Recent Advances in Acquiring Channel State Information in Cellular MIMO Systems

In cellular multi-user multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO) systems the quality of the available channel state information (CSI) has a large impact on the system performance. Specifically, reliable CSI at the transmitter is required to determine the appropriate modulation and coding scheme, transmit power and the precoder vector, while CSI at the receiver is needed to decode the received data symbols. Therefore, cellular MUMIMO systems employ predefined pilot sequences and configure associated time, frequency, code and power resources to facilitate the acquisition of high quality CSI for data transmission and reception. Although the trade-off between the resources used user data transmission has been known for long, the near-optimal configuration of the vailable system resources for pilot and data transmission is a topic of current research efforts. Indeed, since the fifth generation of cellular systems utilizes heterogeneous networks in which base stations are equipped with a large number of transmit and receive antennas, the appropriate configuration of pilot-data resources becomes a critical design aspect. In this article, we review recent advances in system design approaches that are designed for the acquisition of CSI and discuss some of the recent results that help to dimension the pilot and data resources specifically in cellular MU-MIMO systems

Resource Allocation for Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output Interference Networks

To meet the exponentially increasing traffic data driven by the rapidly growing mobile subscriptions, both industry and academia are exploring the potential of a new genera- tion (5G) of wireless technologies. An important 5G goal is to achieve high data rate. Small cells with spectrum sharing and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques are one of the most promising 5G technologies, since it enables to increase the aggregate data rate by improving the spectral efficiency, nodes density and transmission bandwidth, respectively. However, the increased interference in the densified networks will in return limit the achievable rate performance if not properly managed. The considered setup can be modeled as MIMO interference networks, which can be classified into the K-user MIMO interference channel (IC) and the K-cell MIMO interfering broadcast channel/multiple access channel (MIMO-IBC/IMAC) according to the number of mobile stations (MSs) simultaneously served by each base station (BS). The thesis considers two physical layer (PHY) resource allocation problems that deal with the interference for both models: 1) Pareto boundary computation for the achiev- able rate region in a K-user single-stream MIMO IC and 2) grouping-based interference alignment (GIA) with optimized IA-Cell assignment in a MIMO-IMAC under limited feedback. In each problem, the thesis seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the system and novel mathematical results, along with supporting numerical examples. Some of the main contributions can be summarized as follows. It is an open problem to compute the Pareto boundary of the achievable rate region for a K-user single-stream MIMO IC. The K-user single-stream MIMO IC models multiple transmitter-receiver pairs which operate over the same spectrum simultaneously. Each transmitter and each receiver is equipped with multiple antennas, and a single desired data stream is communicated in each transmitter-receiver link. The individual achievable rates of the K users form a K-dimensional achievable rate region. To find efficient operating points in the achievable rate region, the Pareto boundary computation problem, which can be formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem, needs to be solved. The thesis transforms the multi-objective optimization problem to two single-objective optimization problems–single constraint rate maximization problem and alternating rate profile optimization problem, based on the formulations of the ε-constraint optimization and the weighted Chebyshev optimization, respectively. The thesis proposes two alternating optimization algorithms to solve both single-objective optimization problems. The convergence of both algorithms is guaranteed. Also, a heuristic initialization scheme is provided for each algorithm to achieve a high-quality solution. By varying the weights in each single-objective optimization problem, numerical results show that both algorithms provide an inner bound very close to the Pareto boundary. Furthermore, the thesis also computes some key points exactly on the Pareto boundary in closed-form. A framework for interference alignment (IA) under limited feedback is proposed for a MIMO-IMAC. The MIMO-IMAC well matches the uplink scenario in cellular system, where multiple cells share their spectrum and operate simultaneously. In each cell, a BS receives the desired signals from multiple MSs within its own cell and each BS and each MS is equipped with multi-antenna. By allowing the inter-cell coordination, the thesis develops a distributed IA framework under limited feedback from three aspects: the GIA, the IA-Cell assignment and dynamic feedback bit allocation (DBA), respec- tively. Firstly, the thesis provides a complete study along with some new improvements of the GIA, which enables to compute the exact IA precoders in closed-form, based on local channel state information at the receiver (CSIR). Secondly, the concept of IA-Cell assignment is introduced and its effect on the achievable rate and degrees of freedom (DoF) performance is analyzed. Two distributed matching approaches and one centralized assignment approach are proposed to find a good IA-Cell assignment in three scenrios with different backhaul overhead. Thirdly, under limited feedback, the thesis derives an upper bound of the residual interference to noise ratio (RINR), formulates and solves a corresponding DBA problem. Finally, numerical results show that the proposed GIA with optimized IA-Cell assignment and the DBA greatly outperforms the traditional GIA algorithm

Radio Communications

In the last decades the restless evolution of information and communication technologies (ICT) brought to a deep transformation of our habits. The growth of the Internet and the advances in hardware and software implementations modified our way to communicate and to share information. In this book, an overview of the major issues faced today by researchers in the field of radio communications is given through 35 high quality chapters written by specialists working in universities and research centers all over the world. Various aspects will be deeply discussed: channel modeling, beamforming, multiple antennas, cooperative networks, opportunistic scheduling, advanced admission control, handover management, systems performance assessment, routing issues in mobility conditions, localization, web security. Advanced techniques for the radio resource management will be discussed both in single and multiple radio technologies; either in infrastructure, mesh or ad hoc networks

Degrees of freedom of wireless interference network

Wireless communication systems are different from the wired systems mainly in three aspects: fading, broadcast, and superposition. Wireless communication networks, and multi-user communication networks in general, have not been well understood from the information-theoretic perspective: the capacity limits of many multi-user networks are not known. For example, the capacity region of a two-user single-antenna interference channel is still not known, though recent result can bound the region up to a constant value. Characterizing the capacity limits of multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) interference network is usually even more difficult than the single antenna setup. To alleviate the difficulty in studying such networks, the concept of degrees of freedom (DoF) has been adopted, which captures the first order behavior of the capacities or capacity regions. One important technique developed recently for quantifying the DoF of multi-user networks is the so-called interference alignment. The purpose of interference alignment is to design the transmit signals structurally so that the interference signals from multiple interferers are aligned to reduce the signal dimensions occupied by interference. In this thesis, we mainly study two problems related to DoF and interference alignment: 1) DoF region of MIMO full interference channel (FIC) and Z interference channel (ZIC) with reconfigurable antennas, and 2) the DoF region of an interference network with general message demands. For the first problem, we derive the outer bound on the DoF region and show that it is achievable via time-sharing or beamforming except for one special case. As to this particular special case, we develop a systematic way of constructing the DoF-achieving nulling and beamforming matrices. Our results reveal the potential benefit of using the reconfigurable antenna in MIMO FIC and ZIC. In addition, the achievability scheme has an interesting space-frequency interpretation. For the second problem, we derive the DoF region of a single antenna interference network with general message demands, which includes the multiple unicasts and multiple multicasts as special cases. We perform interference alignment using multiple base vectors and align the interference at each receiver to its largest interferer. Furthermore, we show that the DoF region is determined by a subset of receivers, and the DoF region can be achieved by considering a smaller number of interference alignment constraints so as to reduce the number of time expansion. Finally, as a related research topic, we also include a result on the average throughput of a MIMO interference channel with single-user detector at receivers and without channel state information at transmitters. We present a piecewise linear approximation of the channel throughput under weak, moderate and strong interference regimes. Based on that we determine the optimal number of streams that a transmitter should use for different interference levels

Técnicas de pré-codificação para sistemas multicelulares coordenados

Doutoramento em TelecomunicaçõesCoordenação Multicélula é um tópico de investigação em rápido crescimento e uma solução promissora para controlar a interferência entre células em sistemas celulares, melhorando a equidade do sistema e aumentando a sua capacidade. Esta tecnologia já está em estudo no LTEAdvanced sob o conceito de coordenação multiponto (COMP). Existem várias abordagens sobre coordenação multicélula, dependendo da quantidade e do tipo de informação partilhada pelas estações base, através da rede de suporte (backhaul network), e do local onde essa informação é processada, i.e., numa unidade de processamento central ou de uma forma distribuída em cada estação base. Nesta tese, são propostas técnicas de pré-codificação e alocação de potência considerando várias estratégias: centralizada, todo o processamento é feito na unidade de processamento central; semidistribuída, neste caso apenas parte do processamento é executado na unidade de processamento central, nomeadamente a potência alocada a cada utilizador servido por cada estação base; e distribuída em que o processamento é feito localmente em cada estação base. Os esquemas propostos são projectados em duas fases: primeiro são propostas soluções de pré-codificação para mitigar ou eliminar a interferência entre células, de seguida o sistema é melhorado através do desenvolvimento de vários esquemas de alocação de potência. São propostas três esquemas de alocação de potência centralizada condicionada a cada estação base e com diferentes relações entre desempenho e complexidade. São também derivados esquemas de alocação distribuídos, assumindo que um sistema multicelular pode ser visto como a sobreposição de vários sistemas com uma única célula. Com base neste conceito foi definido uma taxa de erro média virtual para cada um desses sistemas de célula única que compõem o sistema multicelular, permitindo assim projectar esquemas de alocação de potência completamente distribuídos. Todos os esquemas propostos foram avaliados em cenários realistas, bastante próximos dos considerados no LTE. Os resultados mostram que os esquemas propostos são eficientes a remover a interferência entre células e que o desempenho das técnicas de alocação de potência propostas é claramente superior ao caso de não alocação de potência. O desempenho dos sistemas completamente distribuídos é inferior aos baseados num processamento centralizado, mas em contrapartida podem ser usados em sistemas em que a rede de suporte não permita a troca de grandes quantidades de informação.Multicell coordination is a promising solution for cellular wireless systems to mitigate inter-cell interference, improving system fairness and increasing capacity and thus is already under study in LTE-A under the coordinated multipoint (CoMP) concept. There are several coordinated transmission approaches depending on the amount of information shared by the transmitters through the backhaul network and where the processing takes place i.e. in a central processing unit or in a distributed way on each base station. In this thesis, we propose joint precoding and power allocation techniques considering different strategies: Full-centralized, where all the processing takes place at the central unit; Semi-distributed, in this case only some process related with power allocation is done at the central unit; and Fulldistributed, where all the processing is done locally at each base station. The methods are designed in two phases: first the inter-cell interference is removed by applying a set of centralized or distributed precoding vectors; then the system is further optimized by centralized or distributed power allocation schemes. Three centralized power allocation algorithms with per-BS power constraint and different complexity tradeoffs are proposed. Also distributed power allocation schemes are proposed by considering the multicell system as superposition of single cell systems, where we define the average virtual bit error rate (BER) of interference-free single cell system, allowing us to compute the power allocation coefficients in a distributed manner at each BS. All proposed schemes are evaluated in realistic scenarios considering LTE specifications. The numerical evaluations show that the proposed schemes are efficient in removing inter-cell interference and improve system performance comparing to equal power allocation. Furthermore, fulldistributed schemes can be used when the amounts of information to be exchanged over the backhaul is restricted, although system performance is slightly degraded from semi-distributed and full-centralized schemes, but the complexity is considerably lower. Besides that for high degrees of freedom distributed schemes show similar behaviour to centralized ones

Thirty Years of Machine Learning: The Road to Pareto-Optimal Wireless Networks

Future wireless networks have a substantial potential in terms of supporting a broad range of complex compelling applications both in military and civilian fields, where the users are able to enjoy high-rate, low-latency, low-cost and reliable information services. Achieving this ambitious goal requires new radio techniques for adaptive learning and intelligent decision making because of the complex heterogeneous nature of the network structures and wireless services. Machine learning (ML) algorithms have great success in supporting big data analytics, efficient parameter estimation and interactive decision making. Hence, in this article, we review the thirty-year history of ML by elaborating on supervised learning, unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning and deep learning. Furthermore, we investigate their employment in the compelling applications of wireless networks, including heterogeneous networks (HetNets), cognitive radios (CR), Internet of things (IoT), machine to machine networks (M2M), and so on. This article aims for assisting the readers in clarifying the motivation and methodology of the various ML algorithms, so as to invoke them for hitherto unexplored services as well as scenarios of future wireless networks.Comment: 46 pages, 22 fig