Cloud Transmission: System Performance and Application Scenarios

[EN] Cloud Transmission (Cloud Txn) System is a flexible multi-layer system that uses spectrum overlay technology to simultaneously deliver multiple program streams with different characteristics and robustness for different services (mobile TV, HDTV and UHDTV) in one RF channel. The transmitted signal is formed by superimposing a number of independent signals at desired power levels, to form a multilayered signal. The signals of different layers can have different coding, bit rate, and robustness. For the top layer, system parameters are chosen to provide very robust transmission that can be used for high speed mobile broadcasting service to portable devices. The bit rate is traded for more powerful error correction coding and robustness so that the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) threshold at the receiver is a negative value in the range of -2 to -3 dB. The top layer is designed to withstand combined noise, co-channel interference and multipath distortion power levels higher than the desired signal power. The lowerlayer signal can be DVB-T2 signal or other newly designed system to deliver HDTV/UHDTV to fixed receivers. The system concept is open to technological advances that might come in the future: all new technologies, BICM/Non Uuniform-QAM, rotated constellations, Time Frequency Slicing or MIMO techniques can be implemented in the Cloud Txn lower (high data) rate layer. The main focus of this paper is to thoroughly describe the performance of this newly presented Cloud Transmission broadcasting system.This work has been financially supported in part by the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU (UFI 11/30), by the Basque Government (IT-683- 13 and SAIOTEK), by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under the project NG-RADIATE (TEC2009-14201), and by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the project HEDYT-GBB (TEC2012- 33302

Solutions for New Terrestrial Broadcasting Systems Offering Simultaneously Stationary and Mobile Services

221 p.[EN]Since the first broadcasted TV signal was transmitted in the early decades of the past century, the television broadcasting industry has experienced a series of dramatic changes. Most recently, following the evolution from analogue to digital systems, the digital dividend has become one of the main concerns of the broadcasting industry. In fact, there are many international spectrum authorities reclaiming part of the broadcasting spectrum to satisfy the growing demand of other services, such as broadband wireless services, arguing that the TV services are not very spectrum-efficient. Apart from that, it must be taken into account that, even if up to now the mobile broadcasting has not been considered a major requirement, this will probably change in the near future. In fact, it is expected that the global mobile data traffic will increase 11-fold between 2014 and 2018, and what is more, over two thirds of the data traffic will be video stream by the end of that period. Therefore, the capability to receive HD services anywhere with a mobile device is going to be a mandatory requirement for any new generation broadcasting system. The main objective of this work is to present several technical solutions that answer to these challenges. In particular, the main questions to be solved are the spectrum efficiency issue and the increasing user expectations of receiving high quality mobile services. In other words, the main objective is to provide technical solutions for an efficient and flexible usage of the terrestrial broadcasting spectrum for both stationary and mobile services. The first contributions of this scientific work are closely related to the study of the mobile broadcast reception. Firstly, a comprehensive mathematical analysis of the OFDM signal behaviour over time-varying channels is presented. In order to maximize the channel capacity in mobile environments, channel estimation and equalization are studied in depth. First, the most implemented equalization solutions in time-varying scenarios are analyzed, and then, based on these existing techniques, a new equalization algorithm is proposed for enhancing the receivers’ performance. An alternative solution for improving the efficiency under mobile channel conditions is treating the Inter Carrier Interference as another noise source. Specifically, after analyzing the ICI impact and the existing solutions for reducing the ICI penalty, a new approach based on the robustness of FEC codes is presented. This new approach employs one dimensional algorithms at the receiver and entrusts the ICI removing task to the robust forward error correction codes. Finally, another major contribution of this work is the presentation of the Layer Division Multiplexing (LDM) as a spectrum-efficient and flexible solution for offering stationary and mobile services simultaneously. The comprehensive theoretical study developed here verifies the improved spectrum efficiency, whereas the included practical validation confirms the feasibility of the system and presents it as a very promising multiplexing technique, which will surely be a strong candidate for the next generation broadcasting services.[ES]Desde el comienzo de la transmisión de las primeras señales de televisión a principios del siglo pasado, la radiodifusión digital ha evolucionado gracias a una serie de cambios relevantes. Recientemente, como consecuencia directa de la digitalización del servicio, el dividendo digital se ha convertido en uno de los caballos de batalla de la industria de la radiodifusión. De hecho, no son pocos los consorcios internacionales que abogan por asignar parte del espectro de radiodifusión a otros servicios como, por ejemplo, la telefonía móvil, argumentado la poca eficiencia espectral de la tecnología de radiodifusión actual. Asimismo, se debe tener en cuenta que a pesar de que los servicios móviles no se han considerado fundamentales en el pasado, esta tendencia probablemente variará en el futuro cercano. De hecho, se espera que el tráfico derivado de servicios móviles se multiplique por once entre los años 2014 y 2018; y lo que es más importante, se pronostica que dos tercios del tráfico móvil sea video streaming para finales de ese periodo. Por lo tanto, la posibilidad de ofrecer servicios de alta definición en dispositivos móviles es un requisito fundamental para los sistemas de radiodifusión de nueva generación. El principal objetivo de este trabajo es presentar soluciones técnicas que den respuesta a los retos planteados anteriormente. En particular, las principales cuestiones a resolver son la ineficiencia espectral y el incremento de usuarios que demandan mayor calidad en los contenidos para dispositivos móviles. En pocas palabras, el principal objetivo de este trabajo se basa en ofrecer una solución más eficiente y flexible para la transmisión simultánea de servicios fijos y móviles. La primera contribución relevante de este trabajo está relacionada con la recepción de la señal de televisión en movimiento. En primer lugar, se presenta un completo análisis matemático del comportamiento de la señal OFDM en canales variantes con el tiempo. A continuación, con la intención de maximizar la capacidad del canal, se estudian en profundidad los algoritmos de estimación y ecualización. Posteriormente, se analizan los algoritmos de ecualización más implementados, y por último, basándose en estas técnicas, se propone un nuevo algoritmo de ecualización para aumentar el rendimiento de los receptores en tales condiciones. Del mismo modo, se plantea un nuevo enfoque para mejorar la eficiencia de los servicios móviles basado en tratar la interferencia entre portadoras como una fuente de ruido. Concretamente, tras analizar el impacto del ICI en los receptores actuales, se sugiere delegar el trabajo de corrección de dichas distorsiones en códigos FEC muy robustos. Finalmente, la última contribución importante de este trabajo es la presentación de la tecnología LDM como una manera más eficiente y flexible para la transmisión simultánea de servicios fijos y móviles. El análisis teórico presentado confirma el incremento en la eficiencia espectral, mientras que el estudio práctico valida la posible implementación del sistema y presenta la tecnología LDM c

Reception performance studies for the evaluation and improvement of the new generation terrestrial television systems

270 p.La industria de la TV ha experimentado grandes cambios en las últimas décadas. Las expectativas cada vez mayores de los espectadores y la reducción del espectro disponible para los servicios de TV han provocado la necesidad de sistemas más robustos de Televisión Digital Terrestre (TDT).El primer intento de cumplir estos requisitos es el estándar europeo DVB-T2 (2009). La publicación de un nuevo estándar significa el inicio de un proceso de evaluación del rendimiento del mismo mediante, por ejemplo, estudios de cobertura u obtención de valores de umbral de relación señal / ruido (SNR). Al inicio de esta tesis, este proceso estaba casi terminado para recepción fija y móvil. Sin embargo, la recepción en interiores no se había estudiado en detalle. Por esta razón, esta tesis completa la evaluación de DVB-T2 en interiores y define una nueva metodología de evaluación optimizada para este escenario.A pesar de que DVB-T2 emplea tecnologías muy avanzadas, el sistema se definió hace casi diez años y desde entonces han aparecido nuevas técnicas avanzadas, como por ejemplo nuevos códigos de corrección de errores o la nueva técnica de multiplexación por división en capas (LDM). Estas nuevas técnicas tampoco han sido evaluadas en entornos de interior, por lo que esta tesis incluye el análisis de las mismas evaluando su idoneidad para mejorar el rendimiento de DVB-T2. Además, se ha comprobado que los algoritmos tradicionales de los receptores TDT no están optimizados para los nuevos escenarios en los que se consideran las señales multicapa y recepción móvil. Por esta razón, se han propuesto nuevos algoritmos para mejorar la recepción en este tipo de situaciones.El último intento de hacer frente a los altos requisitos actuales de TDT es el estándar americano ATSC 3.0 (2016). Al igual que con DVB-T2, se necesita proceso completo de evaluación del sistema. Por ello, en esta tesis se han realizado simulaciones y pruebas de laboratorio para completar el estudio de rendimiento de ATSC 3.0 en diferentes escenarios

A tutorial on the characterisation and modelling of low layer functional splits for flexible radio access networks in 5G and beyond

The centralization of baseband (BB) functions in a radio access network (RAN) towards data processing centres is receiving increasing interest as it enables the exploitation of resource pooling and statistical multiplexing gains among multiple cells, facilitates the introduction of collaborative techniques for different functions (e.g., interference coordination), and more efficiently handles the complex requirements of advanced features of the fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) physical layer, such as the use of massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO). However, deciding the functional split (i.e., which BB functions are kept close to the radio units and which BB functions are centralized) embraces a trade-off between the centralization benefits and the fronthaul costs for carrying data between distributed antennas and data processing centres. Substantial research efforts have been made in standardization fora, research projects and studies to resolve this trade-off, which becomes more complicated when the choice of functional splits is dynamically achieved depending on the current conditions in the RAN. This paper presents a comprehensive tutorial on the characterisation, modelling and assessment of functional splits in a flexible RAN to establish a solid basis for the future development of algorithmic solutions of dynamic functional split optimisation in 5G and beyond systems. First, the paper explores the functional split approaches considered by different industrial fora, analysing their equivalences and differences in terminology. Second, the paper presents a harmonized analysis of the different BB functions at the physical layer and associated algorithmic solutions presented in the literature, assessing both the computational complexity and the associated performance. Based on this analysis, the paper presents a model for assessing the computational requirements and fronthaul bandwidth requirements of different functional splits. Last, the model is used to derive illustrative results that identify the major trade-offs that arise when selecting a functional split and the key elements that impact the requirements.This work has been partially funded by Huawei Technologies. Work by X. Gelabert and B. Klaiqi is partially funded by the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-DN-0) under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101073265. Work by J. Perez-Romero and O. Sallent is also partially funded by the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreements No. 101096034 (VERGE project) and No. 101097083 (BeGREEN project) and by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 under ARTIST project (ref. PID2020-115104RB-I00). This last project has also funded the work by D. Campoy.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A Tutorial on Coding Methods for DNA-based Molecular Communications and Storage

Exponential increase of data has motivated advances of data storage technologies. As a promising storage media, DeoxyriboNucleic Acid (DNA) storage provides a much higher data density and superior durability, compared with state-of-the-art media. In this paper, we provide a tutorial on DNA storage and its role in molecular communications. Firstly, we introduce fundamentals of DNA-based molecular communications and storage (MCS), discussing the basic process of performing DNA storage in MCS. Furthermore, we provide tutorials on how conventional coding schemes that are used in wireless communications can be applied to DNA-based MCS, along with numerical results. Finally, promising research directions on DNA-based data storage in molecular communications are introduced and discussed in this paper

Digital signal processing waveform aggregation and its experimental demonstration for next generation mobile fronthaul

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen