Faster-than-Nyquist Signaling: on Linear and Non-Linear Reduced-Complexity Turbo Equalization

In the framework of digital video broadcasting by satellite - second generation (DVB-S2), we analyze a faster-than-Nyquist (FTN) system based on turbo equalization and low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. Truncated maximum a posteriori (MAP) and minimum mean square error (MMSE) equalizers provide a reduced-complexity implementation of the FTN system. On the other hand, LDPC codes allow us to demonstrate attractive performance results over an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel while increasing spectral efficiency beyond the Nyquist rate and keeping a complexity comparable to that of a current DVB-S2 mode

Transmission Experiment of Bandwidth Compressed Carrier Aggregation in a Realistic Fading Channel

In this paper, an experimental testbed is designed to evaluate the performance of a bandwidth compressed multicarrier technique termed spectrally efficient frequency division multiplexing (SEFDM) in a carrier aggregation (CA) scenario1. Unlike orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), SEFDM is a non-orthogonal waveform which, relative to OFDM, packs more sub-carriers in a given bandwidth, thereby improving spectral efficiency. CA is a long term evolution-advanced (LTE-Advanced) featured technique that offers a higher throughput by aggregating multiple legacy radio bands. Considering the scarcity of radio spectrum, SEFDM signals can be utilized to enhance CA performance. The combination of the two techniques results in a larger number of aggregated component carriers (CCs) and therefore increased data rate in a given bandwidth with no additional spectral allocation. It is experimentally shown that CA-SEFDM can aggregate up to 7 CCs in a limited bandwidth while CA-OFDM can only put 5 CCs in the same bandwidth. In this work, LTE-like framed CA-SEFDM signals are generated and delivered through a realistic LTE channel. A complete experimental setup is described together with error performance and effective spectral efficiency comparisons. Experimental results show that the measured BER performance for CA-SEFDM is very close to CA-OFDM and the effective spectral efficiency of CA-SEFDM can be substantially higher than that of CA-OFDM

Reduced Receivers for Faster-than-Nyquist Signaling and General Linear Channels

Fast and reliable data transmission together with high bandwidth efficiency are important design aspects in a modern digital communication system. Many different approaches exist but in this thesis bandwidth efficiency is obtained by increasing the data transmission rate with the faster-than-Nyquist (FTN) framework while keeping a fixed power spectral density (PSD). In FTN consecutive information carrying symbols can overlap in time and in that way introduce a controlled amount of intentional intersymbol interference (ISI). This technique was introduced already in 1975 by Mazo and has since then been extended in many directions. Since the ISI stemming from practical FTN signaling can be of significant duration, optimum detection with traditional methods is often prohibitively complex, and alternative equalization methods with acceptable complexity-performance tradeoffs are needed. The key objective of this thesis is therefore to design reduced-complexity receivers for FTN and general linear channels that achieve optimal or near-optimal performance. Although the performance of a detector can be measured by several means, this thesis is restricted to bit error rate (BER) and mutual information results. FTN signaling is applied in two ways: As a separate uncoded narrowband communication system or in a coded scenario consisting of a convolutional encoder, interleaver and the inner ISI mechanism in serial concatenation. Turbo equalization where soft information in the form of log likelihood ratios (LLRs) is exchanged between the equalizer and the decoder is a commonly used decoding technique for coded FTN signals. The first part of the thesis considers receivers and arising stability problems when working within the white noise constraint. New M-BCJR algorithms for turbo equalization are proposed and compared to reduced-trellis VA and BCJR benchmarks based on an offset label idea. By adding a third low-complexity M-BCJR recursion, LLR quality is improved for practical values of M. M here measures the reduced number of BCJR computations for each data symbol. An improvement of the minimum phase conversion that sharpens the focus of the ISI model energy is proposed. When combined with a delayed and slightly mismatched receiver, the decoding allows a smaller M without significant loss in BER. The second part analyzes the effect of the internal metric calculations on the performance of Forney- and Ungerboeck-based reduced-complexity equalizers of the M-algorithm type for both ISI and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels. Even though the final output of a full-complexity equalizer is identical for both models, the internal metric calculations are in general different. Hence, suboptimum methods need not produce the same final output. Additionally, new models working in between the two extremes are proposed and evaluated. Note that the choice of observation model does not impact the detection complexity as the underlying algorithm is unaltered. The last part of the thesis is devoted to a different complexity reducing approach. Optimal channel shortening detectors for linear channels are optimized from an information theoretical perspective. The achievable information rates of the shortened models as well as closed form expressions for all components of the optimal detector of the class are derived. The framework used in this thesis is more general than what has been previously used within the area

The First 15 Years of SEFDM: A Brief Survey

Spectrally efficient frequency division multiplexing (SEFDM) is a multi-carrier signal waveform, which achieves higher spectral efficiency, relative to conventional orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), by violating the orthogonality of its sub-carriers. This survey provides the history of SEFDM development since its inception in 2003, covering fundamentals and concepts, wireless and optical communications applications, circuit design and experimental testbeds. We focus on work done at UCL and outline work done other universities and research laboratories worldwide. We outline techniques to improve the performance of SEFDM and its practical utility with focus on signal generation, detection and channel estimation

Signal coding and interference cancellation of spectrally efficient FDM systems for 5G cellular networks

This paper explores new multicarrier signals and systems for 5G; spectrally efficient frequency division multiplexing (SEFDM), in which higher spectral efficiency (SE) compared to conventional orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is achieved by violating the orthogonality of its subcarriers. This work proposes new system and receiver models and then investigates the employment of various forward error correction (FEC) techniques, as well as a new interference cancellation receiver architecture to improve the overall system performance by ameliorating the effects of inter-carrier interference (ICI). Results show that the use of coded SEFDM system can drastically increase the SE by up to 67% relative to OFDM, at the expense of a power penalty below 3dB

A Very Low Complexity Successive Symbol-by-Symbol Sequence Estimator for Faster-Than-Nyquist Signaling

In this paper, we investigate the sequence estimation problem of binary and quadrature phase shift keying faster-than-Nyquist (FTN) signaling and propose two novel low-complexity sequence estimation techniques based on concepts of successive interference cancellation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first approach in the literature to detect FTN signaling on a symbol-by-symbol basis. In particular, based on the structure of the self-interference inherited in FTN signaling, we first find the operating region boundary---defined by the root-raised cosine (rRC) pulse shape, its roll-off factor, and the time acceleration parameter of the FTN signaling---where perfect estimation of the transmit data symbols on a symbol-by-symbol basis is guaranteed, assuming noise-free transmission. For noisy transmission, we then propose a novel low-complexity technique that works within the operating region and is capable of estimating the transmit data symbols on a symbol-by-symbol basis. To reduce the error propagation of the proposed successive symbol-by-symbol sequence estimator (SSSSE), we propose a successive symbol-by-symbol with go-back-$K$ sequence estimator (SSSgb$K$SE) that goes back to re-estimate up to $K$ symbols, and subsequently improves the estimation accuracy of the current data symbol. Simulation results show that the proposed sequence estimation techniques perform well for low intersymbol interference (ISI) scenarios and can significantly increase the data rate and spectral efficiency. Additionally, results reveal that choosing the value of $K$ as low as $2$ or $3$ data symbols is sufficient to significantly improve the bit-error-rate performance. Results also show that the performance of the proposed SSSgb$K$SE, with $K = 1$ or $2$, surpasses the performance of the lowest complexity equalizers reported in the literature, with reduced computational complexity.Comment: IEEE Access, accepte

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThe demand for high speed communication has been increasing in the past two decades. Multicarrier communication technology has been suggested to address this demand. Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is the most widely used multicarrier technique. However, OFDM has a number of disadvantages in time-varying channels, multiple access, and cognitive radios. On the other hand, filterbank multicarrier (FBMC) communication has been suggested as an alternative to OFDM that can overcome the disadvantages of OFDM. In this dissertation, we investigate the application of filtered multitone (FMT), a subset of FBMC modulation methods, to slow fading and fast fading channels. We investigate the FMT transmitter and receiver in continuous and discrete time domains. An efficient implementation of FMT systems is derived and the conditions for perfect reconstruction in an FBMC communication system are presented. We derive equations for FMT in slow fading channels that allow evaluation of FMT when applied to mobile wireless communication systems. We consider using fractionally spaced per tone channel equalizers with different number of taps. The numerical results are presented to investigate the performance of these equalizers. The numerical results show that single-tap equalizers suffice for typical wireless channels. The equalizer design study is advanced by introducing adaptive equalizers which use channel estimation. We derive equations for a minimum mean square error (MMSE) channel estimator and improve the channel estimation by considering the finite duration of channel impulse response. The results of optimum equalizers (when channel is known perfectly) are compared with those of the adaptive equalizers, and it is found that a loss of 1 dB or less incurs. We also introduce a new form of FMT which is specially designed to handle doubly dispersive channels. This method is called FMT-dd (FMT for doubly dispersive channels). The proposed FMT-dd is applied to two common methods of data symbol orientation in the time-frequency space grid; namely, rectangular and hexagonal lattices. The performance of these methods along with OFDM and the conventional FMT are compared and a significant improvement in performance is observed. The FMT-dd design is applied to real-world underwater acoustic (UWA) communication channels. The experimental results from an at-sea experiment (ACOMM10) show that this new design provides a significant gain over OFDM. The feasibility of implementing a MIMO system for multicarrier UWA communication channels is studied through computer simulations. Our study emphasizes the bandwidth efficiency of multicarrier MIMO communications .We show that the value of MIMO to UWA communication is very limited

Spectrally Efficient FDM over Satellite Systems with Advanced Interference Cancellation

For high data rates satellite systems, where multiple carriers are frequency division multiplexed with a slight overlap, the overall spectral efficiency is limited. This work applies highly overlapped carriers for satellite broadcast and broadband scenarios to achieve higher spectral efficiency. Spectrally efficient frequency division multiplexing (SEFDM) compresses subcarrier spacing to increase the spectral efficiency at the expense of orthogonality violation. SEFDM systems performance degrades compared to orthogonal signals, unless efficient interference cancellation is used. Turbo equalisation with interference cancellation is implemented to improve receiver performance for variable coding, compression and modulation/constellation proposals that may be applied in satellite communications settings. Such parameters may be set to satisfy pre-defined spectral efficiency values for a given quality index (QI) or associated application. Assuming LDPC coded data, the work proposes two approaches to receiver design; a simple matched filter approach and an approach utilising an iterative interference cancellation structure specially designed for SEFDM. Mathematical models and simulations studies are presented indicating promising gains to be achieved for SEFDM transmission with advanced transceiver architectures at the cost of increased complexity at the receiver