique to support high data rates and user mobility. However, studies also show that the advantage of OFDM over the single-carrier modulation schemes could be substantially compromised by timing or frequency estimation errors at the receiver. In this thesis we investigate the synchronization problem for practical OFDM systems using a system model generalized from the IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.16 standards. For preamble based synchronization schemes, which are most common in the downlink of wireless communication systems, we propose a novel timing acquisition algorithm which minimizes false alarm probability and indirectly improves correct detection probability. We then introduce a universal fractional carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimator that outperforms conventional methods at low signal to noise ratio with lower complexity. More accurate timing and frequency estimates can be obtained by our proposed frequency-domain algorithms incorporating channel knowledge. We derive four joint frequency, timing, and channel estimators with different approximations, and then propose a hybrid integer CFO estimation scheme to provide flexible performance and complexity tradeoffs. When the exact channel delay profile is unknown at the receiver, we present a successive timing estimation algorithm to solve the timing ambiguity. Both analytical and simulation results are presented to confirm the performance of the proposed methods in various realistic channel conditions. ..

Interference Alignment for Cognitive Radio Communications and Networks: A Survey

© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Interference alignment (IA) is an innovative wireless transmission strategy that has shown to be a promising technique for achieving optimal capacity scaling of a multiuser interference channel at asymptotically high-signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Transmitters exploit the availability of multiple signaling dimensions in order to align their mutual interference at the receivers. Most of the research has focused on developing algorithms for determining alignment solutions as well as proving interference alignment’s theoretical ability to achieve the maximum degrees of freedom in a wireless network. Cognitive radio, on the other hand, is a technique used to improve the utilization of the radio spectrum by opportunistically sensing and accessing unused licensed frequency spectrum, without causing harmful interference to the licensed users. With the increased deployment of wireless services, the possibility of detecting unused frequency spectrum becomes diminished. Thus, the concept of introducing interference alignment in cognitive radio has become a very attractive proposition. This paper provides a survey of the implementation of IA in cognitive radio under the main research paradigms, along with a summary and analysis of results under each system model.Peer reviewe

MIMO signal processing in offset-QAM based filter bank multicarrier systems

Next-generation communication systems have to comply with very strict requirements for increased flexibility in heterogeneous environments, high spectral efficiency, and agility of carrier aggregation. This fact motivates research in advanced multicarrier modulation (MCM) schemes, such as filter bank-based multicarrier (FBMC) modulation. This paper focuses on the offset quadrature amplitude modulation (OQAM)-based FBMC variant, known as FBMC/OQAM, which presents outstanding spectral efficiency and confinement in a number of channels and applications. Its special nature, however, generates a number of new signal processing challenges that are not present in other MCM schemes, notably, in orthogonal-frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). In multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) architectures, which are expected to play a primary role in future communication systems, these challenges are intensified, creating new interesting research problems and calling for new ideas and methods that are adapted to the particularities of the MIMO-FBMC/OQAM system. The goal of this paper is to focus on these signal processing problems and provide a concise yet comprehensive overview of the recent advances in this area. Open problems and associated directions for future research are also discussed.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft