MIMO techniques for higher data rate wireless communications

The demand for higher data rate, higher spectral efficiency and better quality of service in wireless communications is growing fast in the past few years. However, obtaining these requirements become challenging for wireless communication systems due to the problems of channel multi-path fading, higher power loss and power bandwidth limitations. A lot of research interest has been directed towards implementing new techniques in wireless communication systems, such as MIMO an OFDM, to overcome the above mentioned problems. Methods of achieving higher data rate and better spectral efficiency have been dealt with in the thesis. The work comprised three parts; the first part focuses on channel modelling, the second looks at fading mitigation techniques, and the third part deals with adaptive transmission schemes for different diversity techniques. In the first part, we present multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) space-time geometrical channel model with hyperbolically distributed scatterers (GBHDS) for a macro-cell mobile environment. The model is based on one-ring scattering assumption. This MIMO model provides statistics of the time of arrival (TOA) and direction of arrival (DOA). Our analytical results are validated with measurement data and compared to different geometrical based signal bounce macro-cell (GBSSBM) channel models including Gaussian scatterer density (GSD) channel model, the geometrical based exponential (GBE) channel model. On the other hand, for the same channel model we investigate the analytical methods which capture physical wave and antenna configuration at both ends representing in a matrix form. In the second part, we investigate the proposed channel model using joint frequency and spatial diversity system. . We combine STBC with OFDM to improve the error performance in the fading channels. We consider two different fading scenarios namely frequency selective and time selective fading channels. For the first scenario we propose a new technique to suppress the frequency error offset caused by the motion of mobile (Doppler shift). On the other hand, we examine the performance of STBC-OFDM in time selective macro-cell channel environment. In the last part, we evaluate the spectral efficiency for different receiver diversity namely maximal ratio combiner (MRC), selection combiner (SC), and Hybrid (MRC/SC). We derive closed form expressions for the single user capacity, taking into account the effect of imperfect channel estimation at the receiver. The channel considered is a slowly varying spatially independent flat Rayleigh fading channel. Three adaptive transmission schemes are analysed: 1) optimal power rate and rate adaptation (opra), constant power with optimal rate adaptation (ora), and 3) channel inversion with fixed rate (cifr). Furthermore, we derive analytical results for capacity statistics including moment generating function (MGF), complementary cumulative distribution function (CDF) and probability density function (pdf)

Physical-Layer Cooperation in Coded OFDM Relaying Systems

Mobile communication systems nowadays require ever-increasing data rate and coverage of wide areas. One promising approach to achieve this goal is the application of cooperative communications enabled by introducing intermediate nodes known as relays to support the transmission between terminals. By processing and forwarding the receive message at the relays, the path-loss effect between the source and the destination is mitigated. One major limit factor for relay assisted communications is that a relay cannot transmit and receive using the same physical resources. Therefore, a half-duplex constraint is commonly assumed resulting in halved spectral efficiency. To combat this drawback, two-way relaying is introduced, where two sources exchange information with each. On the other hand, due to the physical limitation of the relays, e.g., wireless sensor nodes, it's not possible to implement multiple antennas at one relay, which prohibits the application of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques. However, when treating multiple relays as a cluster, a virtual antenna array is formed to perform MIMO techniques in a distributed manner. %This thesis aims at designing efficient one-way and two-way relaying schemes. Specifically, existing schemes from the literature are improved and new schemes are developed with the emphasis on coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmissions. Of special interest is the application of physical-layer network coding (PLNC) for two-phase two-way relaying. In this case, a network coded message is estimated from the superimposed receive signal at the relay using PLNC schemes. The schemes are investigated based on a mutual information analysis and their performance are improved by a newly proposed phase control strategy. Furthermore, performance degradation due to system asynchrony is mitigated depending on different PLNC schemes. When multiple relays are available, novel cooperation schemes allowing information exchange within the relay cluster are proposed that facilitate distributed MIMO reception and transmission. Additionally, smart signaling approaches are presented to enable the cooperation at different levels with the cooperation overhead taken into account adequately in system performance evaluation

Collaborative modulation multiple access for single hop and multihop networks

While the bandwidth available for wireless networks is limited, the world has seen an unprecedented growth in the number of mobile subscribers and an ever increasing demand for high data rates. Therefore efficient utilisation of bandwidth to maximise link spectral efficiency and number of users that can be served simultaneously are primary goals in the design of wireless systems. To achieve these goals, in this thesis, a new non-orthogonal uplink multiple access scheme which combines the functionalities of adaptive modulation and multiple access called collaborative modulation multiple access (CMMA) is proposed. CMMA enables multiple users to access the network simultaneously and share the same bandwidth even when only a single receive antenna is available and in the presence of high channel correlation. Instead of competing for resources, users in CMMA share resources collaboratively by employing unique modulation sets (UMS) that differ in phase, power, and/or mapping structure. These UMS are designed to insure that the received signal formed from the superposition of all users’ signals belongs to a composite QAM constellation (CC) with a rate equal to the sum rate of all users. The CC and its constituent UMSs are designed centrally at the BS to remove ambiguity, maximize the minimum Euclidian distance (dmin) of the CC and insure a minimum BER performance is maintained. Users collaboratively precode their transmitted signal by performing truncated channel inversion and phase rotation using channel state information (CSI ) obtained from a periodic common pilot to insure that their combined signal at the BS belongs to the CC known at the BS which in turn performs a simple joint maximum likelihood detection without the need for CSI. The coherent addition of users’ power enables CMMA to achieve high link spectral efficiency at any time without extra power or bandwidth but on the expense of graceful degradation in BER performance. To improve the BER performance of CMMA while preserving its precoding and detection structure and without the need for pilot-aided channel estimation, a new selective diversity combining scheme called SC-CMMA is proposed. SC-CMMA optimises the overall group performance providing fairness and diversity gain for various users with different transmit powers and channel conditions by selecting a single antenna out of a group of L available antennas that minimises the total transmit power required for precoding at any one time. A detailed study of capacity and BER performance of CMMA and SC-CMMA is carried out under different level of channel correlations which shows that both offer high capacity gain and resilience to channel correlation. SC-CMMA capacity even increase with high channel correlation between users’ channels. CMMA provides a practical solution for implementing the multiple access adder channel (MAAC) in fading environments hence a hybrid approach combining both collaborative coding and modulation referred to as H-CMMA is investigated. H-CMMA divides users into a number of subgroups where users within a subgroup are assigned the same modulation set and different multiple access codes. H-CMMA adjusts the dmin of the received CC by varying the number of subgroups which in turn varies the number of unique constellation points for the same number of users and average total power. Therefore H-CMMA can accommodate many users with different rates while flexibly managing the complexity, rate and BER performance depending on the SNR. Next a new scheme combining CMMA with opportunistic scheduling using only partial CSI at the receiver called CMMA-OS is proposed to combine both the power gain of CMMA and the multiuser diversity gain that arises from users’ channel independence. To avoid the complexity and excessive feedback associated with the dynamic update of the CC, the BS takes into account the independence of users’ channels in the design of the CC and its constituent UMSs but both remain unchanged thereafter. However UMS are no longer associated with users, instead channel gain’s probability density function is divided into regions with identical probability and each UMS is associated with a specific region. This will simplify scheduling as users can initially chose their UMS based on their CSI and the BS will only need to resolve any collision when the channels of two or more users are located at the same region. Finally a high rate cooperative communication scheme, called cooperative modulation (CM) is proposed for cooperative multiuser systems. CM combines the reliability of the cooperative diversity with the high spectral efficiency and multiple access capabilities of CMMA. CM maintains low feedback and high spectral efficiency by restricting relaying to a single route with the best overall channel. Two possible variations of CM are proposed depending on whether CSI available only at the users or just at the BS and the selected relay. The first is referred to Precode, Amplify, and Forward (PAF) while the second one is called Decode, Remap, and Forward (DMF). A new route selection algorithm for DMF based on maximising dmin of random CC is also proposed using a novel fast low-complexity multi-stage sphere based algorithm to calculate the dmin at the relay of random CC that is used for both relay selection and detection