Performance comparison of blind and non-blind channel equalizers using artificial neural networks

In digital communication systems, multipath propagation induces Inter Symbol Interference (ISI). To reduce the effect of ISI different channel equalization algorithms are used. Complex equalization algorithms allow for achieving the best performance but they do not meet the requirements for implementation of real-time detection at low complexity, thus limiting their application. In this paper, we present different blind and non-blind equalization structures based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and, also, we analyze their complexity versus performance. Since the activation function at the output layer depends on the cost function with respect to the input, in the present work we use mean squared error as loss function for the output layer. The simulated network is based on multilayer feedforward perceptron ANN, which is trained by utilizing the error back-propagation algorithm. The weights of the network are updated in accordance with training of the network to improve the convergence speed. Simulation results demonstrate that the implementation of equalizers using ANN provides an upper hand over the performance and computational complexity with respect to conventional methods

Efficient channel equalization algorithms for multicarrier communication systems

Blind adaptive algorithm that updates time-domain equalizer (TEQ) coefficients by Adjacent Lag Auto-correlation Minimization (ALAM) is proposed to shorten the channel for multicarrier modulation (MCM) systems. ALAM is an addition to the family of several existing correlation based algorithms that can achieve similar or better performance to existing algorithms with lower complexity. This is achieved by designing a cost function without the sum-square and utilizing symmetrical-TEQ property to reduce the complexity of adaptation of TEQ to half of the existing one. Furthermore, to avoid the limitations of lower unstable bit rate and high complexity, an adaptive TEQ using equal-taps constraints (ETC) is introduced to maximize the bit rate with the lowest complexity. An IP core is developed for the low-complexity ALAM (LALAM) algorithm to be implemented on an FPGA. This implementation is extended to include the implementation of the moving average (MA) estimate for the ALAM algorithm referred as ALAM-MA. Unit-tap constraint (UTC) is used instead of unit-norm constraint (UNC) while updating the adaptive algorithm to avoid all zero solution for the TEQ taps. The IP core is implemented on Xilinx Vertix II Pro XC2VP7-FF672-5 for ADSL receivers and the gate level simulation guaranteed successful operation at a maximum frequency of 27 MHz and 38 MHz for ALAM-MA and LALAM algorithm, respectively. FEQ equalizer is used, after channel shortening using TEQ, to recover distorted QAM signals due to channel effects. A new analytical learning based framework is proposed to jointly solve equalization and symbol detection problems in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems with QAM signals. The framework utilizes extreme learning machine (ELM) to achieve fast training, high performance, and low error rates. The proposed framework performs in real-domain by transforming a complex signal into a single 2–tuple real-valued vector. Such transformation offers equalization in real domain with minimum computational load and high accuracy. Simulation results show that the proposed framework outperforms other learning based equalizers in terms of symbol error rates and training speeds