Timing and Carrier Synchronization in Wireless Communication Systems: A Survey and Classification of Research in the Last 5 Years

Timing and carrier synchronization is a fundamental requirement for any wireless communication system to work properly. Timing synchronization is the process by which a receiver node determines the correct instants of time at which to sample the incoming signal. Carrier synchronization is the process by which a receiver adapts the frequency and phase of its local carrier oscillator with those of the received signal. In this paper, we survey the literature over the last 5 years (2010–2014) and present a comprehensive literature review and classification of the recent research progress in achieving timing and carrier synchronization in single-input single-output (SISO), multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), cooperative relaying, and multiuser/multicell interference networks. Considering both single-carrier and multi-carrier communication systems, we survey and categorize the timing and carrier synchronization techniques proposed for the different communication systems focusing on the system model assumptions for synchronization, the synchronization challenges, and the state-of-the-art synchronization solutions and their limitations. Finally, we envision some future research directions

Space time transceiver design over multipath fading channels

Imperial Users onl

Iterative detection of multicode DS-CDMA signals with strong nonlinear distortion effects

Whenever a direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) signal is the sum of several components associated with different spreading codes [e.g., the DS-CDMA signal to be transmitted by the base station (BS) in the downlink or any multicode DS-CDMA signal], it has high envelope fluctuations and a high peak-to-mean envelope power ratio (PMEPR), setting strong linearity requirements for the power amplifiers. For this reason, it is desirable to reduce the envelope fluctuations of the transmitted signals. The use of clipping techniques combined with frequency-domain filtering was shown to be an effective way of reducing the envelope fluctuations (and, inherently, the PMEPR) of DS-CDMA signals, while maintaining the spectral occupation of the corresponding conventional DS-CDMA signals. To avoid PMEPR regrowth effects, the clipping and filtering operations can be repeated several times. However, the performance degradation due to nonlinear distortion effects on the transmitted signals can be relatively high, particularly when a very low PMEPR is intended (e.g., when a low clipping level and several iterations are adopted). This can particularly be serious if different powers are assigned to different spreading codes. To avoid significant performance degradation in these situations, we consider an improved receiver where there is an iterative estimation and cancellation of nonlinear distortion effects. Our performance results show that the proposed receiver allows significant performance improvements after just a few iterations, even when we have strong nonlinear distortion effects

Distributed Self-Concatenated Coding for Cooperative Communication

In this paper, we propose a power-efficient distributed binary self-concatenated coding scheme using iterative decoding (DSECCC-ID) for cooperative communications. The DSECCC-ID scheme is designed with the aid of binary extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) charts. The source node transmits self-concatenated convolutional coded (SECCC) symbols to both the relay and destination nodes during the first transmission period. The relay performs SECCC-ID decoding, where it mayor may not encounter decoding errors. It then reencodes the information bits using a recursive systematic convolutional (RSC) code during the second transmission period. The resultant symbols transmitted from the source and relay nodes can be viewed as the coded symbols of a three-component parallel concatenated encoder. At the destination node, three-component DSECCC-ID decoding is performed. The EXIT chart gives us an insight into operation of the distributed coding scheme, which enables us to significantly reduce the transmit power by about 3.3 dB in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) terms, as compared with a noncooperative SECCC-ID scheme at a bit error rate (BER) of 10-5. Finally, the proposed system is capable of performing within about 1.5 dB from the two-hop relay-aided network’s capacity at a BER of 10-5 , even if there may be decoding errors at the relay