Waveform Advancements and Synchronization Techniques for Generalized Frequency Division Multiplexing

To enable a new level of connectivity among machines as well as between people and machines, future wireless applications will demand higher requirements on data rates, response time, and reliability from the communication system. This will lead to a different system design, comprising a wide range of deployment scenarios. One important aspect is the evolution of physical layer (PHY), specifically the waveform modulation. The novel generalized frequency division multiplexing (GFDM) technique is a prominent proposal for a flexible block filtered multicarrier modulation. This thesis introduces an advanced GFDM concept that enables the emulation of other prominent waveform candidates in scenarios where they perform best. Hence, a unique modulation framework is presented that is capable of addressing a wide range of scenarios and to upgrade the PHY for 5G networks. In particular, for a subset of system parameters of the modulation framework, the problem of symbol time offset (STO) and carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation is investigated and synchronization approaches, which can operate in burst and continuous transmissions, are designed. The first part of this work presents the modulation principles of prominent 5G candidate waveforms and then focuses on the GFDM basic and advanced attributes. The GFDM concept is extended towards the use of OQAM, introducing the novel frequency-shift OQAM-GFDM, and a new low complexity model based on signal processing carried out in the time domain. A new prototype filter proposal highlights the benefits obtained in terms of a reduced out-of-band (OOB) radiation and more attractive hardware implementation cost. With proper parameterization of the advanced GFDM, the achieved gains are applicable to other filtered OFDM waveforms. In the second part, a search approach for estimating STO and CFO in GFDM is evaluated. A self-interference metric is proposed to quantify the effective SNR penalty caused by the residual time and frequency misalignment or intrinsic inter-symbol interference (ISI) and inter-carrier interference (ICI) for arbitrary pulse shape design in GFDM. In particular, the ICI can be used as a non-data aided approach for frequency estimation. Then, GFDM training sequences, defined either as an isolated preamble or embedded as a midamble or pseudo-circular pre/post-amble, are designed. Simulations show better OOB emission and good estimation results, either comparable or superior, to state-of-the-art OFDM system in wireless channels

Novel Physical Layer Authentication Techniques for Secure Wireless Communications

Due to the open nature of radio propagation, information security in wireless communications has been facing more challenges compared to its counterpart in wired networks. Authentication, defined as an important aspect of information security, is the process of verifying the identity of transmitters to prevent against spoofing attacks. Traditionally, secure wireless communications is achieved by relying solely upon higher layer cryptographic mechanisms. However, cryptographic approaches based on complex mathematical calculations are inefficient and vulnerable to various types of attacks. Recently, researchers have shown that the unique properties of wireless channels can be exploited for authentication enhancement by providing additional security protection against spoofing attacks. Motivated by the vulnerability of existing higher-layer security techniques and the security advantages provided by exploring the physical link properties, five novel physical layer authentication techniques to enhance the security performance of wireless systems are proposed. The first technique exploits the inherent properties of CIR to achieve robust channel-based authentication. The second and third techniques utilize a long-range channel predictor and additional multipath delay characteristics, respectively, to enhance the CIR-based authentication. The fourth technique exploits the advantages of AF cooperative relaying to improve traditional channel-based authentication. The last technique employs an embedded confidential signaling link to secure the legitimate transmissions in OFDM systems

Orthogonal Pseudo-Random Sequence Enabled Cognitive and Emergency Communications

With the ever-increasing demands for the broadband mobile communications, it is becoming more and more difficult to accommodate all existing and emerging wireless services and applications due to the limited communication resources particularly radio spectrum. In addition, system parameters of wireless communications often need to be adapted due to the variation of channel characteristics and user demands. Cognitive communication is emerged as an effective technique, particularly to improve the utilization rate of limited communication resources adaptively according to the change in its operating conditions and requirements. To handle these challenges efficiently and reliably in cognitive radio scenario, cyclic prefix (CP) of the OFDM system is precoded in this thesis using pseudo-random sequence. This signaling link can effectively carry transmission parameters and system adaptation information. In first part of the thesis, mutual interference minimization and transmission power adaptation enabled by the additional signaling link are also investigated. In order to make use of this precoded cyclic prefix (PCP) signaling link, an efficient demodulation scheme is needed to reduce the implementation complexity. Therefore, a low complexity signaling demodulator along with a multipath combining technique to further improve the performance in real communication scenario like in multipath channel is proposed in the thesis. The final aspect of this thesis is the investigation of a robust communication system using digital television (DTV) transmitter identification watermark signal which is also a modulated pseudo-random sequence. The previous study on PCP signaling is thus extended to an emergency communication system using DTV watermark. It is found that watermark based communication system is more robust than the DTV broadcasting and can reach a much wider coverage with significantly increased network reliability, which is suitable for national emergency situations

Advanced digital signal processing for coherent optical OFDM transmissions

Coherent optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CO-OFDM) has been actively considered as a potential candidate for long-haul transmission and 400 Gb/s to 1 Tb/s Ethernet transport because of its high spectral efficiency, efficient implementation, flexibility and robustness against linear impairments such as chromatic dispersion and polarization mode dispersion. However, due to the long symbol duration and narrow subcarrier spacing, CO-OFDM systems are sensitive to laser phase noise and fibre nonlinearity induced penalties. As a result, the development of CO-OFDM transmission technology crucially relies on efficient techniques to compensate for the laser phase noise and fibre nonlinearity impairments. In this thesis, high performance and low complexity digital signal processing techniques for laser phase noise and fibre nonlinearity compensation in CO-OFDM transmissions are demonstrated. For laser phase noise compensation, three novel techniques, namely quasipilot-aided, decision-directed-free blind and multiplier-free blind are introduced. For fibre nonlinear compensation, two novel techniques which are referred to as phase conjugated pilots and phase conjugated subcarrier coding, are proposed. All these abovementioned digital signal processing techniques offer high performances and flexibilities while requiring relatively low complexities in comparison with other existing phase noise and nonlinear compensation techniques. As a result of the developments of these digital signal processing techniques, CO-OFDM technology is expected to play a significant role in future ultra-high capacity optical network. In addition, this thesis also presents preliminary study on nonlinear Fourier transform based transmission schemes in which OFDM is a highly suitable modulation format. The obtained result paves the way towards a truly flexible nonlinear wave-division multiplexing system that allows the current nonlinear transmission limitations to be exceeded

Power allocation and signal labelling on physical layer security

PhD ThesisSecure communications between legitimate users have received considerable attention recently. Transmission cryptography, which introduces secrecy on the network layer, is heavily relied on conventionally to secure communications. However, it is theoretically possible to break the encryption if unlimited computational resource is provided. As a result, physical layer security becomes a hot topic as it provides perfect secrecy from an information theory perspective. The study of physical layer security on real communication system model is challenging and important, as the previous researches are mainly focusing on the Gaussian input model which is not practically implementable. In this thesis, the physical layer security of wireless networks employing finite-alphabet input schemes are studied. In particular, firstly, the secrecy capacity of the single-input single-output (SISO) wiretap channel model with coded modulation (CM) and bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) is derived in closed-form, while a fast, sub-optimal power control policy (PCP) is presented to maximize the secrecy capacity performance. Since finite-alphabet input schemes achieve maximum secrecy capacity at medium SNR range, the maximum amount of energy that the destination can harvest from the transmission while satisfying the secrecy rate constraint is computed. Secondly, the effects of mapping techniques on secrecy capacity of BICM scheme are investigated, the secrecy capacity performances of various known mappings are compared on 8PSK, 16QAM and (1,5,10) constellations, showing that Gray mapping obtains lowest secrecy capacity value at high SNRs. We propose a new mapping algorithm, called maximum error event (MEE), to optimize the secrecy capacity over a wide range of SNRs. At low SNR, MEE mapping achieves a lower secrecy rate than other well-known mappings, but at medium-to-high SNRs MEE mapping achieves a significantly higher secrecy rate over a wide range of SNRs. Finally, the secrecy capacity and power allocation algorithm (PA) of finite-alphabet input wiretap channels with decode-and-forward (DF) relays are proposed, the simulation results are compared with the equal power allocation algorithm

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationVisualization and exploration of volumetric datasets has been an active area of research for over two decades. During this period, volumetric datasets used by domain users have evolved from univariate to multivariate. The volume datasets are typically explored and classified via transfer function design and visualized using direct volume rendering. To improve classification results and to enable the exploration of multivariate volume datasets, multivariate transfer functions emerge. In this dissertation, we describe our research on multivariate transfer function design. To improve the classification of univariate volumes, various one-dimensional (1D) or two-dimensional (2D) transfer function spaces have been proposed; however, these methods work on only some datasets. We propose a novel transfer function method that provides better classifications by combining different transfer function spaces. Methods have been proposed for exploring multivariate simulations; however, these approaches are not suitable for complex real-world datasets and may be unintuitive for domain users. To this end, we propose a method based on user-selected samples in the spatial domain to make complex multivariate volume data visualization more accessible for domain users. However, this method still requires users to fine-tune transfer functions in parameter space transfer function widgets, which may not be familiar to them. We therefore propose GuideME, a novel slice-guided semiautomatic multivariate volume exploration approach. GuideME provides the user, an easy-to-use, slice-based user interface that suggests the feature boundaries and allows the user to select features via click and drag, and then an optimal transfer function is automatically generated by optimizing a response function. Throughout the exploration process, the user does not need to interact with the parameter views at all. Finally, real-world multivariate volume datasets are also usually of large size, which is larger than the GPU memory and even the main memory of standard work stations. We propose a ray-guided out-of-core, interactive volume rendering and efficient query method to support large and complex multivariate volumes on standard work stations

VAS Demonstration Sounding Workshop: The Proceedings of a satellite sounding workshop

Retrieval techniques that yield satellite derived temperature and moisture profiles are considered, with emphasis on TIROS-N and VISSR atmospheric sounder measurements. Topics covered include operational sounding, colocation concepts, correcting cloud errors, and the First GARP Global Experiment