Millimeter wave MIMO communications : high-resolution angle acquisition and low-resolution time-frequency synchronization

Knowledge of the propagation channel is critical to exploit the full benefit of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques in millimeter wave (mmWave) cellular systems. Obtaining accurate channel state information in mmWave systems, however, is challenging due to high estimation overhead, high computational complexity and on-grid setting. It is also desirable to reduce the analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) resolution at mmWave frequencies to reduce power consumption and implementation costs. The use of low-precision ADCs, though, brings new design challenges to practical cellular networks. In the first part of this dissertation, we develop several new methods to estimate and track the mmWave channel's angle-of-departure and angle-of-arrival with high accuracy and low overhead. The key ingredient of the proposed strategies is custom designed beam pairs, from which there exists an invertible function of the angle to be estimated. We further extend the proposed algorithms to dual-polarized MIMO in wideband channels, and angle tracking design for fast-varying environments. We derive analytical angle estimation error performance of the proposed methods in single-path channels. We also use numerical examples to characterize the robustness of the proposed approaches to various transceiver settings and channel conditions. In the second part of this dissertation, we focus on improving the low-resolution time-frequency synchronization performance for mmWave cellular systems. In our system model, the base station uses analog beams to send the synchronization signal with infinite-resolution digital-to-analog converters (DACs). The user equipment employs a fully digital front end to detect the synchronization signal with low-resolution ADCs. For low-resolution timing synchronization, we propose a new multi-beam probing based strategy, targeting at maximizing the minimum received synchronization signal-to-quantization-plus-noise ratio among all serving users. Regarding low-resolution frequency synchronization, we construct new sequences for carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation and compensation. We use both analytical and numerical examples to show that the proposed sequences and the corresponding metrics used for retrieving the CFOs are robust to the quantization distortion.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Ultra-Wideband Secure Communications and Direct RF Sampling Transceivers

Larger wireless device bandwidth results in new capabilities in terms of higher data rates and security. The 5G evolution is focus on exploiting larger bandwidths for higher though-puts. Interference and co-existence issues can also be addressed by the larger bandwidth in the 5G and 6G evolution. This dissertation introduces of a novel Ultra-wideband (UWB) Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technique to exploit the largest bandwidth available in the upcoming wireless connectivity scenarios. The dissertation addresses interference immunity, secure communication at the physical layer and longer distance communication due to increased receiver sensitivity. The dissertation presents the design, workflow, simulations, hardware prototypes and experimental measurements to demonstrate the benefits of wideband Code-Division-Multiple-Access. Specifically, a description of each of the hardware and software stages is presented along with simulations of different scenarios using a test-bench and open-field measurements. The measurements provided experimental validation carried out to demonstrate the interference mitigation capabilities. In addition, Direct RF sampling techniques are employed to handle the larger bandwidth and avoid analog components. Additionally, a transmit and receive chain is designed and implemented at 28 GHz to provide a proof-of-concept for future 5G applications. The proposed wideband transceiver is also used to demonstrate higher accuracy direction finding, as much as 10 times improvement

State-of-the-art assessment of 5G mmWave communications

Deliverable D2.1 del proyecto 5GWirelessMain objective of the European 5Gwireless project, which is part of the H2020 Marie Slodowska- Curie ITN (Innovative Training Networks) program resides in the training and involvement of young researchers in the elaboration of future mobile communication networks, focusing on innovative wireless technologies, heterogeneous network architectures, new topologies (including ultra-dense deployments), and appropriate tools. The present Document D2.1 is the first deliverable of Work- Package 2 (WP2) that is specifically devoted to the modeling of the millimeter-wave (mmWave) propagation channels, and development of appropriate mmWave beamforming and signal processing techniques. Deliver D2.1 gives a state-of-the-art on the mmWave channel measurement, characterization and modeling; existing antenna array technologies, channel estimation and precoding algorithms; proposed deployment and networking techniques; some performance studies; as well as a review on the evaluation and analysis toolsPostprint (published version

Digital and Mixed Domain Hardware Reduction Algorithms and Implementations for Massive MIMO

Emerging 5G and 6G based wireless communications systems largely rely on multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems to reduce inherently extensive path losses, facilitate high data rates, and high spatial diversity. Massive MIMO systems used in mmWave and sub-THz applications consists of hundreds perhaps thousands of antenna elements at base stations. Digital beamforming techniques provide the highest flexibility and better degrees of freedom for phased antenna arrays as compared to its analog and hybrid alternatives but has the highest hardware complexity. Conventional digital beamformers at the receiver require a dedicated analog to digital converter (ADC) for every antenna element, leading to ADCs for elements. The number of ADCs is the key deterministic factor for the power consumption of an antenna array system. The digital hardware consists of fast Fourier transform (FFT) cores with a multiplier complexity of (N log2N) for an element system to generate multiple beams. It is required to reduce the mixed and digital hardware complexities in MIMO systems to reduce the cost and the power consumption, while maintaining high performance. The well-known concept has been in use for ADCs to achieve reduced complexities. An extension of the architecture to multi-dimensional domain is explored in this dissertation to implement a single port ADC to replace ADCs in an element system, using the correlation of received signals in the spatial domain. This concept has applications in conventional uniform linear arrays (ULAs) as well as in focal plane array (FPA) receivers. Our analysis has shown that sparsity in the spatio-temporal frequency domain can be exploited to reduce the number of ADCs from N to where . By using the limited field of view of practical antennas, multiple sub-arrays are combined without interferences to achieve a factor of K increment in the information carrying capacity of the ADC systems. Applications of this concept include ULAs and rectangular array systems. Experimental verifications were done for a element, 1.8 - 2.1 GHz wideband array system to sample using ADCs. This dissertation proposes that frequency division multiplexing (FDM) receiver outputs at an intermediate frequency (IF) can pack multiple (M) narrowband channels with a guard band to avoid interferences. The combined output is then sampled using a single wideband ADC and baseband channels are retrieved in the digital domain. Measurement results were obtained by employing a element, 28 GHz antenna array system to combine channels together to achieve a 75% reduction of ADC requirement. Implementation of FFT cores in the digital domain is not always exact because of the finite precision. Therefore, this dissertation explores the possibility of approximating the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) matrix to achieve reduced hardware complexities at an allowable cost of accuracy. A point approximate DFT (ADFT) core was implemented on digital hardware using radix-32 to achieve savings in cost, size, weight and power (C-SWaP) and synthesized for ASIC at 45-nm technology

Multi-Gigabaud Solutions for Millimeter-wave Communication

With the growing number of mobile network and internet services subscriptions, faster communication will provide a better experience for users. In the next generation mobile network, the fifth generation (5G), communication data rate will achieve several Gigabits per second with ultra-low latency. The capacity enhancement of the mobile backhaul and fronthaul is a challenge. The transmission capacity can be enhanced by increasing the bandwidth, increasing the spectrum efficiency and increasing both the bandwidth and the spectrum efficiency at the same time. \ua0Millimeter-wave frequency bands have the bandwidth in the order of GHz which provide great opportunities to realize high data rate communications. In this case, millimeter-wave frontend modules and wideband modems are needed in communication systems. In this thesis, a 40 Gbps real-time differential quadrature phase shift keying (DQPSK) modem has been presented to support high-speed communications [A]. As a complete system, it aims to work together with the D-band frontend module published in [1] providing more than 40 GHz bandwidth. In this modem, the modulator is realized in a single field programmable gate array (FPGA) and the demodulator is based on analog components. Although millimeter-wave frequency bands could provide wide available bandwidth, it is challenging to generate high output power of the carrier signal. In addition, the transmitter needs to back off several dB in output power in order to avoid the non-linear distortion caused by power amplifiers. In this thesis, an outphasing power combining transmitter is proposed [B] to use the maximum output power of power amplifiers while maintaining the signal quality at the same time. This transmitter is demonstrated at E-band with commercially available components.Increasing the spectrum efficiency is an additional method to enhance the transmission capacity. High order modulation signals such as quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signals are commonly used for this purpose.\ua0 In this case, receivers usually require coherent detection in order to demodulate the signals. Limited by the sampling rate of the analog to digital converters (ADCs), the traditional digital carrier recovery methods can be only applied to a symbol rate lower than the sampling rate. A synchronous baseband receiver is proposed [C] with a carrier recovery subsystem which only requires a low-speed ADC with a sampling rate of 100 MSps

Development of a Real-time Ultra-wideband See Through Wall Imaging Radar System

Ultra-Wideband (UWB) See-Through-Wall (STW) technology has emerged as a musthave enabling technology by both the military and commercial sectors. As a pioneer in this area, we have led the research in addressing many of the fundamental STW questions. This dissertation is to investigate and resolve a few hurdles in advancing this technology, and produce a realizable high performance STW platform system, which will aid the STW community to find the ultimate answer through experimental and theoretical work. The architectures of a realizable STW imaging system are thoroughly examined and studied. We present both a conceptual system based on RF instruments and a standalone real-time system based on custom design, which utilize reconfigurable design architecture and allows scaling down/up to a desired UWB operating frequency with little difficulty. The systems will serve as a high performance platform for STW study and other related UWB applications. Along the way to a complete STW system, we have developed a simplified transmission line model for wall characteristic prediction; we have developed a scalable synthetic aperture array including both the RF part and the switch control/synchronization part; we have proposed a cost-effective and efficient UWB data acquisition method for real-time STW application based on equivalent-time sampling method. The measurement results reported here include static image formation and tracking moveable targets behind the wall. Even though digital signal processing to generate radar images is not the focus of this research, simple methods for image formation have been implemented and results are very encouraging