High Capacity CDMA and Collaborative Techniques

The thesis investigates new approaches to increase the user capacity and improve the error performance of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) by employing adaptive interference cancellation and collaborative spreading and space diversity techniques. Collaborative Coding Multiple Access (CCMA) is also investigated as a separate technique and combined with CDMA. The advantages and shortcomings of CDMA and CCMA are analysed and new techniques for both the uplink and downlink are proposed and evaluated. Multiple access interference (MAI) problem in the uplink of CDMA is investigated first. The practical issues of multiuser detection (MUD) techniques are reviewed and a novel blind adaptive approach to interference cancellation (IC) is proposed. It exploits the constant modulus (CM) property of digital signals to blindly suppress interference during the despreading process and obtain amplitude estimation with minimum mean squared error for use in cancellation stages. Two new blind adaptive receiver designs employing successive and parallel interference cancellation architectures using the CM algorithm (CMA) referred to as ‘CMA-SIC’ and ‘BA-PIC’, respectively, are presented. These techniques have shown to offer near single user performance for large number of users. It is shown to increase the user capacity by approximately two fold compared with conventional IC receivers. The spectral efficiency analysis of the techniques based on output signal-to interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) also shows significant gain in data rate. Furthermore, an effective and low complexity blind adaptive subcarrier combining (BASC) technique using a simple gradient descent based algorithm is proposed for Multicarrier-CDMA. It suppresses MAI without any knowledge of channel amplitudes and allows large number of users compared with equal gain and maximum ratio combining techniques normally used in practice. New user collaborative schemes are proposed and analysed theoretically and by simulations in different channel conditions to achieve spatial diversity for uplink of CCMA and CDMA. First, a simple transmitter diversity and its equivalent user collaborative diversity techniques for CCMA are designed and analysed. Next, a new user collaborative scheme with successive interference cancellation for uplink of CDMA referred to as collaborative SIC (C-SIC) is investigated to reduce MAI and achieve improved diversity. To further improve the performance of C-SIC under high system loading conditions, Collaborative Blind Adaptive SIC (C-BASIC) scheme is proposed. It is shown to minimize the residual MAI, leading to improved user capacity and a more robust system. It is known that collaborative diversity schemes incur loss in throughput due to the need of orthogonal time/frequency slots for relaying source’s data. To address this problem, finally a novel near-unity-rate scheme also referred to as bandwidth efficient collaborative diversity (BECD) is proposed and evaluated for CDMA. Under this scheme, pairs of users share a single spreading sequence to exchange and forward their data employing a simple superposition or space-time encoding methods. At the receiver collaborative joint detection is performed to separate each paired users’ data. It is shown that the scheme can achieve full diversity gain at no extra bandwidth as inter-user channel SNR becomes high. A novel approach of ‘User Collaboration’ is introduced to increase the user capacity of CDMA for both the downlink and uplink. First, collaborative group spreading technique for the downlink of overloaded CDMA system is introduced. It allows the sharing of the same single spreading sequence for more than one user belonging to the same group. This technique is referred to as Collaborative Spreading CDMA downlink (CS-CDMA-DL). In this technique T-user collaborative coding is used for each group to form a composite codeword signal of the users and then a single orthogonal sequence is used for the group. At each user’s receiver, decoding of composite codeword is carried out to extract the user’s own information while maintaining a high SINR performance. To improve the bit error performance of CS-CDMA-DL in Rayleigh fading conditions, Collaborative Space-time Spreading (C-STS) technique is proposed by combining the collaborative coding multiple access and space-time coding principles. A new scheme for uplink of CDMA using the ‘User Collaboration’ approach, referred to as CS-CDMA-UL is presented next. When users’ channels are independent (uncorrelated), significantly higher user capacity can be achieved by grouping multiple users to share the same spreading sequence and performing MUD on per group basis followed by a low complexity ML decoding at the receiver. This approach has shown to support much higher number of users than the available sequences while also maintaining the low receiver complexity. For improved performance under highly correlated channel conditions, T-user collaborative coding is also investigated within the CS-CDMA-UL system

On the benefits of phase shift keying to optical telecommunication systems

Les avantages de la modulation de phase vis-à-vis la modulation d’intensité pour les réseaux optiques sont claires et accepté par la communauté scientifique des télécommunications optiques. Surtout, la modulation de phase montre une meilleure sensibilité au bruit, ainsi qu’une plus grande tolérance aux effets non-linéaires que la modulation d’intensité. Nous présentons dans cette thése un étude qui vise à développer les avantages de la modulation de phase. Nous attaquons d’abord la complexité du récepteur en détection directe, en proposant une nouvelle configuration dont la complexité est comparable à celle du récepteur pour la modulation d’intensité traditionnel, mais avec des meilleures performances. Cette solution pourrait convenir pour les réseaux métropolitains (et même d’accès) à haut débit binaire. Nous passons ensuite à l’examen de la possibilité d’utiliser des amplificateur à semi-conducteur (SOA) au lieu des amplificateurs à fibre dopée à l’erbium pour fournir amplification optique aux signaux modulés en phase. Les non-linéarité des SOA sont étudiées, et un compensateur simple et très efficace est proposé. Les avantages des amplificateurs à semi-conducteur par rapport à ceux à fibre sont bien connus. Surtout, la méthode que nous proposons permettrait l’integrabilité des SOA avec d’autres composants de réseau (par exemple, le récepteur nommé cidessus), menant à des solutions technologiques de petite taille et efficaces d’un point de vue énergétique. Il y a deux types de systèmes pour signaux modulés en phase: basé sur la détection directe, ou sur les récepteurs cohérents. Dans le dernière partie de ce travail, nous nous concentrons sur cette dernière catégorie, et nous comparons deux solutions possibles pour la mise à niveau des réseaux terrestres actuel. Nous comparons deux configurations dont les performances sont très comparables en termes de sensibilité au bruit, mais nous montrons comment la meilleure tolérance aux effets non linéaires (en particuliers dans les systèmes à débit mixte) fait que une solution soit bien plus efficace que l’autre.The advantages of phase modulation (PM) vis-à-vis intensity modulation for optical networks are accepted by the optical telecommunication community. PM exhibits a higher noise sensitivity than intensity modulation, and it is more tolerant to the effects of fiber nonlinearity. In this thesis we examine the challenges and the benefits of working with different aspects of phase modulation. Our first contribution tackles the complexity of the direct detection noncoherent receiver for differentially encoded quadrature phase shift keying. We examine a novel configuration whose complexity is comparable to that of traditional receivers for intensity modulation, yet outperforming it. We show that under severe nonlinear impairments, our proposed receiver works almost as well as the conventional receiver, with the advantage of being much less complex. We also show that the proposed receiver is tolerant to chromatic dispersion, and to detuning of the carrier frequency. This solution might be suitable for high-bit rates metro (and even access) networks. Our second contribution deals with the challenges of using semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) instead of typical erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) to provide amplification to phase modulated signals. SOAs nonlinearities are investigated, and we propose a simple and very effective feed-forward compensator. Above all, the method we propose would permit the integrability of SOAs with other network components (for example, the aforementioned receiver) achieving small size, power efficient sub-systems. Phase modulation paves the way to high spectral efficiency, especially when paired with digital coherent receivers. With the digital coherent receiver, the degree of freedom offered by polarization can be exploited to increase the channel bit rate without increasing its spectral occupancy. In the last part of this work we focus on polarization multiplexed signaling paired with coherent reception and digital signal processing. Our third contribution provides insight on the strategies for upgrading current terrestrial core networks to high bit rates. This is a particularly challenging scenario, as phase modulation has to coexist with previously installed intensity modulated channels. We compare two configurations which have received much attention in the literature. These solutions show comparable performance in terms of back-to-back noise sensitivity, and yet are not equivalent. We show how the superior tolerance to nonlinear fiber propagation (and particularly to cross phase modulation induced by the presence of intensity modulated channels) makes one of them much more effective than the other

Dirty RF Signal Processing for Mitigation of Receiver Front-end Non-linearity

Moderne drahtlose Kommunikationssysteme stellen hohe und teilweise gegensätzliche Anforderungen an die Hardware der Funkmodule, wie z.B. niedriger Energieverbrauch, große Bandbreite und hohe Linearität. Die Gewährleistung einer ausreichenden Linearität ist, neben anderen analogen Parametern, eine Herausforderung im praktischen Design der Funkmodule. Der Fokus der Dissertation liegt auf breitbandigen HF-Frontends für Software-konfigurierbare Funkmodule, die seit einigen Jahren kommerziell verfügbar sind. Die praktischen Herausforderungen und Grenzen solcher flexiblen Funkmodule offenbaren sich vor allem im realen Experiment. Eines der Hauptprobleme ist die Sicherstellung einer ausreichenden analogen Performanz über einen weiten Frequenzbereich. Aus einer Vielzahl an analogen Störeffekten behandelt die Arbeit die Analyse und Minderung von Nichtlinearitäten in Empfängern mit direkt-umsetzender Architektur. Im Vordergrund stehen dabei Signalverarbeitungsstrategien zur Minderung nichtlinear verursachter Interferenz - ein Algorithmus, der besser unter "Dirty RF"-Techniken bekannt ist. Ein digitales Verfahren nach der Vorwärtskopplung wird durch intensive Simulationen, Messungen und Implementierung in realer Hardware verifiziert. Um die Lücken zwischen Theorie und praktischer Anwendbarkeit zu schließen und das Verfahren in reale Funkmodule zu integrieren, werden verschiedene Untersuchungen durchgeführt. Hierzu wird ein erweitertes Verhaltensmodell entwickelt, das die Struktur direkt-umsetzender Empfänger am besten nachbildet und damit alle Verzerrungen im HF- und Basisband erfasst. Darüber hinaus wird die Leistungsfähigkeit des Algorithmus unter realen Funkkanal-Bedingungen untersucht. Zusätzlich folgt die Vorstellung einer ressourceneffizienten Echtzeit-Implementierung des Verfahrens auf einem FPGA. Abschließend diskutiert die Arbeit verschiedene Anwendungsfelder, darunter spektrales Sensing, robuster GSM-Empfang und GSM-basiertes Passivradar. Es wird gezeigt, dass nichtlineare Verzerrungen erfolgreich in der digitalen Domäne gemindert werden können, wodurch die Bitfehlerrate gestörter modulierter Signale sinkt und der Anteil nichtlinear verursachter Interferenz minimiert wird. Schließlich kann durch das Verfahren die effektive Linearität des HF-Frontends stark erhöht werden. Damit wird der zuverlässige Betrieb eines einfachen Funkmoduls unter dem Einfluss der Empfängernichtlinearität möglich. Aufgrund des flexiblen Designs ist der Algorithmus für breitbandige Empfänger universal einsetzbar und ist nicht auf Software-konfigurierbare Funkmodule beschränkt.Today's wireless communication systems place high requirements on the radio's hardware that are largely mutually exclusive, such as low power consumption, wide bandwidth, and high linearity. Achieving a sufficient linearity, among other analogue characteristics, is a challenging issue in practical transceiver design. The focus of this thesis is on wideband receiver RF front-ends for software defined radio technology, which became commercially available in the recent years. Practical challenges and limitations are being revealed in real-world experiments with these radios. One of the main problems is to ensure a sufficient RF performance of the front-end over a wide bandwidth. The thesis covers the analysis and mitigation of receiver non-linearity of typical direct-conversion receiver architectures, among other RF impairments. The main focus is on DSP-based algorithms for mitigating non-linearly induced interference, an approach also known as "Dirty RF" signal processing techniques. The conceived digital feedforward mitigation algorithm is verified through extensive simulations, RF measurements, and implementation in real hardware. Various studies are carried out that bridge the gap between theory and practical applicability of this approach, especially with the aim of integrating that technique into real devices. To this end, an advanced baseband behavioural model is developed that matches to direct-conversion receiver architectures as close as possible, and thus considers all generated distortions at RF and baseband. In addition, the algorithm's performance is verified under challenging fading conditions. Moreover, the thesis presents a resource-efficient real-time implementation of the proposed solution on an FPGA. Finally, different use cases are covered in the thesis that includes spectrum monitoring or sensing, GSM downlink reception, and GSM-based passive radar. It is shown that non-linear distortions can be successfully mitigated at system level in the digital domain, thereby decreasing the bit error rate of distorted modulated signals and reducing the amount of non-linearly induced interference. Finally, the effective linearity of the front-end is increased substantially. Thus, the proper operation of a low-cost radio under presence of receiver non-linearity is possible. Due to the flexible design, the algorithm is generally applicable for wideband receivers and is not restricted to software defined radios

Architectures, Antennas and Circuits for Millimeter-wave Wireless Full-Duplex Applications

Demand for wireless network capacity keeps growing exponentially every year, as a result a 1000-fold increase in data traffic is projected over the next 10 years in the context of 5G wireless networks. Solutions for delivering the 1000-fold increase in capacity fall into three main categories: deploying smaller cells, allocating more spectrum and improving spectral efficiency of wireless systems. Smaller cells at RF frequencies (1-6GHz) are unlikely to deliver the demanded capacity increase. On the other hand, millimeter-wave spectrum (frequencies over 24GHz) offers wider, multi-GHz channel bandwidths, and therefore has gained significant research interest as one of the most promising solutions to address the data traffic demands of 5G. Another disruptive technology is full-duplex which breaks a century-old assumption in wireless communication, by simultaneous transmission and reception on the same frequency channel. In doing so, full-duplex offers many benefits for wireless networks, including an immediate spectral efficiency improvement in the physical layer. Although FD promises great benefits, self-interference from the transmitter to its own receiver poses a fundamental challenge. The self-interference can be more than a billion times stronger than the desired signal and must be suppressed below the receiver noise floor. In recent years, there has been some research efforts on fully-integrated full-duplex RF transceivers, but mm-wave fully-integrated full-duplex systems, are still in their infancy. This dissertation presents novel architectures, antenna and circuit techniques to merge two exciting technologies, mm-wave and full-duplex, which can potentially offer the dual benefits of wide bandwidths and improved spectral efficiency. To this end, two different antenna interfaces, namely a wideband reconfigurable T/R antenna pair with polarization-based antenna cancellation and an mm-wave fully-integrated magnetic-free non-reciprocal circulator, are presented. The polarization-based antenna cancellation is employed in conjunction with the RF and digital cancellation to design a 60GHz full-duplex 45nm SOI CMOS transceiver with nearly 80dB self-interference suppression. The concepts and prototypes presented in this dissertation have also profound implications for emerging applications such as vehicular radars, 5G small-cell base-stations and virtual reality

Adaptive bootstrap signal separators for BPSK/QAM-modulated wireless CDMA systems in a multipath environment

CDMA is an attractive multiple-access scheme, because of its potential capacity increase and its anti-multipath fading capability. For satisfactory performance, however, the effect of the near-far problem has to be resolved. This problem can be combated by using power-control, which, however, results in an overall reduction in communication ranges, and thus in a loss of capacity. Among other methods for mitigating the near-far problem is the use of decorrelating receivers, both of fixed type, which directly utilizes the cross-correlation of the users codes, and of adaptive type, which uses recursive algorithms that leads to signal decorrelation. Not to lessen the importance of other adaptive algorithms, the current research concentrates on what was termed in the literature bootstrap algorithm . Although the emphasis will be on applying the adaptive bootstrap decorrelator, the fixed type will be used primarily to provide comparison. Also used for comparison are both blind adaptive and training sequence based MMSE. Most of the literature on multiuser detection has been assuming BPSK. However, a need for transferring wideband data demands using modulation schemes with high bits/cycle, such as QAM. Therefore, modification of the receiver is considered, so that QAM-modulation can be applied efficiently, using the complex signal approach of this modulation. For the asynchronous channel, vast amounts of research have been devoted to using one-shot matched filter banks followed by conventional decorrelators which implement the inverse of some (partial) correlation matrix. In this work, an adaptive bootstrap version is presented, which is suitable for the one-shot structure shown previously to be more robust to errors in delay estimation. It has also been noted that such a correlation matrix can, depending on the channel characteristics, become ill-conditioned or even singular. Therefore, another matched filtering structure, followed by what is called a multishot conventional (fixed type) decorrelator, has been previously suggested to mitigate this singularity problem. However, the fixed type of the multishot decorrelator is expected to have similar non-robustness to errors in delay estimation as was previously shown for the one-shot. Therefore, the adaptive multishot bootstrap decorrelator is presented and evaluated. Also, by adding an adaptive canceler, an extension to the above matched filter-decorrelator combination, will be proposed and evaluated. A multipath time-variant fading environment will be used in some of these performance evaluations. Finally, when handling multipath channels, the question is raised whether path combining should be done before or after the signals are decorrelated. For the asynchronous case, a one-shot extension of the bootstrap algorithm is presented, which is capable of decorrelating the signals from resolved paths of different users, to facilitate the decorrelate before combining case

RF and Millimeter-wave Techniques to Improve Scalability and Efficiency of Digital Beamforming Arrays

Spectrum overcrowding, ever increasing demand for high data rate and increased mobility requirements are three major challenges 5G-technology is trying to address. In this thesis I start with a RF front-end technique that deals with blocker interference arising from spectrum overcrowding both across frequency bands and within the same frequency bands. Chapter 3 presents a single wire IF interface design for phased array receivers which enables simple IF backhaul for high data volume MIMO systems. Finally a outphasing power amplifier(PA) design is presented in chapter 4 along with a driver amplifier with digital amplitude modulation to achieve state of the art power back off efficiency, which reduces battery usage and thus increases mobility. The first part of this thesis demonstrates the use of orthogonal sequences along to N-path filters to achieve reconfigurable select/reject filtering of signals based on their spatial, spectral and code-domain properties. A frequency/code-domain reject and select filtering is proposed and implemented using N-path switching with passive inductors as correlators. Using inductors instead of capacitors in N-path filters is challenging because of large inductance value required for our application demands use of off-chip inductors, which comes with associated parasitics and lower self-resonance frequency. In this design a cascaded inductor approach and differential N-path filtering is used to overcome inductor parasitics and enable operation at 1 GHz. A code-domain notch filter followed by a code-domain select receiver is designed and implemented in 65-nm CMOS technology. Measurements demonstrate 0.5 GHz to 1.0 GHz filter tuning range, with a maximum 26dB rejection for a blocker signal with 8dBm power, while consuming 60mW (at 1GHz operation frequency) and occupying 1.2mm2 of die area. Second part of this thesis demonstrates a single wire IF interface to simplify scaling of millimeter-wave(mm-Wave) phased array systems while preserving the data from each element, this enables spatial multiplexing, virtual arrays for radar, digital beamforming(DBF), etc. However, per-element digitization results in a formidable I/O challenge in large-scale tiled MIMO mm-Wave arrays. This dissertation demonstrates a 28 GHz 4-element MIMO RX with a single-wire interface that multiplexes the baseband signals of all elements and the LO reference through code-domain multiplexing. System considerations are presented and the approach is validated through DBF after de-multiplexing of the baseband signals from the single wire. Each element in the array achieves 16 dB conversion gain and ∼ 7 dB noise figure(NF) while consuming 60 mA from 1.2 V. The IC occupies 5.75 mm² in 65-nm CMOS. Final part of this thesis describes the design and implementation of a digital outphasing PA at 28 GHz to achieve state of the art back of efficiency. Outphasing PA require branch PA units to act as voltage sources(very low output impedance), which is challenging at mm-Wave frequencies. In this PA design an approximate class-F operation is achieved by tuning PA load network for up to 3rd harmonic. A stacked PA architecture is used for individual PA units to achieve high maximum power output. Output-power further improved by utilizing a novel diode connected stack bias circuit to improve out-put swing. PA delivers a maximum output-power of 20 dBm with a peak power added efficiency(PAE) of 27% (PA along with driver stages) and 6 dB back-off PAE of 16.5%

Étude du relais full-duplex dans les environnements intérieurs

Élargir la couverture des services du réseau aux endroits difficiles et aux régions éloignées est un besoin de plus en plus nécessaire de nos vies quotidiennes actuelles et futures. L'augmentation de la population et la demande accrue de services et de solutions de communication requièrent l'augmentation de la capacité des moyens de communication tout en permettant une couverture plus efficiente et plus étendue des territoires et régions faiblement peuplées dans le Canada et dans monde. Des études récentes ont confirmé que des interférences comme les interférences dans le même canal (ICC) et les interférences mutuelles (SI) ont un impact énorme sur les systèmes de communication sans fil et peuvent entraîner une dégradation significative des performances. Les techniques de relayage, dans lesquelles une source émettrice communique avec un récepteur destinataire l'aide d'un noeud intermédiaire, ont été introduites comme des solutions pour répondre au besoin croissant de débits plus élevés et de couverture étendu pour les communications sans fil. En tant que tel, il est essentiel de concevoir des systèmes de relais capables non seulement d'offrir une grande efficacité spectrale du signal radio, mais aussi de bénéficier pleinement des facilités de la diversité antennaire. Pour répondre à cet objectif, ce mémoire présente une étude sur une technique originale de réduction et d'annulation des interférences induite par un relayage quasi instantané sur un même signal radio en utilisant les antennes multiples du relais. Transmettre et recevoir simultanément le même signal radio au niveau du relais, créent une auto-interférence en raison des signaux de bouclage. Le défi principal de la mise en oeuvre du relais est d'atténuer et d'annuler la destruction ou la perte de l'information relayée. L'originalité de du travail réside dans la proposition d'un algorithme efficace utilisant une double projection 1 'une à 1' entrée du relais et une autre à la sortie du relais. Les résultats obtenus démontrent une réduction significative des interférences comparativement à d'autres travaux