Dispensing with channel estimation: differentially modulated cooperative wireless communications

As a benefit of bypassing the potentially excessive complexity and yet inaccurate channel estimation, differentially encoded modulation in conjunction with low-complexity noncoherent detection constitutes a viable candidate for user-cooperative systems, where estimating all the links by the relays is unrealistic. In order to stimulate further research on differentially modulated cooperative systems, a number of fundamental challenges encountered in their practical implementations are addressed, including the time-variant-channel-induced performance erosion, flexible cooperative protocol designs, resource allocation as well as its high-spectral-efficiency transceiver design. Our investigations demonstrate the quantitative benefits of cooperative wireless networks both from a pure capacity perspective as well as from a practical system design perspective

Successive-relaying-aided decode-and-forward coherent versus noncoherent cooperative multicarrier space–time shift keying

Abstract—Successive-relaying-aided (SR) cooperative multi-carrier (MC) space–time shift keying (STSK) is proposed for frequency-selective channels. We invoke SR to mitigate the typical 50% throughput loss of conventional half-duplex relaying schemes and MC code-division multiple access (MC-CDMA) to circumvent the dispersive effects of wireless channels and to reduce the SR-induced interference. The distributed relay terminals form two virtual antenna arrays (VAAs), and the source node (SN) successively transmits frequency-domain (FD) spread signals to one of the VAAs, in addition to directly transmitting to the destination node (DN). The constituent relay nodes (RNs) of each VAA activate cyclic-redundancy-checking-based (CRC) selective decode-and-forward (DF) relaying. The DN can jointly detect the signals received via the SN-to-DN and VAA-to-DN links using a low-complexity single-stream-based joint maximum-likelihood (ML) detector. We also propose a differentially encoded cooperative MC-CDMA STSK scheme to facilitate communications over hostile dispersive channels without requiring channel estimation (CE). Dispensing with CE is important since the relays cannot be expected to altruistically estimate the SN-to-RN links for simply supporting the source. Furthermore, we propose soft-decision-aided serially concatenated recursive systematic convolutional (RSC) and unity-rate-coded (URC) cooperative MC STSK and investigate its performance in both coherent and noncoherent scenarios

Successive-relaying-aided decode-and-forward coherent versus noncoherent cooperative multicarrier space–time shift keying

Abstract—Successive-relaying-aided (SR) cooperative multi-carrier (MC) space–time shift keying (STSK) is proposed for frequency-selective channels. We invoke SR to mitigate the typical 50% throughput loss of conventional half-duplex relaying schemes and MC code-division multiple access (MC-CDMA) to circumvent the dispersive effects of wireless channels and to reduce the SR-induced interference. The distributed relay terminals form two virtual antenna arrays (VAAs), and the source node (SN) successively transmits frequency-domain (FD) spread signals to one of the VAAs, in addition to directly transmitting to the destination node (DN). The constituent relay nodes (RNs) of each VAA activate cyclic-redundancy-checking-based (CRC) selective decode-and-forward (DF) relaying. The DN can jointly detect the signals received via the SN-to-DN and VAA-to-DN links using a low-complexity single-stream-based joint maximum-likelihood (ML) detector. We also propose a differentially encoded cooperative MC-CDMA STSK scheme to facilitate communications over hostile dispersive channels without requiring channel estimation (CE). Dispensing with CE is important since the relays cannot be expected to altruistically estimate the SN-to-RN links for simply supporting the source. Furthermore, we propose soft-decision-aided serially concatenated recursive systematic convolutional (RSC) and unity-rate-coded (URC) cooperative MC STSK and investigate its performance in both coherent and noncoherent scenarios

Space-Time Coded Spatial Modulated Physical Layer Network Coding for Two-Way Relaying

Using the spatial modulation approach, where only one transmit antenna is active at a time, we propose two transmission schemes for two-way relay channel using physical layer network coding with space time coding using Coordinate Interleaved Orthogonal Designs (CIOD's). It is shown that using two uncorrelated transmit antennas at the nodes, but using only one RF transmit chain and space-time coding across these antennas can give a better performance without using any extra resources and without increasing the hardware implementation cost and complexity. In the first transmission scheme, two antennas are used only at the relay, Adaptive Network Coding (ANC) is employed at the relay and the relay transmits a CIOD Space Time Block Code (STBC). This gives a better performance compared to an existing ANC scheme for two-way relay channel which uses one antenna each at all the three nodes. It is shown that for this scheme at high SNR the average end-to-end symbol error probability (SEP) is upper bounded by twice the SEP of a point-to-point fading channel. In the second transmission scheme, two transmit antennas are used at all the three nodes, CIOD STBC's are transmitted in multiple access and broadcast phases. This scheme provides a diversity order of two for the average end-to-end SEP with an increased decoding complexity of $\mathcal{O}(M^3)$ for an arbitrary signal set and $\mathcal{O}(M^2\sqrt{M})$ for square QAM signal set.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Coherent versus non-coherent decode-and-forward relaying aided cooperative space-time shift keying

Motivated by the recent concept of Space-Time Shift Keying (STSK), we propose a novel cooperative STSK family, which is capable of achieving a flexible rate-diversity tradeoff, in the context of cooperative space-time transmissions. More specifically, we first propose a Coherent cooperative STSK (CSTSK) scheme, where each Relay Node (RN) activates Decode-and-Forward (DF) transmissions, depending on the success or failure of Cyclic Redundancy Checking (CRC). We invoke a bitto- STSK mapping rule, where according to the input bits, one of the Q pre-assigned dispersion vectors is activated to implicitly convey log2(Q) bits, which are transmitted in combination with the classic log2(L)-bit modulated symbol. Additionally, we introduce a beneficial dispersion vector design, which enables us to dispense with symbol-level Inter-Relay Synchronization (IRS). Furthermore, the Destination Node (DN) is capable of jointly detecting the signals received from the source-destination and relay-destination links, using a low-complexity single-stream-based Maximum Likelihood (ML) detector, which is an explicit benefit of our Inter-Element Interference (IEI)-free system model. More importantly, as a benefit of its design flexibility, our cooperative CSTSK arrangement enables us to adapt the number of the RNs, the transmission rate as well as the achievable diversity order. Moreover, we also propose a Differentially-encoded cooperative STSK (DSTSK) arrangement, which dispenses with CSI estimation at any of the nodes, while retaining the fundamental benefits of the cooperative CSTSK scheme

Distributed Space Time Coding for Wireless Two-way Relaying

We consider the wireless two-way relay channel, in which two-way data transfer takes place between the end nodes with the help of a relay. For the Denoise-And-Forward (DNF) protocol, it was shown by Koike-Akino et. al. that adaptively changing the network coding map used at the relay greatly reduces the impact of Multiple Access interference at the relay. The harmful effect of the deep channel fade conditions can be effectively mitigated by proper choice of these network coding maps at the relay. Alternatively, in this paper we propose a Distributed Space Time Coding (DSTC) scheme, which effectively removes most of the deep fade channel conditions at the transmitting nodes itself without any CSIT and without any need to adaptively change the network coding map used at the relay. It is shown that the deep fades occur when the channel fade coefficient vector falls in a finite number of vector subspaces of $\mathbb{C}^2$, which are referred to as the singular fade subspaces. DSTC design criterion referred to as the \textit{singularity minimization criterion} under which the number of such vector subspaces are minimized is obtained. Also, a criterion to maximize the coding gain of the DSTC is obtained. Explicit low decoding complexity DSTC designs which satisfy the singularity minimization criterion and maximize the coding gain for QAM and PSK signal sets are provided. Simulation results show that at high Signal to Noise Ratio, the DSTC scheme provides large gains when compared to the conventional Exclusive OR network code and performs slightly better than the adaptive network coding scheme proposed by Koike-Akino et. al.Comment: 27 pages, 4 figures, A mistake in the proof of Proposition 3 given in Appendix B correcte

Diversity-Multiplexing Tradeoffs in MIMO Relay Channels

A multi-hop relay channel with multiple antenna terminals in a quasi-static slow fading environment is considered. For both full-duplex and half-duplex relays the fundamental diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) is analyzed. It is shown that, while decode-and-forward (DF) relaying achieves the optimal DMT in the full-duplex relay scenario, the dynamic decode-and-forward (DDF) protocol is needed to achieve the optimal DMT if the relay is constrained to half-duplex operation. For the latter case, static protocols are considered as well, and the corresponding achievable DMT performance is characterized.Comment: To appear at IEEE Global Communications Conf. (Globecom), New Orleans, LA, Nov. 200

Design guidelines for spatial modulation

A new class of low-complexity, yet energyefficient Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) transmission techniques, namely the family of Spatial Modulation (SM) aided MIMOs (SM-MIMO) has emerged. These systems are capable of exploiting the spatial dimensions (i.e. the antenna indices) as an additional dimension invoked for transmitting information, apart from the traditional Amplitude and Phase Modulation (APM). SM is capable of efficiently operating in diverse MIMO configurations in the context of future communication systems. It constitutes a promising transmission candidate for large-scale MIMO design and for the indoor optical wireless communication whilst relying on a single-Radio Frequency (RF) chain. Moreover, SM may also be viewed as an entirely new hybrid modulation scheme, which is still in its infancy. This paper aims for providing a general survey of the SM design framework as well as of its intrinsic limits. In particular, we focus our attention on the associated transceiver design, on spatial constellation optimization, on link adaptation techniques, on distributed/ cooperative protocol design issues, and on their meritorious variants