Energy-efficient diversity combining for different access schemes in a multi-path dispersive channel

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia Electrotécnica e ComputadoresThe forthcoming generation of mobile communications, 5G, will settle a new standard for a larger bandwidth and better Quality of Service (QoS). With the exploding growth rate of user generated data, wireless standards must cope with this growth and at the same time be energy efficient to avoid depleting the batteries of wireless devices. Besides these issues, in a broadband wireless setting QoS can be severely affected from a multipath dispersive channel and therefore be energy demanding. Cross-layered architectures are a good choice to enhance the overall performance of a wireless system. Examples of cross-layered Physical (PHY) - Medium Access Control (MAC) architectures are type-II Diversity Combining (DC) Hybrid-ARQ (H-ARQ) and Multi-user Detection (MUD) schemes. Cross-layered type-II DC H-ARQ schemes reuse failed packet transmissions to enhance data reception on posterior retransmissions; MUD schemes reuse data information from previously collided packets on posterior retransmissions to enhance data reception. For a multipath dispersive channel, a PHY layer analytical model is proposed for Single-Carrier with Frequency Domain Equalization (SC-FDE) that supports DC H-ARQ and MUD. Based on this analytical model, three PHY-MAC protocols are proposed. A crosslayered Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) scheme that uses DC H-ARQ is modeled and its performance is studied in this document; the performance analysis shows that the scheme performs better with DC and achieves a better energy efficiency at the cost of a higher delay. A novel cross-layered prefix-assisted Direct-Sequence Code Division Multiple Access (DS-CDMA) scheme is proposed and modeled in this document, it uses principles of DC and MUD. This protocol performs better by means of additional retransmissions, achieving better energy efficiency, at the cost of higher redundancy from a code spreading gain. Finally, a novel cross-layered protocol H-ARQ Network Division Multiple Access (H-NDMA) is proposed and modeled, where the combination of DC H-ARQ and MUD is used with the intent of maximizing the system capacity with a lower delay; system results show that the proposed scheme achieves better energy efficiency and a better performance at the cost of a higher number of retransmissions. A comparison of the three cross-layered protocols is made, using the PHY analytical model, under normalized conditions using the same amount of maximum redundancy. Results show that the H-NDMA protocol, in general, obtains the best results, achieving a good performance and a good energy efficiency for a high channel load and low Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). TDMA with DC H-ARQ achieves the best energy efficiency, although presenting the worst delay. Prefix-assisted DS-CDMA in the other hand shows good delay results but presents the worst throughput and energy efficiency

Serviços pós-4G em redes de satélite LEO com recepção multi-pacote e com handover

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de ComputadoresUm pacote com erros, quer seja devido à existência de colisões ou ruído no canal, é normalmente descartado e necessita de ser retransmitido, levando a perdas de desempenho. A junção do protocolo H-ARQ (Hybrid Automatic Retransmission reQuest) com técnicas de recepção multi-pacote e com diversidade temporal como o NDMA (Network Diversity Multiple Access), melhoram o desempenho, visto terem a capacidade de pedir transmissões extra e combinar todos os sinais recebidos no mesmo período. Contudo, o atraso provocado pelo tempo de ida e volta na comunicação com uma rede de satélites, limita o número de retransmissões que possam ser pedidas pelos terminais para garantir qualidade de serviço. Esta tese considera o desenho de um protocolo híbrido que combina H-ARQ com NDMA para redes satélites com tráfego atribuído a pedido. O protocolo S-NDMA (Satellite NDMA) é apresentado, juntamente com modelos analíticos para o seu desempenho. É analisada a sua eficiência energética, tendo em conta requisitos de qualidade de serviço (QoS). O sistema é feito para satélites de órbita baixa (LEO) e com SC-FDE (Single-Carrier with Frequency Domain Equalization). É feita também uma comparação de desempenhos deste esquema com H-NDMA (Hybrid-NDMA), mostrando que é eficiente em termos energéticos e que cumpre requisitos de QoS para serviços exigentes como videochamadas. São necessários vários satélites para cobrir uma vasta área do planeta. Como os satélites estão em constante movimento, a zona de cobertura associada a cada satélite também se desloca. Isto leva a uma necessidade do terminal móvel trocar constantemente de ligação para um novo satélite. Nesta dissertação são propostos dois esquemas para S-NDMA: o tradicional com interrupção temporária de ligação, e um novo com continuidade de ligação baseado em SIMO distribuído. São estudadas a viabilidade e desempenho dos dois esquemas, analisando-se a eficiência energética, o efeito de Doppler, o ponto óptimo de troca e o atraso no tempo na comunicação entre terminais móveis e satélites

Transmission and Combining for Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request in Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Systems

Hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) schemes combine packet retransmission with forward error correction to ensure a reliable communications. In multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) systems, interference cancellation (IC) detection is widely used where the detection and cancellation steps of the simultaneously transmitted data streams occur. In principle, the signal stream estimated at one IC stage is utilized to cancel the interference of other signal streams at the next IC stage. Thus, the detection probabilities of the transmitted data streams are mutually dependent. With HARQ, the detection performance of a packet also depends on how many times the packet has been retransmitted. The dissertation consists of three main contributions. Firstly, we develop a HARQ transmission state control algorithm for MIMO systems with IC detection to improve throughput. The HARQ transmission state is defined as the distribution of the initial packets and retransmission packets transmitted during a packet transmission time interval (PTTI). The proposed algorithm generates the transmission state in which initial packets and retransmission packets are sent together. The outcome is that it achieves a lower error probability for initial packets by exploiting the IC process and a significantly higher throughput than the conventional HARQ system, which is verified by simulation results. However, the maximum allowable number of retransmission is limited to one in this algorithm. Secondly, in order to extend the analysis for a more general case, we define the concept of the effective interference level (EIL) as the performance parameter to choose the set of packets during one PTTI and establish a relationship between EIL and the effective signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). We then show that choosing the set of packets that minimize the EIL successively from the lowest to the highest HARQ round leads to a lower packet error and higher throughput than conventional HARQ, which is verified by simulation. Also, the proposed EIL based scheme uses only the acknowledgement feedback messages like a conventional HARQ, because the number of HARQ rounds of each packet is the only required information to calculate the EIL. Simulation results highlight the superiority of the proposed scheme over the conventional scheme in terms of throughput with the signal-to-noise ratio gain of about 4.2 dB at maximum for MIMO systems with four transmit and four receive antennas. Thirdly, a low-complexity symbol-level combining (SLC) scheme is developed for Chase combining based HARQ (CC-HARQ) in MIMO systems, when the linear detection is considered at the receiver. In the proposed scheme, instead of using the entire channel matrix as in the existing SLC schemes, a subset of row vectors in the channel matrix is selected in the proposed scheme, and the selected row vectors are sequentially used during the estimation procedures of the retransmitted symbols, where the sequential utilization is enabled by using the Sherman-Morrison-Woodbury (SMW) lemma. Therefore, according to the number of the selected row vectors, this approach enables the proposed SLC scheme to have an advantage in complexity compared to the existing SLC schemes. In addition, we develop a row vector selection criterion for the proposed scheme to compute the amount of the SINR improvement by using a squared norm of each row vector with a significantly lower computational complexity. Simulation results show that compared to the existing SLC schemes, the proposed SLC scheme achieves similar or better error performance, while its computational complexity is lower or in the worst case similar

Radio Communications

In the last decades the restless evolution of information and communication technologies (ICT) brought to a deep transformation of our habits. The growth of the Internet and the advances in hardware and software implementations modified our way to communicate and to share information. In this book, an overview of the major issues faced today by researchers in the field of radio communications is given through 35 high quality chapters written by specialists working in universities and research centers all over the world. Various aspects will be deeply discussed: channel modeling, beamforming, multiple antennas, cooperative networks, opportunistic scheduling, advanced admission control, handover management, systems performance assessment, routing issues in mobility conditions, localization, web security. Advanced techniques for the radio resource management will be discussed both in single and multiple radio technologies; either in infrastructure, mesh or ad hoc networks

Distributed Coding and Modulation for 2-hop Communication via Relays

The past few decades have seen tremendous growth in the field of wireless communication systems. At this juncture, just before the advent of the 4th Generation of mobile standards, the question asked is how to improve the system in terms of coverage, capacity and reliability for the cell-edge users in a cellular network. Providing answers to this question could result in a significant improvement in the average throughput of the cell. The main purpose of the thesis work is therefore to implement Cooperative Communication via Distributed System of Relays. This concept is derived from the combination of relaying technology and multiple antenna techniques used in MIMO systems. During this thesis work, two transmit diversity schemes: the Delay Diversity Scheme and the Distributed Alamouti Scheme are developed on a 3GPP LTE compliant platform described as the OpenAir Interface. The ultimate objective is basically to improve the system performance by exploiting macro-diversity gains obtained as a result of these schemes. In the process of this development, numerous challenging tasks are provided with efficient solutions and have been implemented. Moreover, the last but the most crucial task of the thesis is to develop an entirely new HARQ protocol for a distributed system of relays. The work has been carried out at Eurecom, France as an initial step to implement the aforementioned schemes on a real-time network

S-RLNC based MAC Optimization for Multimedia Data Transmission over LTE/LTE-A Network

The high pace emergence in communication systems and associated demands has triggered academia-industries to achieve more efficient solution for Quality of Service (QoS) delivery for which recently introduced Long Term Evolution (LTE) or LTE-Advanced has been found as a promising solution. However, enabling QoS and Quality of Experience (QoE) delivery for multimedia data over LTE has always been a challenging task. QoS demands require reliable data transmission with minimum signalling overheads, computational complexity, minimum latency etc, for which classical Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HREQ) based LTE-MAC is not sufficient. To alleviate these issues, in this paper a novel and robust Multiple Generation Mixing (MGM) assisted Systematic Random Linear Network Coding (S-RLNC) model is developed to be used at the top of LTE MAC protocol stack for multimedia data transmission over LTE/LTE-A system. Our proposed model incorporated interleaving and coding approach along with MGM to ensure secure, resource efficient and reliable multiple data delivery over LTE systems. The simulation results reveal that our proposed S-RLNC-MGM based MAC can ensure QoS/QoE delivery over LTE systems for multimedia data communication

EXIT charts for system design and analysis

Near-capacity performance may be achieved with the aid of iterative decoding, where extrinsic soft information is exchanged between the constituent decoders in order to improve the attainable system performance. Extrinsic information Transfer (EXIT) charts constitute a powerful semi-analytical tool used for analysing and designing iteratively decoded systems. In this tutorial, we commence by providing a rudimentary overview of the iterative decoding principle and the concept of soft information exchange. We then elaborate on the concept of EXIT charts using three iteratively decoded prototype systems as design examples. We conclude by illustrating further applications of EXIT charts, including near-capacity designs, the concept of irregular codes and the design of modulation schemes

An Overview of Physical Layer Security with Finite-Alphabet Signaling

Providing secure communications over the physical layer with the objective of achieving perfect secrecy without requiring a secret key has been receiving growing attention within the past decade. The vast majority of the existing studies in the area of physical layer security focus exclusively on the scenarios where the channel inputs are Gaussian distributed. However, in practice, the signals employed for transmission are drawn from discrete signal constellations such as phase shift keying and quadrature amplitude modulation. Hence, understanding the impact of the finite-alphabet input constraints and designing secure transmission schemes under this assumption is a mandatory step towards a practical implementation of physical layer security. With this motivation, this article reviews recent developments on physical layer security with finite-alphabet inputs. We explore transmit signal design algorithms for single-antenna as well as multi-antenna wiretap channels under different assumptions on the channel state information at the transmitter. Moreover, we present a review of the recent results on secure transmission with discrete signaling for various scenarios including multi-carrier transmission systems, broadcast channels with confidential messages, cognitive multiple access and relay networks. Throughout the article, we stress the important behavioral differences of discrete versus Gaussian inputs in the context of the physical layer security. We also present an overview of practical code construction over Gaussian and fading wiretap channels, and we discuss some open problems and directions for future research.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials (1st Revision