LTE Indoor MIMO Performance and Antenna Configuration

Long-term evolution (LTE) and multiple input multiple output (MIMO) have earned reputations to be a cutting‒edge technology, which can boost significantly wireless communication performances. However, many aspects influence on LTE MIMO efficiency; those include propagation environments and antenna configurations. The goal of the thesis is to study performances of LTE MIMO on downlink in indoor. MIMO gains over transmit diversity and single antenna are the objective. Additionally, the study compares MIMO indoor performances with different antenna configurations at LTE base station and UE, including space diversity and polarization diversity. Some results obtained in this thesis follow the expectations what have been studied in literature and previous practical studies but some differences are also pointed out. Medium access control throughput (MAC TP) and some system parameters in LTE network that are linked with TP are analysed; those parameters are CQI, MCS as well as MIMO utilization. Effects of indoor propagation, such as LoS, NLoS, good and bad signal levels on SNR strength and MIMO utilization are clarified. In overall, MIMO outperforms transmit diversity (TxDiv) and single antenna in LTE indoor. The overall MIMO MAC TP gains are about nearly 40.0% over TxDiv and more than 20.0% over single stream. LoS environment boost SNR strength. Hence, up to 35.0% TP gain over single antenna is achieved. However, LoS signals make the channel become correlated due to lack of multipaths, causing that MIMO is not fully utilized. The gain of MIMO over single antenna is reduced at no LoS environments, particularly only around 17.0% and 21.0% MAC TP gains are recorded at NLoS channels with good signal levels and weak signal strength, relatively. The overall TP gain the UE experiences by using TxDiv over single antenna is roughly more than 20.0%, but LoS environment limits TxDiv performance. Hence, at LoS channel, TxDiv performance is reduced by around 2.0% compared to single stream. The worse the channel, the better TxDiv performs. The highest gain is at cell edge environment when TxDiv improves throughput more than 40.0% over single antenna. Clearly, antenna configuration impacts network performance. Large horizontal separation (7λ) between antenna elements outperforms small separation (0.5λ) in terms of SNR, MIMO utilization and MAC TP. The MAC TPs of large separation by using omni-directional and directional antennas are almost similar, around 27.0 Mbps. Space diversity with omni-directional antennas provides roughly 14.0% MAC TP improvement while only approximately 4.5% TP gain can be achieved with directional antennas. Vertical‒horizontal polarization pair deployed at LTE base station is found to provide better performance over vertical‒vertical polarization and X‒pol pairs. Signals also appear to be more correlated with vertical-horizontal polarization pair since MIMO utilization gets better values, MIMO utilization gains are around 18.0% over vertical-vertical polarization pair and 6.0% over X-pol pair, resulting in around 31.7% and 17.0% MAC TP gains over the two latter, relatively. The results also point out that changing polarizations at UE do not give clear MAC TP and MIMO utilization improvements. From the radio network planning point of view, the results obtained in this thesis can be considered as guidelines for indoor network planning and optimization for network operators. It is important to conclude that based on the measurements made in this thesis, space diversity (7λ) with omni-directional antennas and vertical-horizontal polarization pairs appear to give optimal indoor performance. However, it should be taken into consideration that all results presented in this thesis are highly dependable on the chosen antennas, LTE network systems, devices and indoor environment where the measurements are carried out. Hence, the results may vary with the factors mentioned

Enhancing wireless local area networks by leveraging diverse frequency resources

In this thesis, signal propagation variations that are experience over the frequency resources of IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) are studied. It is found that exploitation of these variations can improve several aspects of wireless communication systems. To this aim, frequency varying behavior is addressed at two different levels. First, the intra-channel scale is considered, i.e. variations over the continuous frequency block that a device uses for a cohesive transmission. Variations at this level are well known but current wireless systems restrict to basic equalization techniques to balance the received signal. In contrast, this work shows that more fine grained adaptation to these differences can accomplish throughput and connection range gains. Second, multi-frequency band enabled devices that access widely differing frequency resources in the millimeter wave range as well as in the microwave range are analyzed. These devices that are expected to follow the IEEE 802.11ad specification experience intense propagation variations over their frequency resources. Thus, a part of this thesis revises, the theoretical specification of the IEEE 802.11ad standard and complements it by a measurement study of first generation millimeter wave devices. This study reveals deficiencies of first generation millimeter wave systems, whose improvement will pose new challenges to the protocol design of future generation systems. These challenges are than addressed by novel methods that leverage from frequency varying propagation characteristics. The first method, improves the beam training process of millimeter wave networks, that need highly directional, though electronically steered, transmissions to overcome increased free space attenuation. By leveraging from omni-directional signal propagation at the microwave bands, efficient direction interference is utilized to provide information to millimeter wave interfaces and replace brute force direction testing. Second, deafness effects at the millimeter wave band, which impact IEEE 802.11 channel access methods are addressed. As directional communication on these bands complicates sensing the medium to be busy or idle, inefficiencies and unfairness are implied. By using coordination message exchange on the legacyWi-Fi frequencies with omnidirectional communication properties, these effects are countered. The millimeter wave bands can thus unfold their full potential, being exclusively used for high speed data frame transmission.Programa Oficial de Doctorado en Ingeniería TelemáticaPresidente: Ralf Steinmetz.- Secretario: Albert Banchs Roca.- Vocal: Kyle Jamieso

Practical investigation of Butler matrix application for beamforming with circular antenna arrays

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Mobile Ad hoc Networking: Imperatives and Challenges

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) represent complex distributed systems that comprise wireless mobile nodes that can freely and dynamically self-organize into arbitrary and temporary, "ad-hoc" network topologies, allowing people and devices to seamlessly internetwork in areas with no pre-existing communication infrastructure, e.g., disaster recovery environments. Ad hoc networking concept is not a new one, having been around in various forms for over 20 years. Traditionally, tactical networks have been the only communication networking application that followed the ad hoc paradigm. Recently, the introduction of new technologies such as the Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11 and Hyperlan are helping enable eventual commercial MANET deployments outside the military domain. These recent evolutions have been generating a renewed and growing interest in the research and development of MANET. This paper attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of this dynamic field. It first explains the important role that mobile ad hoc networks play in the evolution of future wireless technologies. Then, it reviews the latest research activities in these areas, including a summary of MANET\u27s characteristics, capabilities, applications, and design constraints. The paper concludes by presenting a set of challenges and problems requiring further research in the future

Optimisation of wireless communication system by exploitation of channel diversity

Communication systems are susceptible to degradation in performance because of interference received through their side lobes. The interference may be deliberate electronic counter measure (ECM), Accidental RF Interference (RFI) or natural noise. The growth of interference communication systems have given rise to different algorithms, Adaptive array techniques offer a possible solution to this problem of interference received through side lobes because of their automatic null steering in both spatial and frequency domains. Key requirement for space-time architecture is to use robust adaptive algorithms to ensure reliable operation of the smart antenna. Space division multiple access (SDMA) involves the use of adaptive nulling to allow two or more users (mobiles) in the same cell to share same frequency and time slot. One beam is formed for each user with nulls in the direction of other users. Different approaches have been used to identify the interferer from desired user. Thus a basic model for determining the angle of arrival of incoming signals, an appropriate antenna beam forming and adaptive algorithms are used for array processing. There is an insatiable demand for capacity in wireless data networks and cellular radio communication systems. However the RF environment that these systems operate in is harsh and severely limits the capacity of traditional digital wireless networks. With normal wireless systems this limits the data rate in cellular radio environments to approximately 200 kbps whereas much higher data rates in excess of 25Mbps are required. A common wireless channel problem is that of frequency selective multi-path fading. To combat this problem, new types of wireless interface are being developed which utilise space, time and frequency diversity to provide increasing resilience to the channel imperfections. At any instant in time, the channel conditions may be such that one or more of these diversity methods may offer a superior performance to the other diversity methods. The overall aim of the research is to develop new systems that use a novel combination of smart antenna MIMO techniques and an advanced communication system based on advanced system configuration that could be exploited by IEEE 802.20 user specification approach for broadband wireless networking. The new system combines the Multi-input Multi-output communication system with frequency diversity in the form of an OFDM modulator. The benefits of each approach are examined under similar channel conditions and results presented.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

A Sliding Correlator Channel Sounder for Ultra-Wideband Measurements

This body of work forms a detailed and comprehensive guide for those interested in performing broadband wireless channel measurements. Discussion addresses the theoretical and practical aspects of designing and implementing a sliding correlator channel sounder, as well as how such a system may be used to measure and model the ultra-wideband wireless channel. The specific contributions of this work are as follows: Developed a systematic methodology for designing optimal sliding correlator-based channel sounders. Constructed a UWB channel sounder based upon a 17-bit LFSR that attained 1.66 ns of temporal resolution and 34 dB of dynamic range. Performed an exemplary measurement campaign of the UWB channel from which UWB angular spreads and RMS delay spreads are reported. The design procedure developed in Chapter 3 will allow researchers to build optimal channel sounders for investigating next-generation wireless channels. Chapter 4 s discussion addresses the real-world challenges of constructing a high performance sliding correlator channel sounder. Finally, the measurement campaign discussed in Chapter 5 outlines a procedure for investigating the spatio-temporal characteristics of the wireless channel and provides some of the first examples of UWB angular spread measurements.M.S.Committee Chair: Durgin, Gregory; Committee Member: Ingram, Mary Ann; Committee Member: Smith, Whi

Mimo Communication Systems with Reconfigurable Antennas

RÉSUMÉ Les antennes reconfigurables sont capables d'ajuster dynamiquement les caractéristiques de leur diagramme de rayonnement, par exemple, la forme, la direction et la polarisation, en réponse aux conditions environnementales et exigences du système. Ces antennes peuvent aussi être utilisées en conjonction avec des systèmes à entrées multiples sorties multiples (MIMO) pour améliorer davantage la capacité et la fiabilité des systèmes sans fil. Cette thèse étudie certains des problèmes dans les systèmes sans fil équipés d'antennes reconfigurables et propose des solutions pour améliorer la performance du système. Dans les systèmes sans fil utilisant des antennes reconfigurables, la performance atteignable par le système dépend fortement de la connaissance de la direction d'arrivée (DoA) des signaux souhaités et des interférences. Dans la première partie de cette thèse, nous proposons un nouvel algorithme d'estimation de la DoA pour les systèmes à entrer simple et sortie simple (SISO) qui possèdent un élément d'antenne reconfigurable au niveau du récepteur. Contrairement à un système utilisant un réseau d'antennes conventionnelles à diagramme de rayonnement fixe, où la DoA est estimée en utilisant les signaux reçus par plusieurs éléments, dans le réseau d'antennes avec l'algorithme proposé, la DoA est estimée en utilisant des signaux reçus d'un élément d'antenne unique pendant qu'il balai un ensemble de configurations de diagramme de rayonnement. Nous étudions aussi l'impact des différentes caractéristiques des diagrammes de rayonnement utilisés, tels que la largeur du faisceau de l'antenne et le nombre d'étapes de numérisation, sur l'exactitude de la DoA estimée. Dans la deuxième partie de cette thèse, nous proposons un système de MIMO faible complexité employant des antennes reconfigurables sur les canaux sélectifs en fréquence pour atténuer les êtes de trajets multiples et donc éliminer l'interférence entre symboles sans utiliser la technique de modulation multiplexage orthogonale fréquentiel (OFDM). Nous étudions aussi l'impact de la propagation et de l'antenne angulaire largeur de faisceau sur la performance du système proposé et faire la comparaison avec la performance du système MIMO-OFDM. Dans la troisième partie de cette thèse, nous fournissons des outils analytiques pour analyser la performance des systèmes sans _l MIMO équipés d'antennes reconfigurables au niveau du récepteur. Nous dérivons d'abord des expressions analytiques pour le calcul de la matrice de covariance des coefficients des signaux reçus empiétant sur un réseau d'antennes reconfigurables en tenant compte de plusieurs caractéristiques de l'antenne tels que la largeur du faisceau, l'espacement d'antenne, l'angle de pointage ainsi que le gain de l'antenne. Dans cette partie, nous considérons un récepteur MIMO reconfigurable où le diagramme de rayonnement de chaque élément d'antenne dans le réseau peut avoir des caractéristiques différentes. Nous étudions également la capacité d'un système MIMO reconfigurable en utilisant les expressions analytiques dérivées.----------ABSTRACT Reconfigurable antennas are able to dynamically adjust their radiation pattern characteristics, e.g., shape, direction and polarization, in response to environmental conditions and system requirements. These antennas can be used in conjunction with multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems to further enhance the capacity and reliability of wireless networks. This dissertation studies some of the issues in wireless cellular systems equipped with reconfigurable antennas and offer solutions to enhance their performance. In wireless systems employing reconfigurable antennas, the attainable performance improvement highly depends on the knowledge of direction-of-arrival (DoA) of the desired source signals and that of the interferences. In the first part of this dissertation, we propose a novel DoA estimation algorithm for single-input single-output (SISO) system with a reconfigurable antenna element at the receiver. Unlike a conventional antenna array system with fixed radiation pattern where the DoA is estimated using the signals received by multiple elements, in the proposed algorithm, we estimate the DoA using signals collected from a set of radiation pattern states also called scanning steps. We, in addition, investigate the impact of different radiation pattern characteristics such as antenna beamwidth and number of scanning steps on the accuracy of the estimated DoA. In the second part of this dissertation, we propose a low-complexity MIMO system employing reconfigurable antennas over the frequency-selective channels to mitigate multipath effects and therefore remove inter symbol interference without using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation. We study the impact of angular spread and antenna beamwidth on the performance of the proposed system and make comparisons with that of MIMO-OFDM system equipped with omnidirectional antennas. In the third part of this dissertation, we provide an analytical tool to analyze the performance of MIMO wireless systems equipped with reconfigurable antennas at the receiver. We first derive analytical expressions for computing the covariance matrix coefficients of the received signals impinging on a reconfigurable antenna array by taking into account several antenna characteristics such as beamwidth, antenna spacing, antenna pointing angle, and antenna gain. In this part, we consider a reconfigurable MIMO receiver where the radiation pattern of each antenna element in the array can have different characteristics. We, additionally, study the capacity of a reconfigurable MIMO system using the derived analytical expressions