Network-coded MIMO-NOMA systems with FEC codes in two-way relay networks

This paper assumes two users and a two‐way relay network with the combination of 2×2 multi‐input multi‐output (MIMO) and nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA). To achieve network reliability without sacrificing network throughput, network‐coded MIMO‐NOMA schemes with convolutional, Reed‐Solomon (RS), and turbo codes are applied. Messages from two users at the relay node are network‐coded and combined in NOMA scheme. Interleaved differential encoding with redundancy (R‐RIDE) scheme is proposed together with MIMO‐NOMA system. Quadrature phase‐shift keying (QPSK) modulation technique is used. Bit error rate (BER) versus signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) (dB) and average mutual information (AMI) (bps/Hz) versus SNR (dB) in NOMA and MIMO‐NOMA schemes are evaluated and presented. From the simulated results, the combination of MIMO‐NOMA system with the proposed R‐RIDE‐Turbo network‐coded scheme in two‐way relay networks has better BER and higher AMI performance than conventional coded NOMA system. Furthermore, R‐RIDE‐Turbo scheme in MIMO‐NOMA system outperforms the other coded schemes in both MIMO‐NOMA and NOMA systems

Iterative decoding and detection for physical layer network coding

PhD ThesisWireless networks comprising multiple relays are very common and it is important that all users are able to exchange messages via relays in the shortest possible time. A promising technique to achieve this is physical layer network coding (PNC), where the time taken to exchange messages between users is achieved by exploiting the interference at the relay due to the multiple incoming signals from the users. At the relay, the interference is demapped to a binary sequence representing the exclusive-OR of both users’ messages. The time to exchange messages is reduced because the relay broadcasts the network coded message to both users, who can then acquire the desired message by applying the exclusive-OR of their original message with the network coded message. However, although PNC can increase throughput it is at the expense of performance degradation due to errors resulting from the demapping of the interference to bits. A number of papers in the literature have investigated PNC with an iterative channel coding scheme in order to improve performance. However, in this thesis the performance of PNC is investigated for end-to-end (E2E) the three most common iterative coding schemes: turbo codes, low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes and trellis bit-interleaved coded modulation with iterative decoding (BICM-ID). It is well known that in most scenarios turbo and LDPC codes perform similarly and can achieve near-Shannon limit performance, whereas BICM-ID does not perform quite as well but has a lower complexity. However, the results in this thesis show that on a two-way relay channel (TWRC) employing PNC, LDPC codes do not perform well and BICM-ID actually outperforms them while also performing comparably with turbo codes. Also presented in this thesis is an extrinsic information transfer (ExIT) chart analysis of the iterative decoders for each coding scheme, which is used to explain this surprising result. Another problem arising from the use of PNC is the transfer of reliable information from the received signal at the relay to the destination nodes. The demapping of the interference to binary bits means that reliability information about the received signal is lost and this results in a significant degradation in performance when applying soft-decision decoding at the destination nodes. This thesis proposes the use of traditional angle modulation (frequency modulation (FM) and phase modulation (PM)) when broadcasting from the relay, where the real and imaginary parts of the complex received symbols at the relay modulate the frequency or phase of a carrier signal, while maintaining a constant envelope. This is important since the complex received values at the relay are more likely to be centred around zero and it undesirable to transmit long sequences of low values due to potential synchronisation problems at the destination nodes. Furthermore, the complex received values, obtained after angle demodulation, are used to derive more reliable log-likelihood ratios (LLRs) of the received symbols at the destination nodes and consequently improve the performance of the iterative decoders for each coding scheme compared with conventionally coded PNC. This thesis makes several important contributions: investigating the performance of different iterative channel coding schemes combined with PNC, presenting an analysis of the behaviour of different iterative decoding algorithms when PNC is employed using ExIT charts, and proposing the use of angle modulation at the relay to transfer reliable information to the destination nodes to improve the performance of the iterative decoding algorithms. The results from this thesis will also be useful for future research projects in the areas of PNC that are currently being addressed, such as synchronisation techniques and receiver design.Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research

Communication coopérative, codage distribué, réseaux sans fil de relais

With the rapid growth of wireless technologies, devices and mobile applications, the quest of high throughput and omnipresent connectivity in wireless networks increases rapidly as well. It is well known that cooperation increases significantly the spectral efficiency (coding gain) and the reliability (diversity gain) of the transmission between the nodes. The concept of cooperation in wireless relays network is still one of the most active research topics in wireless communication, scientists are still searching for the optimal cooperation strategies that make the possible gains at the maximum. Cooperation results when nodes in a network share their power and/or bandwidth resources to mutually enhance their transmissions and receptions. In wireless relay networks, the relays are special nodes that are used to improve the quality of communication between the source nodes and the destination nodes. In particular, the use of relays guarantees more efficient and reliable networks. In this work, we focus on a special wireless relay network where a set of sources (mobiles) want to communicate their messages to a common destination (base station) with the help of a set of relaysAt the beginning of this work, we focused on the cooperative scheme where the relay, after a fixed portion of time, tries to understand (decode) the source’s messages and forwards helpful signals for the correctly decoded ones. One of the limitations of the previous cooperative scheme is the fixe listening time of the relays, which cannot be adapted to the quality of the instantaneous sources-relays links. To solve this problem we propose a more advanced cooperative scheme where the listening time of each relay can be dynamic and not fixed in advanced. So the relay that has strong links with the sources can start cooperating earlier than the other relays with weak links. Currently, we are investigating other directions of possible improvements, for example, how can we use feedback signals to improve the efficiency of the network.Avec la croissance rapide des appareils et des applications mobiles, les besoins en débit et en connectivité dans les réseaux sans fil augmentent rapidement. Il est prouvé que les communications coopératives peuvent augmenter significativement l’efficacité spectrale et la fiabilité des transmissions entre les nœuds extrémaux. Le concept de coopération dans un réseau sans fil compte parmi les sujets de recherche les plus actifs en télécommunications, le but étant d'identifier les stratégies de coopération qui maximiseraient les gains en efficacité spectrale et en puissance d'émission. Pour coopérer, les nœuds du réseau partagent leurs ressources (énergie, bande de fréquence, etc. ...) pour améliorer mutuellement leurs transmissions et leurs réceptions. Dans les réseaux sans fil avec relais, les relais sont des nœuds dédiés à améliorer la qualité de la communication entre les nœuds sources et destination.Dans la première partie de la thèse, nous nous concentrons sur un réseau sans fil avec relais spécifique où l'ensemble de sources (mobiles) veulent communiquer leurs messages à une destination commune (station de base) avec l'aide d'un ensemble de relais (contexte cellulaire, sens montant). Nous étudions, sur les plans théorique et pratique, un schéma coopératif dans lequel les relais, après une durée d'écoute fixée a priori, essayent de décoder les messages des sources et commencent à transmettre des signaux utiles pour ceux qui sont décodés correctement. Ces signaux utiles sont le résultat d'un codage canal-réseau conjoint.Une des limitations du système coopératif précédent est précisément que le temps d'écoute des relais est figé et ne peut pas être adapté à la qualité fluctuante (aléatoire) des liens instantanés sources-relais. Pour pallier cette difficulté, nous proposons et analysons, dans une seconde partie de la thèse, un schéma de coopération plus avancé où le temps d'écoute de chaque relais peut être dynamique. Dans ces conditions, un relais bénéficiant d'une meilleure qualité de réception des sources peut commencer à coopérer plus tôt que d'autres relais ayant une qualité de réception moindre.Enfin, dans la troisième et dernière partie de la thèse, nous considérons la présence d'une information de retour limitée (limited feedback) entre la destination et les sources et les relais, et tentons de caractériser l'efficacité spectrale d'un tel système

Techniques for broadband power line communications: impulsive noise mitigation and adaptive modulation

The development of power line communication systems for broadband multimedia applications requires a comprehensive knowledge of the channel characteristics and the main peculiarities that may influence the communication over this channel. PLC has the potential to become the preferred connectivity solution to homes and offices. Additionally, indoor power line networks can serve as local area networks offering high-speed data, audio, video and multimedia applications. The PLC technology eliminates the need for new wires by using an already-existing infrastructure that is much more pervasive than any other wired system. Power line networks, however, present a hostile channel for communication signals. Noise, multipath, selective fading and attenuation are well-known peculiarities of power line grids and. Particularly, random impulsive noise characterized with short durations and very high amplitudes is identified as one of the major impairments that degrade the performance of PLC systems. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is the technique of choice for broadband PLC systems. OFDM minimizes the effects of multipath and provides high robustness against selective fading. It is also powerful in impulsive noise environments and performs better than single-carrier modulation methods. If an OFDM symbol is affected by impulsive noise, the effect is spread over multiple subcarriers due to the discrete Fourier transform at the receiver. In order to achieve reliable outcomes, suitable channel and noise models must be used in the investigations. In this thesis, the power line channel transfer function is modelled using a multipath model that was proposed by Zimmermann and Dostert [1], [2]. This model describes the signal propagation scenario and attenuation effects in power line networks. To represent the actual noise scenario in power networks, the noise is classified into two main classes: background noise and impulsive noise. To reduce the effect of impulsive noise, conventional time domain nonlinearities are examined in this thesis under PLC environments. An adaptive-threshold selection method based on minimum bit-error rate (BER) is proposed. At the cost of additional complexity, the effect of impulsive noise is further mitigated using a novel joint time-domain/frequency-domain suppression technique. Since channel coding is essential for most telecommunication systems, we examine convolutional codes combined with interleaving in a PLC channel impaired with AWGN and impulsive noise. The results show substantial performance gains especially in heavily-disturbed environments, where signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) gains of more than 15 dB can be achieved with a code rate of 1/3. Bit-interleaved convolutionally-coded OFDM completely eliminates the effect of impulsive noise in weakly-disturbed noise environments, while a negligible effect may remain in medium-disturbed environments. A new power-loading algorithm that minimizes the transmission power for target BER and data rate constraints is introduced in later chapters of the thesis. Results indicate that the algorithm achieves performance gains of more than 4 dB SNR over conventional OFDM systems. Furthermore, a novel minimum-complexity bit-loading algorithm that maximizes the data rate given BER and power level constraints is proposed in chapter 6. Results show that this bit-loading algorithm achieves almost identical performance as the incremental algorithm but with much lower complexity

Communication based loss-of-mains protection method by frequency correlation

Due to the increasing penetration of distributed generation (DGs) in the distribution network in high numbers and proportions, and its conspicuous impact on power system stability. This occurs during a wide system disturbance in the power system, the DGs will start to disconnect from the main source in large proportions. This will further affect the power system stability and causes damages to its components and DGs. This thesis investigates in the reliability, security, and efficiency of satellite and internet communications, specifically for loss of mains (LOM) protection and exploring the strengths, the weaknesses, the feasibility of each type of communications, and the requirements of communication system components. By using communications network to send Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) data to DGs protection equipment that are connected at remote areas all over UK, the LOM protection can be improved, obtain synchronization, precision, and coordination among power protection components. Satellite communication is chosen as it makes a better communication method when it comes to the installation, construction, urban disruption, time saving, and the installation and annual cost on every participant. However, the high latency issue is approached and solved by making a few changes in the communication protocol format and the data requirements to reduce the effect of latency to a level that can be tolerated. This thesis presents the development of a novel LOM protection method based on communication and frequency correlation. The stability and sensitivity assessment will show that this method is highly secure and reliable. It can also withstand a communication delay of 120ms without causing any nuisance tripping, and have a relay response to LOM operation of a maximum of 1s. The thesis also presents a novel method in time delay estimation that has been developed for power system applications. This method is called the Linear Trajectory Path (LTP) and its performance fulfils the LOM synchronisation requirements by succeeding in determining the time delay between the two data streams within the tolerated estimation error of ±100ms.Due to the increasing penetration of distributed generation (DGs) in the distribution network in high numbers and proportions, and its conspicuous impact on power system stability. This occurs during a wide system disturbance in the power system, the DGs will start to disconnect from the main source in large proportions. This will further affect the power system stability and causes damages to its components and DGs. This thesis investigates in the reliability, security, and efficiency of satellite and internet communications, specifically for loss of mains (LOM) protection and exploring the strengths, the weaknesses, the feasibility of each type of communications, and the requirements of communication system components. By using communications network to send Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) data to DGs protection equipment that are connected at remote areas all over UK, the LOM protection can be improved, obtain synchronization, precision, and coordination among power protection components. Satellite communication is chosen as it makes a better communication method when it comes to the installation, construction, urban disruption, time saving, and the installation and annual cost on every participant. However, the high latency issue is approached and solved by making a few changes in the communication protocol format and the data requirements to reduce the effect of latency to a level that can be tolerated. This thesis presents the development of a novel LOM protection method based on communication and frequency correlation. The stability and sensitivity assessment will show that this method is highly secure and reliable. It can also withstand a communication delay of 120ms without causing any nuisance tripping, and have a relay response to LOM operation of a maximum of 1s. The thesis also presents a novel method in time delay estimation that has been developed for power system applications. This method is called the Linear Trajectory Path (LTP) and its performance fulfils the LOM synchronisation requirements by succeeding in determining the time delay between the two data streams within the tolerated estimation error of ±100ms

On the Design of Sidelink for Cellular V2X: A Literature Review and Outlook for Future

Connected and fully automated vehicles are expected to revolutionize our mobility in the near future on a global scale, by significantly improving road safety, traffic efficiency, and traveling experience. Enhanced vehicular applications, such as cooperative sensing and maneuvering or vehicle platooning, heavily rely on direct connectivity among vehicles, which is enabled by sidelink communications. In order to set the ground for the core contribution of this paper, we first analyze the main streams of the cellular-vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) technology evolution within the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), with focus on the sidelink air interface. Then, we provide a comprehensive survey of the related literature, which is classified and critically dissected, considering both the Long-Term Evolution-based solutions and the 5G New Radio-based latest advancements that promise substantial improvements in terms of latency and reliability. The wide literature review is used as a basis to finally identify further challenges and perspectives, which may shape the C-V2X sidelink developments in the next-generation vehicles beyond 5G

A High-speed Reconfigurable Free Space Optical Communication System Utilizing Software Defined Radio Environment

Free space optical (FSO) communication allows for high-speed data transmissions while also being extremely cost-effective by using visible or infrared wavelengths to transmit and receive data wirelessly through the free space channel. However, FSO links are highly susceptible to the effects of the atmosphere, particularly turbulence, smoke, and fog. On the other hand, FSO itself does not provide enough flexibility to address the issue of such blockage and obstruction caused by objects and atmospheric conditions. This research investigates, proposes, and evaluates a software defined multiple input multiple output (MIMO) FSO system to ensure link availability and reliability under weather conditions as part of the last mile access in the 5th generation, 6th generation, and beyond. Software defined radio (SDR) technology is adopted in order to provide a certain degree of flexibility to the optical wireless communications system. The scope of this research focuses on the design, validation, implementation, and evaluation of a novel adaptive switching algorithm i.e., activating additional transmitters of a MIMO FSO system using a software defined ecosystem. The main issues are the compactness of the experimental design; the limitation of software-oriented signal generation; robustness; reliability; and the quality of service. As part of the system design, the thresholding method, a decision-making process via the feedback link, and a spatial diversity technique is adopted to carry out the adaptive switching. The adaptive switching is performed via a feedback link in which the atmospheric loss and scintillation index are calculated for fog and turbulence respectively. The initial design is implemented in SDR/ GNURadio for a real-time emulation of the proposed system to enhance the system flexibility of a traditional MIMO FSO system. A bit-by-bit comparison is performed with the GNURadio signal processing block and BERT for a real-time BER estimation. However, based on the initial results, the switching mechanism can only overcome the effect of turbulence at a certain level. A new design to mainly mitigate the varying fog conditions is proposed based on the SDR-based adaptive switching for a gigabit ethernet (GbE) MIMO FSO system and tested in a 5 m dedicated atmospheric chamber. The proposed system is implemented using off-the-shelf components such as a media converter, small form pluggable transceivers, optical switch, and power meter to estimate the channel state information. A new Schmitt trigger-based thresholding method is also introduced. The proposed software defined GbE MIMO FSO with an adaptive switching algorithm is fabricated, implemented, and investigated. The results are also compared with the real-time simulated data. Since the purpose of this Ph.D. is to explain and demonstrate the proof of concept for the proposed SDR-MIMO FSO system, the emphasis has been on the design, evaluation, and minimal performance requirements rather than maximizing the data rate. The outcome of the thesis will be a huge degree of flexibility and mitigation property MIMO FSO can offer with the help of SDR. It will be shown that the designed system has the capability to provide data transmission with 99.999% availability with a packet error rate and data rate of 7.2 ×10−2 and ~120 Mbps respectively, under extremely harsh fog conditions with visibility V of < 11 m

MIMO Systems

In recent years, it was realized that the MIMO communication systems seems to be inevitable in accelerated evolution of high data rates applications due to their potential to dramatically increase the spectral efficiency and simultaneously sending individual information to the corresponding users in wireless systems. This book, intends to provide highlights of the current research topics in the field of MIMO system, to offer a snapshot of the recent advances and major issues faced today by the researchers in the MIMO related areas. The book is written by specialists working in universities and research centers all over the world to cover the fundamental principles and main advanced topics on high data rates wireless communications systems over MIMO channels. Moreover, the book has the advantage of providing a collection of applications that are completely independent and self-contained; thus, the interested reader can choose any chapter and skip to another without losing continuity

Network coding for transport protocols

With the proliferation of smart devices that require Internet connectivity anytime, anywhere, and the recent technological advances that make it possible, current networked systems will have to provide a various range of services, such as content distribution, in a wide range of settings, including wireless environments. Wireless links may experience temporary losses, however, TCP, the de facto protocol for robust unicast communications, reacts by reducing the congestion window drastically and injecting less traffic in the network. Consequently the wireless links are underutilized and the overall performance of the TCP protocol in wireless environments is poor. As content delivery (i.e. multicasting) services, such as BBC iPlayer, become popular, the network needs to support the reliable transport of the data at high rates, and with specific delay constraints. A typical approach to deliver content in a scalable way is to rely on peer-to-peer technology (used by BitTorrent, Spotify and PPLive), where users share their resources, including bandwidth, storage space, and processing power. Still, these systems suffer from the lack of incentives for resource sharing and cooperation, and this problem is exacerbated in the presence of heterogenous users, where a tit-for-tat scheme is difficult to implement. Due to the issues highlighted above, current network architectures need to be changed in order to accommodate the users¿ demands for reliable and quality communications. In other words, the emergent need for advanced modes of information transport requires revisiting and improving network components at various levels of the network stack. The innovative paradigm of network coding has been shown as a promising technique to change the design of networked systems, by providing a shift from how data flows traditionally move through the network. This shift implies that data flows are no longer kept separate, according to the ¿store-and-forward¿ model, but they are also processed and mixed in the network. By appropriately combining data by means of network coding, it is expected to obtain significant benefits in several areas of network design and architecture. In this thesis, we set out to show the benefits of including network coding into three communication paradigms, namely point-topoint communications (e.g. unicast), point-to-multipoint communications (e.g. multicast), and multipoint-to-multipoint communications (e.g. peer-to-peer networks). For the first direction, we propose a network coding-based multipath scheme and show that TCP unicast sessions are feasible in highly volatile wireless environments. For point-to-multipoint communications, we give an algorithm to optimally achieve all the rate pairs from the rate region in the case of degraded multicast over the combination network. We also propose a system for live streaming that ensures reliability and quality of service to heterogenous users, even if data transmissions occur over lossy wireless links. Finally, for multipoint-to-multipoint communications, we design a system to provide incentives for live streaming in a peer-to-peer setting, where users have subscribed to different levels of quality. Our work shows that network coding enables a reliable transport of data, even in highly volatile environments, or in delay sensitive scenarios such as live streaming, and facilitates the implementation of an efficient incentive system, even in the presence of heterogenous users. Thus, network coding can solve the challenges faced by next generation networks in order to support advanced information transport.Postprint (published version