Performance Prediction of Nonbinary Forward Error Correction in Optical Transmission Experiments

In this paper, we compare different metrics to predict the error rate of optical systems based on nonbinary forward error correction (FEC). It is shown that the correct metric to predict the performance of coded modulation based on nonbinary FEC is the mutual information. The accuracy of the prediction is verified in a detailed example with multiple constellation formats, FEC overheads in both simulations and optical transmission experiments over a recirculating loop. It is shown that the employed FEC codes must be universal if performance prediction based on thresholds is used. A tutorial introduction into the computation of the threshold from optical transmission measurements is also given.Comment: submitted to IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technolog

Low-Density Parity-Check Coded High-order Modulation Schemes

In this thesis, we investigate how to support reliable data transmissions at high speeds in future communication systems, such as 5G/6G, WiFi, satellite, and optical communications. One of the most fundamental problems in these communication systems is how to reliably transmit information with a limited number of resources, such as power and spectral. To obtain high spectral efficiency, we use coded modulation (CM), such as bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) and delayed BICM (DBICM). To be specific, BICM is a pragmatic implementation of CM which has been largely adopted in both industry and academia. While BICM approaches CM capacity at high rates, the capacity gap between BICM and CM is still noticeable at lower code rates. To tackle this problem, DBICM, as a variation of BICM, introduces a delay module to create a dependency between multiple codewords, which enables us to exploit extrinsic information from the decoded delayed sub-blocks to improve the detection of the undelayed sub-blocks. Recent work shows that DBICM improves capacity over BICM. In addition, BICM and DBICM schemes protect each bit-channel differently, which is often referred to as the unequal error protection (UEP) property. Therefore, bit mapping designs are important for constructing pragmatic BICM and DBICM. To provide reliable communication, we have jointly designed bit mappings in DBICM and irregular low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. For practical considerations, spatially coupled LDPC (SC-LDPC) codes have been considered as well. Specifically, we have investigated the joint design of the multi-chain SC-LDPC and the BICM bit mapper. In addition, the design of SC-LDPC codes with improved decoding threshold performance and reduced rate loss has been investigated in this thesis as well. The main body of this thesis consists of three parts. In the first part, considering Gray-labeled square M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) constellations, we investigate the optimal delay scheme with the largest spectrum efficiency of DBICM for a fixed maximum number of delayed time slots and a given signal-to-noise ratio. Furthermore, we jointly optimize degree distributions and channel assignments of LDPC codes using protograph-based extrinsic information transfer charts. In addition, we proposed a constrained progressive edge growth-like algorithm to jointly construct LDPC codes and bit mappings for DBICM, taking the capacity of each bit-channel into account. Simulation results demonstrate that the designed LDPC-coded DBICM systems significantly outperform LDPC-coded BICM systems. In the second part, we proposed a windowed decoding algorithm for DBICM, which uses the extrinsic information of both the decoded delayed and undelayed sub-blocks, to improve the detection for all sub-blocks. We show that the proposed windowed decoding significantly outperforms the original decoding, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed decoding algorithm. In the third part, we apply multi-chain SC-LDPC to BICM. We investigate various connections for multi-chain SC-LDPC codes and bit mapping designs and analyze the performance of the multi-chain SC-LDPC codes over the equivalent binary erasure channels via density evolution. Numerical results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed design over existing connected-chain ensembles and over single-chain ensembles with the existing bit mapping design

Flexible Sigma Delta Time-Interleaved Bandpass Analog-to-Digital Converter

Conversion of analog signals to their digital equivalent earlier in a circuit’s topology facilitates faster and more efficient exploitation of the information contained within. Analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) form the link between the analog and digital realms. In high frequency circuits ADCs must often be implemented further downstream after several stages of down-conversion, or through the use of more expensive technologies such as Bi-polar Junction Transistors or Gallium Arsenide. This thesis presents a technique to utilize Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor technology in a parallel time-interleaved architecture. This will reduce circuit complexity and allow the ADC to be placed further upstream reducing the need for large and expensive analog hardware. This thesis utilizes an architecture that allows for higher frequency input signals through the use of down-sampling, parallel processing, and recombination. This thesis will also present the use of sigma delta based modulation in order to increase the resolution of the digital output signal. Exploitation of oversampling and the resultant noise-shaping characteristics of the sigma delta modulator will enable the user to gain resolution without the increased cost of implementing more expensive ADC architectures such as Flash. This thesis also presents a flexible converter such that both the center frequency and resolution can be modified by manipulating inputs. Specifically, the input and output filters as well as the sampling frequency can be tuned such that the circuit will operate at a particular center frequency. Also, the circuit will have flexible resolution which can be controlled by the clock input. Proof of concept is accomplished with a Matlab® simulation followed by schematic implementation in Cadence®. The design is constructed using IBM® 0.13 µm technology with a rail voltage of 1.2 V. Results are evaluated through the calculation of the effective number of bits and the signal to noise ratio. Conclusions and guidance on future research are provided

Combined Time, Frecuency and Space Diversity in Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting Systems

El uso combinado de diversidad en el dominio temporal, frecuencial y espacial constituye una valiosa herramienta para mejorar la recepción de servicios de difusión móviles. Gracias a la mejora conseguida por las técnicas de diversidad es posible extender la cobertura de los servicios móviles además de reducir la infraestructura de red. La presente tesis investiga el uso de técnicas de diversidad para la provisión de servicios móviles en la familia europea de sistemas de difusión terrestres estandarizada por el prpoyecto DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting). Esto incluye la primera y segunda generación de sistemas DVB-T (Terrestrial), DVB-NGH (Handheld), y DVB-T2 (Terrestrial 2nd generation), así como el sistema de siguiente generación DVB-NGH. No obstante, el estudio llevado a cabo en la tesis es genérico y puede aplicarse a futuras evoluciones de estándares como el japonés ISDB-T o el americano ATSC. Las investigaciones realizadas dentro del contexto de DVB-T, DVB-H y DVBT2 tienen como objetivo la transmisión simultánea de servicios fijos y móviles en redes terrestres. Esta Convergencia puede facilitar la introducción de servicios móviles de TB debido a la reutilización de espectro, contenido e infraestructura. De acuerdo a los resultados, la incorporación de entrelazado temporal en la capa física para diversidad temporal, y de single-input multiple-output (SIMO) para diversidad espacial, son esenciales para el rendimiento de sistemas móviles de difusión. A pesar de que las técnicas upper later FEC (UL-FEC) pueden propocionar diversidad temporal en sistemas de primera generación como DVB-T y DVB-H, requieren la transmisión de paridad adicional y no son útiles para la recepción estática. El análisis en t�ñerminos de link budjget revela que las técnicas de diversidad noson suficientes para facilitar la provision de servicios móviles en redes DVB-T y DVB-T2 planificadas para recepción fija. Sin embargo, el uso de diversidad en redes planificadas para recepción portableGozálvez Serrano, D. (2012). Combined Time, Frecuency and Space Diversity in Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting Systems [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/16273Palanci

Rotated constellations for improved time and frequency diversity in DVB-NGH

“© 2013 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.”In this paper, we investigate the potential gains that can be obtained with rotated constellations in DVB-NGH, the next-generation mobile broadcasting standard. Rotated constellations exploit the concept of signal-space diversity (SSD) to increase the diversity order of bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) at the expense of higher demodulation complexity without the need of additional transmission power or bandwidth. Two-dimensional rotated constellations (2DRC) were originally included in DVB-T2 (terrestrial second generation) to improve the reception robustness in fading channels. DVB-NGH inherits the same 2DRC from DVB-T2 and includes four-dimensional rotated constellations (4DRC) for certain configurations. Moreover, the standard has adopted a new component interleaver optimized for the utilization of rotated constellations with long time interleaving (TI) and time-frequency slicing (TFS). In this context, the additional robustness of rotated constellations is very interesting to counter the presence of signal outages in the time and frequency domains. To investigate the potential gains of 2DRC and 4DRC, we employ an information-theoretic approach based on mutual information, as well as physical layer simulations in DVB-NGH systems. The results reveal that rotated constellations are important to increase the diversity gains of long TI and TFS, and also to reduce the zapping time perceived by the users.Gozálvez Serrano, D.; Gimenez Gandia, JJ.; Gómez Barquero, D.; Cardona Marcet, N. (2013). Rotated constellations for improved time and frequency diversity in DVB-NGH. IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting. 59(2):298-305. doi:10.1109/TBC.2013.225286229830559

Partially Coupled Codes for TB-based Transmission

In this thesis, we mainly investigate the design of partially coupled codes for transport block (TB) based transmission protocol adopted in 4G/5G mobile network standards. In this protocol, an information sequence in a TB is segmented into multiple code blocks (CBs) and each CB is protected by a channel codeword independently. It is inefficient in terms of transmit power and spectrum efficiency because any erroneous CB in a TB leads to the retransmission of the whole TB. An important research problem related to this TB-based transmission is how to improve the TB error rate (TBER) performance so that the number of retransmissions reduces. To tackle this challenge, we present a class of spatial coupling techniques called partial coupling in the TB encoding operation, which has two subclasses: partial information coupled (PIC) and partial parity coupling (PPC). To be specific, the coupling is performed such that a fraction of the information/parity sequence of one component code at the current CB is used as the input of the component encoder at the next CB, leading to improved TBER performance. One of the appealing features of partial coupling (both PIC and PPC) is that the coupling can be applied to any component codes without changing their encoding and decoding architectures, making them compatible with the TB-based transmission protocol. The main body of this thesis consists of two parts. In the first part, we apply both PIC and PPC to turbo codes. We investigate various coupling designs and analysis the performance of the partially coupled turbo codes over the binary erasure channel via density evolution (DE). Both simulation results and DE analysis show that such a class of codes can approach channel capacity with a large blocklength. In the second part, we construct PIC-polar codes. We show that PIC can effectively improve the error performance of finite-length polar codes by utilizing the channel polarization phenomenon. The DE-based performance analysis is also conducted. For both turbo codes and polar codes, we have shown that the partially coupled codes have significant performance gain over their uncoupled counterpart, demonstrating the effectiveness of the partial coupling

Advanced constellation and demapper schemes for next generation digital terrestrial television broadcasting systems

206 p.Esta tesis presenta un nuevo tipo de constelaciones llamadas no uniformes. Estos esquemas presentan una eficacia de hasta 1,8 dB superior a las utilizadas en los últimos sistemas de comunicaciones de televisión digital terrestre y son extrapolables a cualquier otro sistema de comunicaciones (satélite, móvil, cable¿). Además, este trabajo contribuye al diseño de constelaciones con una nueva metodología que reduce el tiempo de optimización de días/horas (metodologías actuales) a horas/minutos con la misma eficiencia. Todas las constelaciones diseñadas se testean bajo una plataforma creada en esta tesis que simula el estándar de radiodifusión terrestre más avanzado hasta la fecha (ATSC 3.0) bajo condiciones reales de funcionamiento.Por otro lado, para disminuir la latencia de decodificación de estas constelaciones esta tesis propone dos técnicas de detección/demapeo. Una es para constelaciones no uniformes de dos dimensiones la cual disminuye hasta en un 99,7% la complejidad del demapeo sin empeorar el funcionamiento del sistema. La segunda técnica de detección se centra en las constelaciones no uniformes de una dimensión y presenta hasta un 87,5% de reducción de la complejidad del receptor sin pérdidas en el rendimiento.Por último, este trabajo expone un completo estado del arte sobre tipos de constelaciones, modelos de sistema, y diseño/demapeo de constelaciones. Este estudio es el primero realizado en este campo

Analysis and design of ΣΔ Modulators for Radio Frequency Switchmode Power Amplifiers

Power amplifiers are an integral part of every basestation, macrocell, microcell and mobile phone, enabling data to be sent over the distances needed to reach the receiver’s antenna. While linear operation is needed for transmitting WCDMA and OFDM signals, linear operation of a power amplifier is characterized by low power efficiency, and contributes to unwanted power dissipation in a transmitter. Recently, a switchmode power amplifier operation was considered for reducing power losses in a RF transmitter. A linear and efficient operation of a PA can be achieved when the transmitted RF signal is ΣΔ modu- lated, and subsequently amplified by a nonlinear device. Although in theory this approach offers linearity and efficiency reaching 100%, the use of ΣΔ modulation for transmitting wideband signals causes problems in practical implementation: it requires high sampling rate by the digital hardware, which is needed for shaping large contents of a quantization noise induced by the modulator but also, the binary output from the modulator needs an RF power amplifier operating over very wide frequency band. This thesis addresses the problem of noise shaping in a ΣΔ modulator and nonlinear distortion caused by broadband operation in switchmode power amplifier driven by a ΣΔ modulated waveform. The problem of sampling rate increase in a ΣΔ modulator is solved by optimizing structure of the modulator, and subsequent processing of an input signal’s samples in parallel. Independent from the above, a novel technique for reducing quan- tization noise in a bandpass ΣΔ modulator using single bit quantizer is presented. The technique combines error pulse shaping and 3-level quantization for improving signal to noise ratio in a 2-level output. The improvement is achieved without the increase of a digital hardware’s sampling rate, which is advantageous also from the perspective of power consumption. The new method is explored in the course of analysis, and verified by simulated and experimental results. The process of RF signal conversion from the Cartesian to polar form is analyzed, and a signal modulator for a polar transmitter with a ΣΔ-digitized envelope signal is designed and implemented. The new modulator takes an advantage of bandpass digital to analog conversion for simplifying the analog part of the modulator. A deformation of the pulsed RF signal in the experimental modulator is demonstrated to have an effect primarily on amplitude of the RF signal, which is correctable with simple predistortion

Detection and decoding algorithms of multi-antenna diversity techniques for terrestrial DVB systems

This PhD dissertation analyzes the behavior of multi-antenna diversity techniques in broadcasting scenarios of TDT (terrestrial digital television) systems and proposes a low-complexity detection and decoding design for their practical implementation. For that purpose, the transmission-reception chains of the European DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting - Terrestrial) and DVB-T2 standards have been implemented over which diversity and MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) techniques have been assessed through Monte Carlo simulations. On one hand, the most important multi-antenna diversity techniques such as CDD (cyclic delay diversity), Alamouti code-based SFBC (space-frequency block coding) and MRC (maximum ratio combining), have been evaluated in a DVB-T system over both fixed and mobile Rayleigh and Ricean channels. With the DVB-T2 standard release, multi-antenna processing has actually been introduced in digital television systems. The distributed SFBC configuration proposed in DVB-T2 is analyzed from a performance point of view considering different propagation conditions in an SFN (single frequency network). On the other hand, error-performance and detection complexity analyses of 2x2 FRFD (full-rate full-diversity) SFBCs are carried out for last-generation DTV (digital television) systems. The use of channel coding based on LDPC (low-density parity check) codes in new standards such as DVB-T2, involves a soft-output MAP (maximum a posteriori ) detection which results in an increase of the detection complexity. In order to study the FRFD codes behavior in such a BICM (bit-interleaved coded modulation) scheme, the Golden code, which achieves the maximum coding gain, and the Sezginer-Sari code, which has a lower inherent detection complexity as an expense of sacrificing performance gain, have been chosen. Using LSD (list sphere decoder) detection, BER (bit error rate) performance and computational cost results are provided for TDT scenarios. In order to overcome the variable complexity of the LSD, LFSD (list fixed-complexity sphere decoder) detection is proposed for practical implementations. A redesign of the previously proposed LFSD algorithm for spatial multiplexing MIMO systems has been performed for FRFD SFBCs with close-to-LSD performance. Furthermore, an analysis of the number of candidates is carried out in order to maximize the eficiency of the algorithm. Due to its fixed complexity, the novel algorithm can be fully pipelined making feasible a realistic implementation in chip.Esta tesis analiza el comportamiento de las técnicas de diversidad multiantena en escenarios de radiodifusión TDT (televisión digital terrestre) y propone un diseño de baja complejidad para la detección de códigos SFBC (space-frequency block coding ) que facilita una posible implementación práctica. Para ello, se ha implementado la cadena de transmisión-recepción de los estándares europeos DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting - Terrestrial ) y DVB-T2 como entorno de trabajo donde se han incluido y simulado diferentes técnicas de diversidad MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output ). Por un lado, se evalúan las técnicas de diversidad multiantena CDD ( cyclic delay diversity), SFBC con codi cación Alamouti y MRC (maximum ratio combining ) en escenarios fijos y móviles de canales tanto Rayleigh como Ricean para el sistema DVB-T. En DVB-T2, se analiza la tecnología multiantena propuesta por el estándar para diferentes escenarios de propagación dentro de redes SFN (single frequency network ). Por otro lado, se realiza un estudio sobre códigos FRFD (full-rate full-diversity ) SFBC para su posible inclusión en futuros estándares de televisión digital. El uso de codificaciones de canal más potentes, como los códigos LDPC (low-density parity check ), implica la utilización de una detección MAP (maximum a posteriori ) con salida soft, incrementando considerablemente la complejidad de la detección. Para realizar el correspondiente análisis de complejidad y rendimiento, se han escogidos dos códigos FRFD. Por un lado, el código Golden, que ofrece la máxima ganancia de código y, por otro, el código propuesto por Sezginer y Sari, que consigue reducir la complejidad de detección a costa de perder cierta ganancia de código. Se presentan resultados basados en curvas de BER (bit error rate) y número de operaciones sobre un sistema BICM (bit-interleaved coded modulation ) equivalente a DVB-T2 en escenarios TDT utilizando una detección LSD (list sphere decoder ). Para resolver el problema de la complejidad variable del algoritmo LSD, se realiza un rediseño del ya propuesto LFSD (list fixed-complexity sphere decoder ) para técnicas de multiplexación espacial considerando la estructura de los códigos FRFD SFBC. Asimismo, se evalúa el número de candidatos que ofrece un funcionamiento más eficiente con menor coste computacional. Los resultados de simulación basados en curvas de BER muestran rendimientos cercanos al detector LSD manteniendo el número de operaciones constante. Por lo tanto, este nuevo diseño permite su eficiente y práctica implementación en dispositivos reales.Doktoretza-tesi honen gai nagusia Lurreko Telebista Digitalerako antena anitzeko dibertsitate tekniken portaera ikertzea da, hartzailerako konplexutasun baxuko algoritmoen diseinua oinarri hartuta. Horretarako, Europako DVB-T eta DVB-T2 telebista digitaleko estandarren igorle-hartzaile kateen simulagailua inplementatzeaz gain, dibertsitate eta MIMO ( multipleinput multiple-output ) algoritmoak garatu eta aztertu dira. Lehenengo helburu gisa, CDD (cyclic delay diversity ), Alamouti kodean oinarritutako SFBC (space-frequency block coding ) eta MRC (maximum ratio combining ) teknikak ebaluatu dira Rayleigh eta Ricean ingurunetan, bai komunikazio nko zein mugikorretarako. Argitaratu berri den DVB-T2 estandarrak antena anitzeko prozesaketa telebista sistema digitalean sartu duenez, teknologia honen analisia egin da maiztasun bakarreko telebista sareetarako SFN (single frequency network ). Tesiaren helburu nagusia FRFD (full-rate full-diversity ) SFBC kodigoen ikerketa eta hauek telebista digitalaren estandar berrietan sartzea ahalbidetuko dituzten detekzio sistemen diseinua izan da. Kanalen kodi kazio indartsuagoak erabiltzeak, LDPC ( low-density parity check ) kodeak esaterako, MAP (maximum a posteriori ) algoritmoan oinarritutako soft irteeradun detektoreen erabilera dakar berekin, detekzioaren konplexutasuna areagotuz. Bi FRFD kode aukeratu dira errendimendu eta konplexutasun analisiak DVB-T2 bezalako BICM (bit-interleaved coded modulation ) sistemetan egiteko. Alde batetik, irabazi maximoa lortzen duen Golden kodea eta, bestetik, konplexutasun txikiagoa duen Sezginer eta Sarik proposatutako kodea erabili dira. Bit errore edo BER (bit error rate) tasan eta konputazio kostuan oinarrituta, emaitzak aurkeztu dira zerrenda dekodeatzaile esferikoa ( list sphere decoder, LSD) erabiliz. LSD-aren konplexutasun aldakorraren arazoa konpontzeko, ezpazio-multiplexazioko teknikarako LFSD (list xed-complexity sphere decoder ) algoritmoaren berdiseinua garatu da, FRFD SFBC kodeen egitura berezia kontuan hartuta. Algoritmoaren eraginkortasuna maximizatzeko kandidatuen zenbakia ebaluatzen da baita ere. LSD-en antzeko errendimendua duten BER gra ketan oinarritutako simulazio emaitzak aurkezten dira, eragiketa kopurua konstante eta LSD-arenaren baino murritzagoa mantenduz. Beraz, proposatutako diseinu eraginkorrak, FRFD SFBC antena anitzeko dibertsitatean oinarritutako eskemen inplementazioa ahalbidetu dezakete telebista digitalaren estandar berrietarako