Soft-Decision-Driven Channel Estimation for Pipelined Turbo Receivers

We consider channel estimation specific to turbo equalization for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication. We develop a soft-decision-driven sequential algorithm geared to the pipelined turbo equalizer architecture operating on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols. One interesting feature of the pipelined turbo equalizer is that multiple soft-decisions become available at various processing stages. A tricky issue is that these multiple decisions from different pipeline stages have varying levels of reliability. This paper establishes an effective strategy for the channel estimator to track the target channel, while dealing with observation sets with different qualities. The resulting algorithm is basically a linear sequential estimation algorithm and, as such, is Kalman-based in nature. The main difference here, however, is that the proposed algorithm employs puncturing on observation samples to effectively deal with the inherent correlation among the multiple demapper/decoder module outputs that cannot easily be removed by the traditional innovations approach. The proposed algorithm continuously monitors the quality of the feedback decisions and incorporates it in the channel estimation process. The proposed channel estimation scheme shows clear performance advantages relative to existing channel estimation techniques.Comment: 11 pages; IEEE Transactions on Communications 201

Turbo Packet Combining for Broadband Space-Time BICM Hybrid-ARQ Systems with Co-Channel Interference

In this paper, efficient turbo packet combining for single carrier (SC) broadband multiple-input--multiple-output (MIMO) hybrid--automatic repeat request (ARQ) transmission with unknown co-channel interference (CCI) is studied. We propose a new frequency domain soft minimum mean square error (MMSE)-based signal level combining technique where received signals and channel frequency responses (CFR)s corresponding to all retransmissions are used to decode the data packet. We provide a recursive implementation algorithm for the introduced scheme, and show that both its computational complexity and memory requirements are quite insensitive to the ARQ delay, i.e., maximum number of ARQ rounds. Furthermore, we analyze the asymptotic performance, and show that under a sum-rank condition on the CCI MIMO ARQ channel, the proposed packet combining scheme is not interference-limited. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the gains offered by the proposed technique.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, and 2 table

Single-RF spatial modulation requires single-carrier transmission: frequency-domain turbo equalization for dispersive channels

In this paper, we propose a broadband single-carrier (SC) spatial-modulation (SM) based multiple-input multipleoutput (MIMO) architecture relying on a soft-decision (SoD) frequency-domain equalization (FDE) receiver. We demonstrate that conventional orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)-based broadband transmissions are not readily suitable for the single–radio frequency (RF) assisted SM-MIMO schemes, since this scheme does not exhibit any substantial performance advantage over single-antenna transmissions. To circumvent this limitation, a low-complexity soft-decision (SoD) FDE algorithm based on the minimum mean-square error (MMSE) criterion is invoked for our broadband SC-based SM-MIMO scheme, which is capable of operating in a strongly dispersive channel having a long channel impulse response (CIR) at a moderate decoding complexity. Furthermore, our SoD FDE attains a near-capacity performance with the aid of a three-stage concatenated SC-based SM architecture

Low-complexity iterative receiver algorithms for multiple-input multiple-output underwater wireless communications

This dissertation proposes three low-complexity iterative receiver algorithms for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) underwater acoustic (UWA) communications. First is a bidirectional soft-decision feedback Turbo equalizer (Bi-SDFE) which harvests the time-reverse diversity in severe multipath MIMO channels. The Bi-SDFE outperforms the original soft-decision feedback Turbo equalizer (SDFE) while keeping its total computational complexity similar to that of the SDFE. Second, this dissertation proposes an efficient direct adaptation Turbo equalizer for MIMO UWA communications. Benefiting from the usage of soft-decision reference symbols for parameter adaptation as well as the iterative processing inside the adaptive equalizer, the proposed algorithm is efficient in four aspects: robust performance in tough channels, high spectral efficiency with short training overhead, time efficient with fast convergence and low complexity in hardware implementation. Third, a frequency-domain soft-decision block iterative equalizer combined with iterative channel estimation is proposed for the uncoded single carrier MIMO systems with high data efficiency. All the three new algorithms are evaluated by data recorded in real world ocean experiment or pool experiment. Finally, this dissertation also compares several Turbo equalizers in single-input single-output (SISO) UWA channels. Experimental results show that the channel estimation based Turbo equalizers are robust in SISO underwater transmission under harsh channel conditions --Abstract, page iv

Parallel Interference Cancellation Based Turbo Space-Time Equalization in the SDMA Uplink

A novel Parallel Interference Cancellation (PIC) based turbo Space Time Equalizer (STE) structure designed for multiple antenna assisted uplink receivers is introduced. The proposed receiver structure allows the employment of non-linear type of detectors such as the Bayesian Decision Feedback (DF) assisted turbo STE or the Maximum Aposteriori (MAP) STE, while operating at a moderate computational cost. Receivers based on the proposed structure outperform the linear turbo detector benchmarker based on the Minimum Mean-Squared Error (MMSE) criterion, even if the latter aims for jointly detecting all transmitters’ signals. Additionally the PIC based receiver is capable of equalizing non-linear binary pre-coded channels. The performance difference between the presented algorithms is discussed using Extrinsic Information Transferfunction (EXIT) charts. Index Terms—PIC, EXIT chart, precoding, Bayesian, STE

Low-complexity soft-decision feedback turbo equalization for multilevel modulations

This dissertation proposes two new decision feedback equalization schemes suitable for multilevel modulation systems employing turbo equalization. One is soft-decision feedback equalization (SDFE) that takes into account the reliability of both soft a priori information and soft decisions of the data symbols. The proposed SDFE exhibits lower signal to noise ratio (SNR) threshold that is required for water fall bit error rate (BER) and much faster convergence than the near-optimal exact minimum mean square error linear equalizer (Exact-MMSE-LE) for high-order constellation modulations. The proposed SDFE also offers a low computational complexity compared to the Exact-MMSE-LE. The drawback of the SDFE is that its coefficients cannot reach the matched filter bound (MFB) and therefore after a large number of iterations (e.g. 10), its performance becomes inferior to that of the Exact-MMSE-LE. Therefore, soft feedback intersymbol interference (ISI) canceller-based (SIC) structure is investigated. The SIC structure not only exhibits the same low complexity, low SNR threshold and fast convergence as the SDFE but also reaches the MFB after a large number of iterations. Both theoretical analysis and numerical simulations demonstrate why the SIC achieves MFB while the SDFE cannot. These two turbo equalization structures are also extended from single-input single-output (SISO) systems to multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems and applied in high data-rate underwater acoustic (UWA) communications --Abstract, page iv

Turbo equalization for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication systems

This dissertation investigates both of the frequency domain and time domain turbo equalization with multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) fading channels for radio frequency and underwater acoustic communications. First, a low complexity frequency domain turbo equalization (FDTE) is proposed for the MIMO systems with zero padding (ZP) or cyclic prefix (CP) inserted between the transmitted data blocks and its performance is tested on the real-world UWA communications experiments. Second, as high speed communication system requires efficient bandwidth usage and power consumption, CP or ZP is not transmitted as auxiliary information. An inter-block interference cancelation and CP reconstruction algorithm is developed to re-arrange the channel matrix into a block diagonal one. This improvement makes the FDTE effectively detects the continuous data stream from the high speed UWA communications and its performance has been verified by processing data collected from the UWA communications experiment. Finally, a low complexity soft interference cancelation (SIC) time domain turbo equalizer for MIMO systems with high level modulation is proposed. Compared with the conventional linear or nonlinear turbo equalizers, the proposed SIC turbo equalizer can theoretically reach the bound set up by the ideal match filter and its bit error rate (BER) performance from Monte Carlo simulation achieves a lower error floor as well as a more rapid convergence speed. --Abstract, page iv