107 research outputs found
A VHDL-AMS Simulation Environment for an UWB Impulse Radio Transceiver
Ultra-Wide-Band (UWB) communication based on the impulse radio paradigm is becoming increasingly popular. According to the IEEE 802.15 WPAN Low Rate Alternative PHY Task Group 4a, UWB will play a major role in localization applications, due to the high time resolution of UWB signals which allow accurate indirect measurements of distance between transceivers. Key for the successful implementation of UWB transceivers is the level of integration that will be reached, for which a simulation environment that helps take appropriate design decisions is crucial. Owing to this motivation, in this paper we propose a multiresolution UWB simulation environment based on the VHDL-AMS hardware description language, along with a proper methodology which helps tackle the complexity of designing a mixed-signal UWB System-on-Chip. We applied the methodology and used the simulation environment for the specification and design of an UWB transceiver based on the energy detection principle. As a by-product, simulation results show the effectiveness of UWB in the so-called ranging application, that is the accurate evaluation of the distance between a couple of transceivers using the two-way-ranging metho
Modulation and Multiple Access Techniques for Ultra-Wideband Communication Systems
Two new energy detection (ED) Ultra-Wideband (UWB) systems are proposed in this dissertation. The first one is an ED UWB system based on pulse width modulation (PWM). The bit error rate (BER) performance of this ED PWM system is slightly worse than ED pulse position modulation (PPM) system in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels. However, the BER performance of this ED PWM system surpasses that of a PPM system in multipath channels since a PWM system does not suffer cross-modulation interference (CMI) as a PPM system. In the presence of synchronization errors, the BER performance of a PWM system also surpasses that of a PPM system. The second proposed ED UWB system is based on using two pulses, which are the different-order derivatives of the Gaussian pulse, to transmitted bit 0 or 1. These pulses are appropriately chosen to separate their spectra in frequency domain.The receiver is composed of two energy detection branches and each branch has a filter which captures the signal energy of either bit 0 or 1. The outputs of two branches are subtracted from each other to generate the decision statistic and the value of this statistic is compared to a threshold to determine the transmitted bits. This system is named as acf{GFSK} system in this dissertation and it exhibits the same BER performance as a PPM system in AWGN channels. In multipath channels, a GFSK system surpasses a PPM system because it does not suffer CMI. And the BER performance of a GFSK system is better than a PPM system in the presence of synchronization errors. When a GFSK system is compared to a PWM system, it will always achieve approximately 2 dB improvement in AWGN channels, multipath channels, and in the presence synchronization errors. However, a PWM system uses lower-order derivatives of the Gaussian pulse to transmit signal, and this leads to a simple pulse generator. In this dissertation, an optimal threshold is applied to improve PPM system performance. The research results show that the application of an optimal threshold can e
Ultra Wideband Communications: from Analog to Digital
Ultrabreitband-Signale (Ultra Wideband [UWB]) können einen
signifikanten Nutzen im Bereich drahtloser Kommunikationssysteme haben. Es
sind jedoch noch einige Probleme offen, die durch Systemdesigner und
Wissenschaftler gelöst werden müssen. Ein Funknetzsystem mit einer derart
groĂźen Bandbreite ist normalerweise auch durch eine groĂźe Anzahl an
Mehrwegekomponenten mit jeweils verschiedenen Pfadamplituden
gekennzeichnet. Daher ist es schwierig, die zeitlich verteilte Energie
effektiv zu erfassen. Außerdem ist in vielen Fällen der naheliegende
Ansatz, ein kohärenter Empfänger im Sinne eines signalangepassten Filters
oder eines Korrelators, nicht unbedingt die beste Wahl. In der vorliegenden
Arbeit wird dabei auf die bestehende Problematik und weitere
Lösungsmöglichkeiten eingegangen.
Im ersten Abschnitt geht es um „Impulse Radio UWB”-Systeme mit
niedriger Datenrate. Bei diesen Systemen kommt ein inkohärenter Empfänger
zum Einsatz. Inkohärente Signaldetektion stellt insofern einen
vielversprechenden Ansatz dar, als das damit aufwandsgĂĽnstige und robuste
Implementierungen möglich sind. Dies trifft vor allem in Anwendungsfällen
wie den von drahtlosen Sensornetzen zu, wo preiswerte Geräte mit langer
Batterielaufzeit nötigsind. Dies verringert den für die Kanalschätzung
und die Synchronisation nötigen Aufwand, was jedoch auf Kosten der
Leistungseffizienz geht und eine erhöhte Störempfindlichkeit gegenüber
Interferenz (z.B. Interferenz durch mehrere Nutzer oder schmalbandige
Interferenz) zur Folge hat.
Um die Bitfehlerrate der oben genannten Verfahren zu bestimmen, wurde
zunächst ein inkohärenter Combining-Verlust spezifiziert, welcher
auftritt im Gegensatz zu kohärenter Detektion mit Maximum Ratio Multipath
Combining. Dieser Verlust hängt von dem Produkt aus der Länge des
Integrationsfensters und der Signalbandbreite ab.
Um den Verlust durch inkohärentes Combining zu reduzieren und somit die
Leistungseffizienz des Empfängers zu steigern, werden verbesserte
Combining-Methoden fĂĽr Mehrwegeempfang vorgeschlagen. Ein analoger
Empfänger, bei dem der Hauptteil des Mehrwege-Combinings durch einen
„Integrate and Dump”-Filter implementiert ist, wird für UWB-Systeme
mit Zeit-Hopping gezeigt. Dabei wurde die Einsatzmöglichkeit von dünn
besetzten Codes in solchen System diskutiert und bewertet. Des Weiteren
wird eine Regel für die Code-Auswahl vorgestellt, welche die Stabilität
des Systems gegen Mehrnutzer-Störungen sicherstellt und gleichzeitig den
Verlust durch inkohärentes Combining verringert.
Danach liegt der Fokus auf digitalen Lösungen bei inkohärenter
Demodulation. Im Vergleich zum Analogempfänger besitzt ein
Digitalempfänger einen Analog-Digital-Wandler im Zeitbereich gefolgt von
einem digitalen Optimalfilter. Der digitale Optimalfilter dekodiert den
Mehrfachzugriffscode kohärent und beschränkt das inkohärente Combining
auf die empfangenen Mehrwegekomponenten im Digitalbereich. Es kommt ein
schneller Analog-Digital-Wandler mit geringer Auflösung zum Einsatz, um
einen vertretbaren Energieverbrauch zu gewährleisten. Diese Digitaltechnik
macht den Einsatz langer Analogverzögerungen bei differentieller
Demodulation unnötig und ermöglicht viele Arten der digitalen
Signalverarbeitung. Im Vergleich zur Analogtechnik reduziert sie nicht nur
den inkohärenten Combining-Verlust, sonder zeigt auch eine stärkere
Resistenz gegenüber Störungen. Dabei werden die Auswirkungen der
Auflösung und der Abtastrate der Analog-Digital-Umsetzung analysiert. Die
Resultate zeigen, dass die verminderte Effizienz solcher
Analog-Digital-Wandler gering ausfällt. Weiterhin zeigt sich, dass im
Falle starker Mehrnutzerinterferenz sogar eine Verbesserung der Ergebnisse
zu beobachten ist. Die vorgeschlagenen Design-Regeln spezifizieren die
Anwendung der Analog-Digital-Wandler und die Auswahl der Systemparameter in
Abhängigkeit der verwendeten Mehrfachzugriffscodes und der Modulationsart.
Wir zeigen, wie unter Anwendung erweiterter Modulationsverfahren die
Leistungseffizienz verbessert werden kann und schlagen ein Verfahren zur
Unterdrückung schmalbandiger Störer vor, welches auf Soft Limiting
aufbaut. Durch die Untersuchungen und Ergebnissen zeigt sich, dass
inkohärente Empfänger in UWB-Kommunikationssystemen mit niedriger
Datenrate ein groĂźes Potential aufweisen.
AuĂźerdem wird die Auswahl der benutzbaren Bandbreite untersucht, um einen
Kompromiss zwischen inkohärentem Combining-Verlust und Stabilität
gegenĂĽber langsamen Schwund zu erreichen. Dadurch wurde ein neues Konzept
für UWB-Systeme erarbeitet: wahlweise kohärente oder inkohärente
Empfänger, welche als UWB-Systeme Frequenz-Hopping nutzen. Der wesentliche
Vorteil hiervon liegt darin, dass die Bandbreite im Basisband sich deutlich
verringert. Mithin ermöglicht dies einfach zu realisierende digitale
Signalverarbeitungstechnik mit kostengĂĽnstigen Analog-Digital-Wandlern.
Dies stellt eine neue Epoche in der Forschung im Bereich drahtloser
Sensorfunknetze dar.
Der Schwerpunkt des zweiten Abschnitts stellt adaptiven Signalverarbeitung
für hohe Datenraten mit „Direct Sequence”-UWB-Systemen in den
Vordergrund. In solchen Systemen entstehen, wegen der groĂźen Anzahl der
empfangenen Mehrwegekomponenten, starke Inter- bzw.
Intrasymbolinterferenzen. Außerdem kann die Funktionalität des Systems
durch Mehrnutzerinterferenz und Schmalbandstörungen deutlich beeinflusst
werden. Um sie zu eliminieren, wird die „Widely Linear”-Rangreduzierung
benutzt. Dabei verbessert die Rangreduzierungsmethode das
Konvergenzverhalten, besonders wenn der gegebene Vektor eine sehr groĂźe
Anzahl an Abtastwerten beinhaltet (in Folge hoher einer Abtastrate).
Zusätzlich kann das System durch die Anwendung der R-linearen Verarbeitung
die Statistik zweiter Ordnung des nicht-zirkularen Signals vollständig
ausnutzen, was sich in verbesserten Schätzergebnissen widerspiegelt.
Allgemeine kann die Methode der „Widely Linear”-Rangreduzierung auch in
andern Bereichen angewendet werden, z.B. in „Direct
Sequence”-Codemultiplexverfahren (DS-CDMA), im MIMO-Bereich, im Global
System for Mobile Communications (GSM) und beim Beamforming.The aim of this thesis is to investigate key issues encountered in the
design of transmission schemes and receiving techniques for Ultra Wideband
(UWB) communication systems. Based on different data rate applications,
this work is divided into two parts, where energy efficient and robust
physical layer solutions are proposed, respectively.
Due to a huge bandwidth of UWB signals, a considerable amount of multipath
arrivals with various path gains is resolvable at the receiver. For low
data rate impulse radio UWB systems, suboptimal non-coherent detection is a
simple way to effectively capture the multipath energy. Feasible techniques
that increase the power efficiency and the interference robustness of
non-coherent detection need to be investigated. For high data rate direct
sequence UWB systems, a large number of multipath arrivals results in
severe inter-/intra-symbol interference. Additionally, the system
performance may also be deteriorated by multi-user interference and
narrowband interference. It is necessary to develop advanced signal
processing techniques at the receiver to suppress these interferences.
Part I of this thesis deals with the co-design of signaling schemes and
receiver architectures in low data rate impulse radio UWB systems based on
non-coherent detection.â—Ź We analyze the bit error rate performance of
non-coherent detection and characterize a non-coherent combining loss,
i.e., a performance penalty with respect to coherent detection with maximum
ratio multipath combining. The thorough analysis of this loss is very
helpful for the design of transmission schemes and receive techniques
innon-coherent UWB communication systems.â—Ź We propose to use optical
orthogonal codes in a time hopping impulse radio UWB system based on an
analog non-coherent receiver. The “analog” means that the major part of
the multipath combining is implemented by an integrate and dump filter. The
introduced semi-analytical method can help us to easily select the time
hopping codes to ensure the robustness against the multi-user interference
and meanwhile to alleviate the non-coherent combining loss.â—Ź The main
contribution of Part I is the proposal of applying fully digital solutions
in non-coherent detection. The proposed digital non-coherent receiver is
based on a time domain analog-to-digital converter, which has a high speed
but a very low resolution to maintain a reasonable power consumption.
Compared to its analog counterpart, itnot only significantly reduces the
non-coherent combining loss but also offers a higher interference
robustness. In particular, the one-bit receiver can effectively suppress
strong multi-user interference and is thus advantageous in separating
simultaneously operating piconets.The fully digital solutions overcome the
difficulty of implementing long analog delay lines and make differential
UWB detection possible. They also facilitate the development of various
digital signal processing techniques such as multi-user detection and
non-coherent multipath combining methods as well as the use of advanced
modulationschemes (e.g., M-ary Walsh modulation).â—Ź Furthermore, we
present a novel impulse radio UWB system based on frequency hopping, where
both coherent and non-coherent receivers can be adopted. The key advantage
is that the baseband bandwidth can be considerably reduced (e.g., lower
than 500 MHz), which enables low-complexity implementation of the fully
digital solutions. It opens up various research activities in the
application field of wireless sensor networks.
Part II of this thesis proposes adaptive widely linear reduced-rank
techniques to suppress interferences for high data rate direct sequence UWB
systems, where second-order non-circular signals are used. The reduced-rank
techniques are designed to improve the convergence performance and the
interference robustness especially when the received vector contains a
large number of samples (due to a high sampling rate in UWB systems). The
widely linear processing takes full advantage of the second-order
statistics of the non-circular signals and enhances the estimation
performance. The generic widely linear reduced-rank concept also has a
great potential in the applications of other systems such as Direct
Sequence Code Division Multiple Access (DS-CDMA), Multiple Input Multiple
Output (MIMO) system, and Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), or
in other areas such as beamforming
On Secure and Precise IR-UWB Ranging
To provide high ranging precision in multipath environments, a ranging protocol should find the first arriving path, rather than the strongest path. We demonstrate a new attack vector that disrupts such precise Time-of-Arrival (ToA) estimation, and allows an adversary to decrease the measured distance by a value in the order of the channel spread (10-20 meters). This attack vector can be used in previously reported physical-communication-layer (PHY) attacks against secure ranging (or distance bounding). Furthermore, it creates a new type of attack based on malicious interference: This attack is much easier to mount than the previously known external PHY attack (distance-decreasing relay) and it can work even if secret preamble codes are used. We evaluate the effectiveness of this attack for a PHY that is particularly well suited for precise ranging in multipath environments: Impulse Radio Ultra-Wideband (IR-UWB). We show, with PHY simulations and experiments, that the attack is effective against a variety of receivers and modulation schemes. Furthermore, we identify and evaluate three types of countermeasures that allow for precise and secure ranging
Modulation and Multiple Access Techniques for Ultra-Wideband Communication Systems
Two new energy detection (ED) Ultra-Wideband (UWB) systems are proposed in this dissertation. The first one is an ED UWB system based on pulse width modulation (PWM). The bit error rate (BER) performance of this ED PWM system is slightly worse than ED pulse position modulation (PPM) system in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels. However, the BER performance of this ED PWM system surpasses that of a PPM system in multipath channels since a PWM system does not suffer cross-modulation interference (CMI) as a PPM system. In the presence of synchronization errors, the BER performance of a PWM system also surpasses that of a PPM system. The second proposed ED UWB system is based on using two pulses, which are the different-order derivatives of the Gaussian pulse, to transmitted bit 0 or 1. These pulses are appropriately chosen to separate their spectra in frequency domain.The receiver is composed of two energy detection branches and each branch has a filter which captures the signal energy of either bit 0 or 1. The outputs of two branches are subtracted from each other to generate the decision statistic and the value of this statistic is compared to a threshold to determine the transmitted bits. This system is named as acf{GFSK} system in this dissertation and it exhibits the same BER performance as a PPM system in AWGN channels. In multipath channels, a GFSK system surpasses a PPM system because it does not suffer CMI. And the BER performance of a GFSK system is better than a PPM system in the presence of synchronization errors. When a GFSK system is compared to a PWM system, it will always achieve approximately 2 dB improvement in AWGN channels, multipath channels, and in the presence synchronization errors. However, a PWM system uses lower-order derivatives of the Gaussian pulse to transmit signal, and this leads to a simple pulse generator. In this dissertation, an optimal threshold is applied to improve PPM system performance. The research results show that the application of an optimal threshold can e
Secure Neighbor Discovery and Ranging in Wireless Networks
This thesis addresses the security of two fundamental elements of wireless networking: neighbor discovery and ranging. Neighbor discovery consists in discovering devices available for direct communication or in physical proximity. Ranging, or distance bounding, consists in measuring the distance between devices, or providing an upper bound on this distance. Both elements serve as building blocks for a variety of services and applications, notably routing, physical access control, tracking and localization. However, the open nature of wireless networks makes it easy to abuse neighbor discovery and ranging, and thereby compromise overlying services and applications. To prevent this, numerous works proposed protocols that secure these building blocks. But two aspects crucial for the security of such protocols have received relatively little attention: formal verification and attacks on the physical-communication-layer. They are precisely the focus of this thesis. In the first part of the thesis, we contribute a formal analysis of secure communication neighbor discovery protocols. We build a formal model that captures salient characteristics of wireless systems such as node location, message propagation time and link variability, and we provide a specification of secure communication neighbor discovery. Then, we derive an impossibility result for a general class of protocols we term "time-based protocols", stating that no such protocol can provide secure communication neighbor discovery. We also identify the conditions under which the impossibility result is lifted. We then prove that specific protocols in the time-based class (under additional conditions) and specific protocols in a class we term "time- and location-based protocols," satisfy the neighbor discovery specification. We reinforce these results by mechanizing the model and the proofs in the theorem prover Isabelle. In the second part of the thesis, we explore physical-communication-layer attacks that can seemingly decrease the message arrival time without modifying its content. Thus, they can circumvent time-based neighbor discovery protocols and distance bounding protocols. (Indeed, they violate the assumptions necessary to prove protocol correctness in the first part of the thesis.) We focus on Impulse Radio Ultra-Wideband, a physical layer technology particularly well suited for implementing distance bounding, thanks to its ability to perform accurate indoor ranging. First, we adapt physical layer attacks reported in prior work to IEEE 802.15.4a, the de facto standard for Impulse Radio, and evaluate their performance. We show that an adversary can achieve a distance-decrease of up to hundreds of meters with an arbitrarily high probability of success, with only a minor cost in terms of transmission power (few dB). Next, we demonstrate a new attack vector that disrupts time-of-arrival estimation algorithms, in particular those designed to be precise. The distance-decrease achievable by this attack vector is in the order of the channel spread (order of 10 meters in indoor environments). This attack vector can be used in previously reported physical layer attacks, but it also creates a new type of external attack based on malicious interference. We demonstrate that variants of the malicious interference attack are much easier to mount than the previously reported external attack. We also provide design guidelines for modulation schemes and devise receiver algorithms that mitigate physical layer attacks. These countermeasures allow the system designer to trade off security, ranging precision and cost in terms of transmission power and packet length
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