Software Defined Radio Implementation of Carrier and Timing Synchronization for Distributed Arrays

The communication range of wireless networks can be greatly improved by using distributed beamforming from a set of independent radio nodes. One of the key challenges in establishing a beamformed communication link from separate radios is achieving carrier frequency and sample timing synchronization. This paper describes an implementation that addresses both carrier frequency and sample timing synchronization simultaneously using RF signaling between designated master and slave nodes. By using a pilot signal transmitted by the master node, each slave estimates and tracks the frequency and timing offset and digitally compensates for them. A real-time implementation of the proposed system was developed in GNU Radio and tested with Ettus USRP N210 software defined radios. The measurements show that the distributed array can reach a residual frequency error of 5 Hz and a residual timing offset of 1/16 the sample duration for 70 percent of the time. This performance enables distributed beamforming for range extension applications.Comment: Submitted to 2019 IEEE Aerospace Conferenc

MIMO-UFMC Transceiver Schemes for Millimeter Wave Wireless Communications

The UFMC modulation is among the most considered solutions for the realization of beyond-OFDM air interfaces for future wireless networks. This paper focuses on the design and analysis of an UFMC transceiver equipped with multiple antennas and operating at millimeter wave carrier frequencies. The paper provides the full mathematical model of a MIMO-UFMC transceiver, taking into account the presence of hybrid analog/digital beamformers at both ends of the communication links. Then, several detection structures are proposed, both for the case of single-packet isolated transmission, and for the case of multiple-packet continuous transmission. In the latter situation, the paper also considers the case in which no guard time among adjacent packets is inserted, trading off an increased level of interference with higher values of spectral efficiency. At the analysis stage, the several considered detection structures and transmission schemes are compared in terms of bit-error-rate, root-mean-square-error, and system throughput. The numerical results show that the proposed transceiver algorithms are effective and that the linear MMSE data detector is capable of well managing the increased interference brought by the removal of guard times among consecutive packets, thus yielding throughput gains of about 10 - 13 $\%$. The effect of phase noise at the receiver is also numerically assessed, and it is shown that the recursive implementation of the linear MMSE exhibits some degree of robustness against this disturbance

Feedback Mechanisms for Centralized and Distributed Mobile Systems

The wireless communication market is expected to witness considerable growth in the immediate future due to increasing smart device usage to access real-time data. Mobile devices become the predominant method of Internet access via cellular networks (4G/5G) and the onset of virtual reality (VR), ushering in the wide deployment of multiple bands, ranging from TVWhite Spaces to cellular/WiFi bands and on to mmWave. Multi-antenna techniques have been considered to be promising approaches in telecommunication to optimize the utilization of radio spectrum and minimize the cost of system construction. The performance of multiple antenna technology depends on the utilization of radio propagation properties and feedback of such information in a timely manner. However, when a signal is transmitted, it is usually dispersed over time coming over different paths of different lengths due to reflections from obstacles or affected by Doppler shift in mobile environments. This motivates the design of novel feedback mechanisms that improve the performance of multi-antenna systems. Accurate channel state information (CSI) is essential to increasing throughput in multiinput, multi-output (MIMO) systems with digital beamforming. Channel-state information for the operation of MIMO schemes (such as transmit diversity or spatial multiplexing) can be acquired by feedback of CSI reports in the downlink direction, or inferred from uplink measurements assuming perfect channel reciprocity (CR). However, most works make the assumption that channels are perfectly reciprocal. This assumption is often incorrect in practice due to poor channel estimation and imperfect channel feedback. Instead, experiments have demonstrated that channel reciprocity can be easily broken by multiple factors. Specifically, channel reciprocity error (CRE) introduced by transmitter-receiver imbalance have been widely studied by both simulations and experiments, and the impact of mobility and estimation error have been fully investigated in this thesis. In particular, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have asymmetric behavior when communicating with one another and to the ground, due to differences in altitude that frequently occur. Feedback mechanisms are also affected by channel differences caused by the user’s body. While there has been work to specifically quantify the losses in signal reception, there has been little work on how these channel differences affect feedback mechanisms. In this dissertation, we perform system-level simulations, implement design with a software defined radio platform, conduct in-field experiments for various wireless communication systems to analyze different channel feedback mechanisms. To explore the feedback mechanism, we then explore two specific real world scenarios, including UAV-based beamforming communications, and user-induced feedback systems

An Efficient Uplink Multi-Connectivity Scheme for 5G mmWave Control Plane Applications

The millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies offer the potential of orders of magnitude increases in capacity for next-generation cellular systems. However, links in mmWave networks are susceptible to blockage and may suffer from rapid variations in quality. Connectivity to multiple cells - at mmWave and/or traditional frequencies - is considered essential for robust communication. One of the challenges in supporting multi-connectivity in mmWaves is the requirement for the network to track the direction of each link in addition to its power and timing. To address this challenge, we implement a novel uplink measurement system that, with the joint help of a local coordinator operating in the legacy band, guarantees continuous monitoring of the channel propagation conditions and allows for the design of efficient control plane applications, including handover, beam tracking and initial access. We show that an uplink-based multi-connectivity approach enables less consuming, better performing, faster and more stable cell selection and scheduling decisions with respect to a traditional downlink-based standalone scheme. Moreover, we argue that the presented framework guarantees (i) efficient tracking of the user in the presence of the channel dynamics expected at mmWaves, and (ii) fast reaction to situations in which the primary propagation path is blocked or not available.Comment: Submitted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (TWC