Frequency Estimation in OFDM Direct-Conversion Receivers Using a Repeated Preamble

This paper investigates the problem of carrier frequency offset (CFO) recovery in an OFDM receiver affected by frequency-selective in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) imbalances. The analysis is based on maximum-likelihood (ML) methods and relies on the transmission of a training preamble with a repetitive structure in the time domain. After assessing the accuracy of the conventional ML (CML) scheme in a scenario characterized by I/Q impairments, we review the joint ML (JML) estimator of all unknown parameters and evaluate its theoretical performance. In order to improve the estimation accuracy, we also present a novel CFO recovery method that exploits some side-information about the signal-to-interference ratio. It turns out that both CML and JML can be derived from this scheme by properly adjusting the value of a design parameter. The accuracy of the investigated methods are compared with the relevant Cramer-Rao bound. Our results can be used to check whether conventional CFO recovery algorithms can work properly or not in the presence of I/Q imbalances and also to evaluate the potential gain attainable by more sophisticated schemes

Periodic Preamble-Based Frequency Recovery in OFDM Receivers Plagued by I/Q Imbalance

The direct conversion receiver (DCR) architecture has received much attention in the last few years as an effective means to obtain user terminals with reduced cost, size, and power consumption. A major drawback of a DCR device is the possible insertion of I/Q imbalances in the demodulated signal, which can seriously degrade the performance of conventional synchronization algorithms. In this paper, we investigate the problem of carrier frequency offset (CFO) recovery in an OFDM receiver equipped with a DCR front-end. Our approach is based on maximum likelihood (ML) arguments and aims at jointly estimating the CFO, the useful signal component, and its mirror image. In doing so, we exploit knowledge of the pilot symbols transmitted within a conventional repeated training preamble appended in front of each data packet. Since the exact ML solution turns out to be too complex for practical purposes, we propose two alternative schemes which can provide nearly optimal performance with substantial computational saving. One of them provides the CFO in closed-form, thereby avoiding any grid-search procedure. The accuracy of the proposed methods is assessed in a scenario compliant with the 802.11a WLAN standard. Compared with existing solutions, the novel schemes achieve improved performance at the price of a tolerable increase of the processing load

Carrier frequency offset recovery for zero-IF OFDM receivers

As trends in broadband wireless communications applications demand faster development cycles, smaller sizes, lower costs, and ever increasing data rates, engineers continually seek new ways to harness evolving technology. The zero intermediate frequency receiver architecture has now become popular as it has both economic and size advantages over the traditional superheterodyne architecture. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a popular multi-carrier modulation technique with the ability to provide high data rates over echo ladened channels. It has excellent robustness to impairments caused by multipath, which includes frequency selective fading. Unfortunately, OFDM is very sensitive to the carrier frequency offset (CFO) that is introduced by the downconversion process. The objective of this thesis is to develop and to analyze an algorithm for blind CFO recovery suitable for use with a practical zero-Intermediate Frequency (zero-IF) OFDM telecommunications system. A blind CFO recovery algorithm based upon characteristics of the received signal's power spectrum is proposed. The algorithm's error performance is mathematically analyzed, and the theoretical results are verified with simulations. Simulation shows that the performance of the proposed algorithm agrees with the mathematical analysis. A number of other CFO recovery techniques are compared to the proposed algorithm. The proposed algorithm performs well in comparison and does not suffer from many of the disadvantages of existing blind CFO recovery techniques. Most notably, its performance is not significantly degraded by noisy, frequency selective channels

Direction of Arrival Estimation for Radio Positioning: a Hardware Implementation Perspective

Nowadays multiple antenna wireless systems have gained considerable attention due to their capability to increase performance. Advances in theory have introduced several new schemes that rely on multiple antennas and aim to increase data rate, diversity gain, or to provide multiuser capabilities, beamforming and direction finding (DF) features. In this respect, it has been shown that a multiple antenna receiver can be potentially used to perform radio localization by using the direction of arrival (DoA) estimation technique. In this field, the literature is extensive and gathers the results of almost four decades of research activities. Among the most cited techniques that have been developed, we find the so called high-resolution algorithms, such as multiple signal classification (MUSIC), or estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance (ESPRIT). Theoretical analysis as well as simulation results have demonstrated their excellent performance to the point that they are usually considered as reference for the comparison with other algorithms. However, such a performance is not necessarily obtained in a real system due to the presence of non idealities. These can be divided into two categories: the impairments due to the antenna array, and the impairments due to the multiple radio frequency (RF) and acquisition front-ends (FEs). The former are strongly influenced by the manufacturing accuracy and, depending on the required DoA resolution, have to be taken into account. Several works address these issues in the literature. The multiple FE non idealities, instead, are usually not considered in the DoA estimation literature, even if they can have a detrimental effect on the performance. This has motivated the research work in this thesis that addresses the problem of DoA estimation from a practical implementation perspective, emphasizing the impact of the hardware impairments on the final performance. This work is substantiated by measurements done on a state-of-the-art hardware platform that have pointed out the presence of non idealities such as DC offsets, phase noise (PN), carrier frequency offsets (CFOs), and phase offsets (POs) among receivers. Particularly, the hardware platform will be herein described and examined to understand what non idealities can affect the DoA estimation performance. This analysis will bring to identify which features a DF system should have to reach certain performance. Another important issue is the number of antenna elements. In fact, it is usually limited by practical considerations, such as size, costs, and also complexity. However, the most cited DoA estimation algorithms need a high number of antenna elements, and this does not yield them suitable to be implemented in a real system. Motivated by this consideration, the final part of this work will describe a novel DoA estimation algorithm that can be used when multipath propagation occurs. This algorithm does not need a high number of antenna elements to be implemented, and it shows good performance despite its low implementation/computational complexity

Harmonic Retrieval of CFO and Frame Misalignment for OFDM-based Inter-Satellite Links

As dense low Earth orbit (LEO) constellations are being planned, the need for accurate synchronization schemes in high-speed environments remains a challenging problem to tackle. To further improve synchronization accuracy in channeling environments, which can also be applied in the LEO networks, we present a new method for estimating the carrier frequency offset (CFO) and frame misalignment in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based inter-satellite links. The proposed method requires the transmission of pilot symbols to exploit 2-D estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (ESPRIT) and estimate the CFO and the frame misalignment. The Cramer-Rao lower bounds (CRLB) of the joint estimation of the CFO and frame misalignment are also derived. Numerical results show that the difference between the proposed method and the state-of-art method is less than 5dB at its worse.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, to be published in 2021 17th International Symposium on Wireless Communication Systems (ISWCS

Timing and Carrier Synchronization in Wireless Communication Systems: A Survey and Classification of Research in the Last 5 Years

Timing and carrier synchronization is a fundamental requirement for any wireless communication system to work properly. Timing synchronization is the process by which a receiver node determines the correct instants of time at which to sample the incoming signal. Carrier synchronization is the process by which a receiver adapts the frequency and phase of its local carrier oscillator with those of the received signal. In this paper, we survey the literature over the last 5 years (2010–2014) and present a comprehensive literature review and classification of the recent research progress in achieving timing and carrier synchronization in single-input single-output (SISO), multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), cooperative relaying, and multiuser/multicell interference networks. Considering both single-carrier and multi-carrier communication systems, we survey and categorize the timing and carrier synchronization techniques proposed for the different communication systems focusing on the system model assumptions for synchronization, the synchronization challenges, and the state-of-the-art synchronization solutions and their limitations. Finally, we envision some future research directions

Physical Layer Techniques for Wireless Communication Systems

The increasing diffusion of mobile devices requiring, everywhere and every time, reliable connections able to support the more common applications, induced in the last years the deployment of telecommunication networks based on technologies capable to respond effectively to the ever-increasing market demand, still a long way off from saturation level. Multicarrier transmission techniques employed in standards for local networks (Wi-Fi) and metropolitan networks (WiMAX) and for many years hot research topic, have been definitely adopted beginning from the fourth generation of cellular systems (LTE). The adoption of multicarrier signaling techniques if on one hand has brought significant advantages to counteract the detrimental effects in environments with particularly harsh propagation channel, on the other hand, has imposed very strict requirements on sensitivity to recovery errors of the carrier frequency offset (CFO) due to the resulting impact on correct signal detection. The main focus of the thesis falls in this area, investigating some aspects relating to synchronization procedures for system based on multicarrier signaling. Particular reference will be made to a network entry procedure for LTE networks and to CFO recovery for OFDM, fltered multitone modulation and direct conversion receivers. Other contributions pertaining to physical layer issues for communication systems, both radio and over acoustic carrier, conclude the thesis

Pilot sequence based IQ imbalance estimation and compensation

Abstract. As modern radio access technologies strive to achieve progressively higher data rates and to become increasingly more reliable, minimizing the effects of hardware imperfections becomes a priority. One of those imperfections is in-phase quadrature imbalance (IQI), caused by amplitude and phase response differences between the I and Q branches of the IQ demodulation process. IQI has been shown to deteriorate bit error rates, possibly compromise positioning performance, amongst other effects. Minimizing IQI by tightening hardware manufacturing constraints is not always a commercially viable approach, thus, baseband processing for IQI compensation provides an alternative. The thesis begins by presenting a study in IQI modeling for direct conversion receivers, we then derive a model for general imbalances and show that it reproduces the two most common models in the bibliography. We proceed by exploring some of the existing IQI compensation techniques and discussing their underlying assumptions, advantages, and possible relevant issues. A novel pilot-sequence based approach for tackling IQI estimation and compensation is introduced in this thesis. The idea is to minimize the square Frobenius norm of the error between candidate covariance matrices, which are functions of the candidate IQI parameters, and the sample covariance matrices, obtained from measurements. This new method is first presented in a positioning context with flat fading channels, where IQI compensation is used to improve the positioning estimates mean square error. The technique is then adapted to orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems,including an version that exploits the 5G New Radio reference signals to estimate the IQI coefficients. We further generalize the new approach to solve joint transmitter and receiver IQI estimation and discuss the implementation details and suggested optimization techniques. The introduced methods are evaluated numerically in their corresponding chapters under a set of different conditions, such as varying signal-to-noise ratio, pilot sequence length, channel model, number of subcarriers, etc. Finally, the proposed compensation approach is compared to other well-established methods by evaluating the bit error rate curves of 5G transmissions. We consistently show that the proposed method is capable of outperforming these other methods if the SNR and pilot sequence length values are sufficiently high. In the positioning simulations, the proposed IQI compensation method was able to improve the root mean squared error (RMSE) of the position estimates by approximately 25 cm. In the OFDM scenario, with high SNR and a long pilot sequence, the new method produced estimates with mean squared error (MSE) about a million times smaller than those from a blind estimator. In bit error rate (BER) simulations, the new method was the only compensation technique capable of producing BER curves similar to the curves without IQI in all of the studied scenarios

Convergence of millimeter-wave and photonic interconnect systems for very-high-throughput digital communication applications

In the past, radio-frequency signals were commonly used for low-speed wireless electronic systems, and optical signals were used for multi-gigabit wired communication systems. However, as the emergence of new millimeter-wave technology introduces multi-gigabit transmission over a wireless radio-frequency channel, the borderline between radio-frequency and optical systems becomes blurred. As a result, there come ample opportunities to design and develop next-generation broadband systems to combine the advantages of these two technologies to overcome inherent limitations of various broadband end-to-end interconnect systems in signal generation, recovery, synchronization, and so on. For the transmission distances of a few centimeters to thousands of kilometers, the convergence of radio-frequency electronics and optics to build radio-over-fiber systems ushers in a new era of research for the upcoming very-high-throughput broadband services. Radio-over-fiber systems are believed to be the most promising solution to the backhaul transmission of the millimeter-wave wireless access networks, especially for the license-free, very-high-throughput 60-GHz band. Adopting radio-over-fiber systems in access or in-building networks can greatly extend the 60-GHz signal reach by using ultra-low loss optical fibers. However, such high frequency is difficult to generate in a straightforward way. In this dissertation, the novel techniques of homodyne and heterodyne optical-carrier suppressions for radio-over-fiber systems are investigated and various system architectures are designed to overcome these limitations of 60-GHz wireless access networks, bringing the popularization of multi-gigabit wireless networks to become closer to the reality. In addition to the advantages for the access networks, extremely high spectral efficiency, which is the most important parameter for long-haul networks, can be achieved by radio-over-fiber signal generation. As a result, the transmission performance of spectrally efficient radio-over-fiber signaling, including orthogonal frequency division multiplexing and orthogonal wavelength division multiplexing, is broadly and deeply investigated. On the other hand, radio-over-fiber is also used for the frequency synchronization that can resolve the performance limitation of wireless interconnect systems. A novel wireless interconnects assisted by radio-over-fiber subsystems is proposed in this dissertation. In conclusion, multiple advantageous facets of radio-over-fiber systems can be found in various levels of end-to-end interconnect systems. The rapid development of radio-over-fiber systems will quickly change the conventional appearance of modern communications.PhDCommittee Chair: Gee-Kung Chang; Committee Member: Bernard Kippelen; Committee Member: Shyh-Chiang Shen; Committee Member: Thomas K. Gaylord; Committee Member: Umakishore Ramachandra