Wireless Communication Systems Based on Spatial Modulation MIMO

Spatial modulation (SM) is a unique single-stream, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission technique. Unlike traditional MIMO schemes, SM sends out signals through a single active antenna, and achieves multiplexing gains by encoding information bits into the index of the currently active antenna. In contrast to multi-stream MIMO systems, this particular characteristic offers great superiority in two main aspects. Firstly, SM completely avoids inter-channel interference. Secondly, SM requires a single radio-frequency chain, regardless of the number of antennas used, and therefore exhibits a significant energy saving. However, the property of a single active antenna challenges the channel estimation process for SM: the transmit antennas have to be activated sequentially for sending pilot signals. As a result, the time consumed in pilot transmission is proportional to the number of transmit antennas. However, this fact has so far been neglected in related research. Also, published research on SM has focused on point-to-point communications, and few have covered a network perspective. In this thesis, a comprehensive study is undertaken on SM systems in single-user, multi-user and multi-cell scenarios. As a unique three-dimensional modulation scheme, SM enables a trade-off between the size of the signal constellation diagram and the size of the spatial constellation diagram. In this thesis, an optimum transmit structure is proposed for SM to employ an adaptive scale of antennas against channel correlations. Unlike traditional antenna selection methods, this new approach is not sensitive to fast fading, due to the exploitation of statistical channel state information (CSI) instead of instant CSI. The proposed transmit structure is demonstrated to have a near-optimal performance against exhaustive search, while achieving very low computational complexity. In addition, three novel methods are developed to improve the channel estimation process for SM. A first method estimates the entire MIMO channel by sending pilot signals through only one of the transmit antennas, among which the channel correlation is exploited. In a similar way but focusing on the receiver, a second method can improve the estimation accuracy without increasing the pilot sequence length. A third method balances the transmission power between pilot and data to minimise the bit error rate. A framework of combined channel estimation is also proposed, in which the three methods are jointly applied. Furthermore, the antenna allocation in multi-user SM is studied, in order to explore multi-user diversity gains. A method that jointly manages transmit antennas and receive antennas for all co-channel users is proposed. The aim of this new method is to maximise the channel capacity for each user, and the fairness among users is taken into account. It is demonstrated that the proposed method significantly improves the performance of multi-user SM, especially when serving a large number of users. Finally, a novel cooperative scheme is proposed for SM in a multi-cell scenario. Based on the concept of coordinated multi-point transmission (CoMP), this scheme enables the coordinated users to swap the base station antennas pertaining to them. A three-tier cellular architecture is further developed to switch between CoMP and the cooperative scheme

Uplink CoMP under a Constrained Backhaul and Imperfect Channel Knowledge

Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) is known to be a key technology for next generation mobile communications systems, as it allows to overcome the burden of inter-cell interference. Especially in the uplink, it is likely that interference exploitation schemes will be used in the near future, as they can be used with legacy terminals and require no or little changes in standardization. Major drawbacks, however, are the extent of additional backhaul infrastructure needed, and the sensitivity to imperfect channel knowledge. This paper jointly addresses both issues in a new framework incorporating a multitude of proposed theoretical uplink CoMP concepts, which are then put into perspective with practical CoMP algorithms. This comprehensive analysis provides new insight into the potential usage of uplink CoMP in next generation wireless communications systems.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications in February 201

A Practical Cooperative Multicell MIMO-OFDMA Network Based on Rank Coordination

An important challenge of wireless networks is to boost the cell edge performance and enable multi-stream transmissions to cell edge users. Interference mitigation techniques relying on multiple antennas and coordination among cells are nowadays heavily studied in the literature. Typical strategies in OFDMA networks include coordinated scheduling, beamforming and power control. In this paper, we propose a novel and practical type of coordination for OFDMA downlink networks relying on multiple antennas at the transmitter and the receiver. The transmission ranks, i.e.\ the number of transmitted streams, and the user scheduling in all cells are jointly optimized in order to maximize a network utility function accounting for fairness among users. A distributed coordinated scheduler motivated by an interference pricing mechanism and relying on a master-slave architecture is introduced. The proposed scheme is operated based on the user report of a recommended rank for the interfering cells accounting for the receiver interference suppression capability. It incurs a very low feedback and backhaul overhead and enables efficient link adaptation. It is moreover robust to channel measurement errors and applicable to both open-loop and closed-loop MIMO operations. A 20% cell edge performance gain over uncoordinated LTE-A system is shown through system level simulations.Comment: IEEE Transactions or Wireless Communications, Accepted for Publicatio

Fronthaul-Constrained Cloud Radio Access Networks: Insights and Challenges

As a promising paradigm for fifth generation (5G) wireless communication systems, cloud radio access networks (C-RANs) have been shown to reduce both capital and operating expenditures, as well as to provide high spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE). The fronthaul in such networks, defined as the transmission link between a baseband unit (BBU) and a remote radio head (RRH), requires high capacity, but is often constrained. This article comprehensively surveys recent advances in fronthaul-constrained C-RANs, including system architectures and key techniques. In particular, key techniques for alleviating the impact of constrained fronthaul on SE/EE and quality of service for users, including compression and quantization, large-scale coordinated processing and clustering, and resource allocation optimization, are discussed. Open issues in terms of software-defined networking, network function virtualization, and partial centralization are also identified.Comment: 5 Figures, accepted by IEEE Wireless Communications. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1407.3855 by other author

Semi-blind CFO estimation and ICA based equalization for wireless communication systems

In this thesis, a number of semi-blind structures are proposed for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) based wireless communication systems, with Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO) estimation and Independent Component Analysis (ICA) based equalization. In the first contribution, a semi-blind non-redundant single-user Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) OFDM system is proposed, with a precoding aided CFO estimation approach and an ICA based equalization structure. A number of reference data sequences are carefully designed and selected from a pool of orthogonal sequences, killing two birds with one stone. On the one hand, the precoding based CFO estimation is performed by minimizing the sum cross-correlations between the CFO compensated signals and the rest of the orthogonal sequences in the pool. On the other hand, the same reference data sequences enable the elimination of permutation and quadrant ambiguities in the ICA equalized signals. Simulation results show that the proposed semi-blind MIMO OFDM system can achieve a Bit Error Rate (BER) performance close to the ideal case with perfect Channel State Information (CSI) and no CFO. In the second contribution, a low-complexity semi-blind structure, with a multi-CFO estimation method and an ICA based equalization scheme, is proposed for multiuser Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) OFDM systems. A short pilot is carefully designed offline for each user and has a two-fold advantage. On the one hand, using the pilot structure, a complex multi-dimensional search for multiple CFOs is divided into a number of low-complexity mono-dimensional searches. On the other hand, the cross-correlation between the transmitted and received pilots is explored to allow the simultaneous elimination of permutation and quadrant ambiguities in the ICA equalized signals. Simulation results show that the proposed semi-blind CoMP OFDM system can provide a BER performance close to the ideal case with perfect CSI and no CFO. In the third contribution, a semi-blind structure is proposed for Carrier Aggregation (CA) based CoMP Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) systems, with an ICA based joint Inter-Carrier Interference (ICI) mitigation and equalization scheme. The CFO-induced ICI is mitigated implicitly via ICA based equalization, without introducing feedback overhead for CFO correction. The permutation and quadrant ambiguities in the ICA equalized signals can be eliminated by a small number of pilots. Simulation results show that with a low training overhead, the proposed semi-blind equalization scheme can provide a BER performance close to the ideal case with perfect CSI and no CFO

A Dynamic Clustering and Resource Allocation Algorithm for Downlink CoMP Systems with Multiple Antenna UEs

Coordinated multi-point (CoMP) schemes have been widely studied in the recent years to tackle the inter-cell interference. In practice, latency and throughput constraints on the backhaul allow the organization of only small clusters of base stations (BSs) where joint processing (JP) can be implemented. In this work we focus on downlink CoMP-JP with multiple antenna user equipments (UEs) and propose a novel dynamic clustering algorithm. The additional degrees of freedom at the UE can be used to suppress the residual interference by using an interference rejection combiner (IRC) and allow a multistream transmission. In our proposal we first define a set of candidate clusters depending on long-term channel conditions. Then, in each time block, we develop a resource allocation scheme by jointly optimizing transmitter and receiver where: a) within each candidate cluster a weighted sum rate is estimated and then b) a set of clusters is scheduled in order to maximize the system weighted sum rate. Numerical results show that much higher rates are achieved when UEs are equipped with multiple antennas. Moreover, as this performance improvement is mainly due to the IRC, the gain achieved by the proposed approach with respect to the non-cooperative scheme decreases by increasing the number of UE antennas.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figure