Key Signal Processing Technologies for High-speed Passive Optical Networks

With emerging technologies such as high-definition video, virtual reality, and cloud computing, bandwidth demand in the access networks is ever-increasing. Passive optical network (PON) has become a promising architecture thanks to its low cost and easy management. IEEE and ITU-T standard organizations have been standardizing the next-generation PON, targeting on increasing the single-channel capacity from 10 Gb/s to 25, 50, and 100 Gb/s as the solution to address the dramatic increase of bandwidth demand. However, since the access network is extremely cost-sensitive, many research problems imposed in the physical layer of PON need to be addressed in a cost-efficient way, which is the primary focus of this thesis. Utilizing the low-cost 10G optics to build up high-speed PON systems is a promising approach, where signal processing techniques are key of importance. Two categories of signal processing techniques have been extensively investigated, namely optical signal processing (OSP) and digital signal processing (DSP). Dispersion-supported equalization (DSE) as a novel OSP scheme is proposed to achieve bit-rate enhancement from 10 Gb/s to 25 Gb/s based on 10G class of optics. Thanks to the bandwidth improved by DSE, the non-return-zero on-off keying which is the simplest modulation format is able to be adopted in the PON system without complex modulation or DSP. Meanwhile, OSP is also proposed to work together with DSP enabling 50G PON while simplifying the DSP complexity. Using both DSE and simple feed-forward equalizer is able to support 50 Gb/s PAM-4 transmission with 10G optics. For C-band 50 Gb/s transmission, injection locking techniques as another OSP approach is proposed to compress the directly modulated laser chirp and increase system bandwidth in the optical domain where a doubled capacity from 25 Gb/s to 50 Gb/s over 20 km fiber can be built on top of 10G optics. For DSP, we investigated the advantages of neural network (NN) on the mitigation of the time-varying nonlinear semiconductor optical amplifier pattern effect. In order to reduce the expense caused by the high computation complexity of NN, a pre- equalizer is introduced at the central office that allows cost sharing for all connected access users. In order to push the PON system line rate to 100 Gb/s, a joint nonlinear Tomlinson- Harashima precoding-Volterra algorithm is proposed to compensate for both linear and nonlinear distortions where 100 Gb/s PAM-4 transmission over 20 km fiber with 15 GHz system bandwidth can be achieved

Mitigation of impulsive noise for SISO and MIMO G.fast system

To address the demand for high bandwidth data transmission over telephone transmission lines, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has recently completed the fourth generation broadband (4GBB) copper access network technology, known as G.fast. Throughout this thesis, extensively investigates the wired broadband G.fast coding system and the novel impulsive noise reduction technique has been proposed to improve the performance of wired communications network in three different scenarios: single-line Discrete Multiple Tone (DMT)- G.fast system; a multiple input multiple-output (MIMO) DMTG.fast system, and MIMO G.fast system with different crosstalk cancellation methods. For each of these scenarios, however, Impulsive Noise (IN) is considered as the main limiting factor of performance system. In order to improve the performance of such systems, which use higher order QAM constellation such as G.fast system, this thesis examines the performance of DMT G.fast system over copper channel for six different higher signal constellations of M = 32, 128, 512, 2048, 8192 and 32768 in presence of IN modelled as the Middleton Class A (MCA) noise source. In contrast to existing work, this thesis presents and derives a novel equation of Optimal Threshold (OT) to improve the IN frequency domain mitigation methods applied to the G.fast standard over copper channel with higher QAM signal constellations. The second scenario, Multi-Line Copper Wire (MLCW) G.fast is adopted utilizing the proposed MLCW Chen model and is compared to a single line G-fast system by a comparative analysis in terms of Bit-Error-Rate(BER) performance of implementation of MLCW-DMT G.fast system. The third scenario, linear and non-linear crosstalk crosstalk interference cancellation methods are applied to MLCW G.fas and compared by a comparative analysis in terms of BER performance and the complexity of implementation.University of Technology for choosing me for their PhD scholarship and The Higher Committee For Education Development in Iraq(HCED

Performance Enhancement in Copper Twisted Pair Cable Communications

The thesis focuses on the area of copper twisted pair based wireline communications. As one of the most widely deployed communication media, the copper twisted pair cable plays an important role in the communication network cabling infrastructure. This thesis looks to exploit diversity to improve twisted pair channels for data communications in two common application areas, namely Ethernet over Twisted Paris and digital subscriber line over twisted pair based telephone network. The first part of the thesis addresses new approaches to next generation Ethernet over twisted pair cable. The coming challenge for Ethernet over twisted pair cable is to realise a higher data rate beyond the 25/40GBASE-T standard, in relatively short reach scenarios. The straight-forward approaches, such as improving cable quality and extending frequency bandwidth, are unlikely to provide significant improvement in terms of data rate. However, other system diversities, such as spectrum utilization are yet to be fully exploited, so as to meet the desired data rate performance. The current balanced transmission over the structured twisted pair cable and its parallel single-in-single-out channel model is revisited and formulated as a full-duplex multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) channel model. With a common ground (provided by the cable shield), the balanced transmission is converted into unbalanced transmission, by replacing the differential-mode excitation with single-ended excitation. In this way, MIMO adoption may offer spectrum utilization advantages due to the doubled number of the channels. The S-parameters of the proposed MIMO channel model is obtained through the full wave electromagnetic simulation of a short CAT7A cable. The channel models are constructed from the resulting S-parameters, also the corresponding theoretical capacity is evaluated by exploiting different diversity scenarios. With higher spectrum efficiency, the orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing (OFDM) modulation can significantly improve the theoretical capacity compared with single-carrier modulation, where the channel frequency selectivity is aided. The MIMO can further enhance the capacity by minimising the impact of the crosstalk. When the crosstalk is properly handled under the unbalanced transmission, this thesis shows that the theoretical capacity of the EoTP cable can reach nearly 200GBit/s. In order to further extend the bandwidth capability of twisted pair cables, Phantom Mode transmission is studied, aiming at creating more channels under balanced transmission operation. The second part of the thesis focuses on the research of advanced scheduling algorithms for VDSL2 QoS enhancement. For VDSL2 broadband access networks, multi-user optimisation techniques have been developed, so as to improve the basic data rate performance. Spectrum balancing improves the network performance by optimising users transmit power spectra as the resource allocation, to mitigate the impact from the crosstalk. Aiming at enhancing the performance for the upstream VDSL2 service, where the users QoS demand is not known by all other users, a set of autonomous spectrum balancing algorithms is proposed. These optimise users transmit power spectra locally with only direct channel state information. To prevent selfish behaviour, the concept of a virtual user is introduced to represent the impact on both crosstalk interference and queueing status of other users. Moreover, novel algorithms are developed to determine the parameters and the weight of the virtual user. Another type of resource allocation in the VDSL2 network is crosstalk cancellation by centralised signal coordination. The history of the data queue is considered as a time series, on which different smooth filter characteristics are investigated in order to investigate further performance improvement. The use of filter techniques accounts for both the instantaneous queue length and also the previous data to determine the most efficient dynamic resource allocation. With the help of this smoothed dynamic resource allocation, the network will benefit from both reduced signalling communication and improved delay performance.The proposed algorithms are verified by numerical experiments

Bandwidth Compressed Waveform and System Design for Wireless and Optical Communications: Theory and Practice

This thesis addresses theoretical and practical challenges of spectrally efficient frequency division multiplexing (SEFDM) systems in both wireless and optical domains. SEFDM improves spectral efficiency relative to the well-known orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) by non-orthogonally multiplexing overlapped sub-carriers. However, the deliberate violation of orthogonality results in inter carrier interference (ICI) and associated detection complexity, thus posing many challenges to practical implementations. This thesis will present solutions for these issues. The thesis commences with the fundamentals by presenting the existing challenges of SEFDM, which are subsequently solved by proposed transceivers. An iterative detection (ID) detector iteratively removes self-created ICI. Following that, a hybrid ID together with fixed sphere decoding (FSD) shows an optimised performance/complexity trade-off. A complexity reduced Block-SEFDM can subdivide the signal detection into several blocks. Finally, a coded Turbo-SEFDM is proved to be an efficient technique that is compatible with the existing mobile standards. The thesis also reports the design and development of wireless and optical practical systems. In the optical domain, given the same spectral efficiency, a low-order modulation scheme is proved to have a better bit error rate (BER) performance when replacing a higher order one. In the wireless domain, an experimental testbed utilizing the LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation (CA) with SEFDM is operated in a realistic radio frequency (RF) environment. Experimental results show that 40% higher data rate can be achieved without extra spectrum occupation. Additionally, a new waveform, termed Nyquist-SEFDM, which compresses bandwidth and suppresses out-of-band power leakage is investigated. A 4th generation (4G) and 5th generation (5G) coexistence experiment is followed to verify its feasibility. Furthermore, a 60 GHz SEFDM testbed is designed and built in a point-to-point indoor fiber wireless experiment showing 67% data rate improvement compared to OFDM. Finally, to meet the requirements of future networks, two simplified SEFDM transceivers are designed together with application scenarios and experimental verifications

Resource allocation technique for powerline network using a modified shuffled frog-leaping algorithm

Resource allocation (RA) techniques should be made efficient and optimized in order to enhance the QoS (power & bit, capacity, scalability) of high-speed networking data applications. This research attempts to further increase the efficiency towards near-optimal performance. RA’s problem involves assignment of subcarriers, power and bit amounts for each user efficiently. Several studies conducted by the Federal Communication Commission have proven that conventional RA approaches are becoming insufficient for rapid demand in networking resulted in spectrum underutilization, low capacity and convergence, also low performance of bit error rate, delay of channel feedback, weak scalability as well as computational complexity make real-time solutions intractable. Mainly due to sophisticated, restrictive constraints, multi-objectives, unfairness, channel noise, also unrealistic when assume perfect channel state is available. The main goal of this work is to develop a conceptual framework and mathematical model for resource allocation using Shuffled Frog-Leap Algorithm (SFLA). Thus, a modified SFLA is introduced and integrated in Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) system. Then SFLA generated random population of solutions (power, bit), the fitness of each solution is calculated and improved for each subcarrier and user. The solution is numerically validated and verified by simulation-based powerline channel. The system performance was compared to similar research works in terms of the system’s capacity, scalability, allocated rate/power, and convergence. The resources allocated are constantly optimized and the capacity obtained is constantly higher as compared to Root-finding, Linear, and Hybrid evolutionary algorithms. The proposed algorithm managed to offer fastest convergence given that the number of iterations required to get to the 0.001% error of the global optimum is 75 compared to 92 in the conventional techniques. Finally, joint allocation models for selection of optima resource values are introduced; adaptive power and bit allocators in OFDM system-based Powerline and using modified SFLA-based TLBO and PSO are propose

Advanced DSP Techniques for High-Capacity and Energy-Efficient Optical Fiber Communications

The rapid proliferation of the Internet has been driving communication networks closer and closer to their limits, while available bandwidth is disappearing due to an ever-increasing network load. Over the past decade, optical fiber communication technology has increased per fiber data rate from 10 Tb/s to exceeding 10 Pb/s. The major explosion came after the maturity of coherent detection and advanced digital signal processing (DSP). DSP has played a critical role in accommodating channel impairments mitigation, enabling advanced modulation formats for spectral efficiency transmission and realizing flexible bandwidth. This book aims to explore novel, advanced DSP techniques to enable multi-Tb/s/channel optical transmission to address pressing bandwidth and power-efficiency demands. It provides state-of-the-art advances and future perspectives of DSP as well

NOVEL OFDM SYSTEM BASED ON DUAL-TREE COMPLEX WAVELET TRANSFORM

The demand for higher and higher capacity in wireless networks, such as cellular, mobile and local area network etc, is driving the development of new signaling techniques with improved spectral and power efficiencies. At all stages of a transceiver, from the bandwidth efficiency of the modulation schemes through highly nonlinear power amplifier of the transmitters to the channel sharing between different users, the problems relating to power usage and spectrum are aplenty. In the coming future, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technology promises to be a ready solution to achieving the high data capacity and better spectral efficiency in wireless communication systems by virtue of its well-known and desirable characteristics. Towards these ends, this dissertation investigates a novel OFDM system based on dual-tree complex wavelet transform (D

Digital signal processing for fiber-optic communication systems

As the available bandwidth of optical fibers has been almost fully exploited, Digital Signal Processing (DSP) comes to rescue and is a critical technology underpinning the next generation advanced fiber-optic systems. Literally, it contributes two principal enforcements with respect to information communication. One is the implementation of spectrally-efficient modulation schemes, and the other is the guarantee of the recovery of information from the spectrally-efficient optical signals after channel transmission. The dissertation is dedicated to DSP techniques for the advanced fiber-optic systems. It consists of two main research topics. The first topic is about Fast-orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) — a variant OFDM scheme whose subcarrier spacing is half of that of conventional OFDM. The second one is about Fresnel transform with the derivation of an interesting discrete Fresnel transform (DFnT), and the proposal of orthogonal chirp-division multiplexing (OCDM), which is fundamentally underlain by the Fresnel transform. In the first part, equalization and signal recovery problems result from the halved subcarrier spacing in both double-sideband (DSB) and single-sideband (SSB) modulated Fast-OFDM systems are studied, respectively. By exploiting the relation between the multiplexing kernels of Fast-OFDM systems and Fourier transform, equalization algorithms are proposed for respective Fast-OFDM systems for information recovery. Detailed analysis is also provided. With the proposed algorithms, the DSB Fast-OFDM was experimentally implemented by intensity-modulation and direct detection in the conventional 1.55-μm and the emerging 2-μm fiber-optic systems, and the SSB Fast-OFDM was first implemented in coherent fiber-optic system with a spectral efficiency of 6 bit/s/Hz at 36 Gbps, for the first time. In the second part, Fresnel transform from optical Fresnel diffraction is studied. The discrete Fresnel transform (DFnT) is derived, as an interesting transformation that would be potentially useful for DSP. Its properties are proved. One of the attractive properties, the convolution-preservation property states that the DFnT of a circular convolution of two sequences is equal to the DFnT of either one convolving with the other. One application of DFnT is practically utilized in the proposal of OCDM. In the OCDM system, a large number of orthogonal chirped waveforms are multiplexed for high-speed communication, achieving the maximum spectral efficiency of chirp spread spectrum systems, in the same way as OFDM attains the maximum spectral efficiency of frequency-division multiplexing. Owing to the unique time-frequency properties of chirped waveforms, OCDM outperforms OFDM and single-carrier systems, and is more resilient against the noise effect, especially, when time-domain and frequency-domain distortions are severe. Experiments were carried out to validate the feasibility and advantages of the proposed OCDM systems

Advanced signal processing concepts for multi-dimensional communication systems

Die weit verbreitete Nutzung von mobilem Internet und intelligenten Anwendungen hat zu einem explosionsartigen Anstieg des mobilen Datenverkehrs geführt. Mit dem Aufstieg von intelligenten Häusern, intelligenten Gebäuden und intelligenten Städten wächst diese Nachfrage ständig, da zukünftige Kommunikationssysteme die Integration mehrerer Netzwerke erfordern, die verschiedene Sektoren, Domänen und Anwendungen bedienen, wie Multimedia, virtuelle oder erweiterte Realität, Machine-to-Machine (M2M) -Kommunikation / Internet of Things (IoT), Automobilanwendungen und vieles mehr. Daher werden die Kommunikationssysteme zukünftig nicht nur eine drahtlose Verbindung über Gbps bereitstellen müssen, sondern auch andere Anforderungen erfüllen müssen, wie z. B. eine niedrige Latenzzeit und eine massive Maschinentyp-Konnektivität, während die Dienstqualität sichergestellt wird. Ohne bedeutende technologische Fortschritte zur Erhöhung der Systemkapazität wird die bestehende Telekommunikationsinfrastruktur diese mehrdimensionalen Anforderungen nicht unterstützen können. Dies stellt eine wichtige Forderung nach geeigneten Wellenformen und Signalverarbeitungslösungen mit verbesserten spektralen Eigenschaften und erhöhter Flexibilität dar. Aus der Spektrumsperspektive werden zukünftige drahtlose Netzwerke erforderlich sein, um mehrere Funkbänder auszunutzen, wie zum Beispiel niedrigere Frequenzbänder (typischerweise mit Frequenzen unter 10 GHz), mm-Wellenbänder (einige hundert GHz höchstens) und THz-Bänder. Viele alternative Technologien wie Optical Wireless Communication (OWC), dynamische Funksysteme und zellulares Radar sollten ebenfalls untersucht werden, um ihr wahres Potenzial abzuschätzen. Insbesondere bietet OWC ein großes, aber noch nicht genutztes optisches Band im sichtbaren Spektrum, das Licht als Mittel zur Informationsübertragung nutzt. Daher können zukünftige Kommunikationssysteme als zusammengesetzte Hybridnetzwerke angesehen werden, die aus einer Anzahl von verschiedenen drahtlosen Netzwerken bestehen, die auf Funk und optischem Zugang basieren. Auf der anderen Seite ist es eine große Herausforderung, fortschrittliche Signalverarbeitungslösungen für mehrere Bereiche von Kommunikationssystemen zu entwickeln. Diese Arbeit trägt zu diesem Ziel bei, indem sie Methoden für die Suche nach effizienten algebraischen Lösungen für verschiedene Anwendungen der digitalen Mehrkanal-Signalverarbeitung demonstriert. Insbesondere tragen wir zu drei verschiedenen Anwendungsgebieten bei, d.h. Wellenformen, optischen drahtlosen Systemen und mehrdimensionaler Signalverarbeitung. Gegenwärtig ist das Cyclic Prefix Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (CP-OFDM) die weit verbreitete Multitragetechnik für die meisten Kommunikationssysteme. Um jedoch die CP-OFDM-Nachteile in Bezug auf eine schlechte spektrale Eingrenzung, Robustheit in hoch asynchronen Umgebungen und Unflexibilität der Parameterwahl zu überwinden, wurden viele alternative Wellenformen vorgeschlagen. Solche Mehrfachträgerwellenformen umfassen einen Filter bank Multicarrier (FBMC), ein Generalized Frequency Division Multiplexing (GFDM), einen Universal Filter Multicarrier (UFMC) und ein Unique Word Orthogonal Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (UW-OFDM). Diese neuen Luftschnittstellenschemata verwenden verschiedene Ansätze, um einige der inhärenten Mängel bei CP-OFDM zu überwinden. Einige dieser Wellenformen wurden gut untersucht, während andere sich noch in den Kinderschuhen befinden. Insbesondere die Integration von Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) -Konzepten mit UW-OFDM und UFMC befindet sich noch in einem frühen Forschungsstadium. Daher schlagen wir im ersten Teil dieser Arbeit neuartige lineare und sukzessive Interferenzunterdrückungstechniken für MIMO UW-OFDM-Systeme vor. Das Design dieser Techniken zielt darauf ab, Empfänger mit einer geringen Rechenkomplexität zu erhalten. Ein weiterer Schwerpunkt ist die Anwendbarkeit von Space-Time Block Codes (STBCs) auf UW-OFDM und UFMC-Wellenformen. Zu diesem Zweck stellen wir neue Techniken zusammen mit Detektionsverfahren vor. Wir vergleichen auch die Leistung dieser Wellenformen mit unseren vorgeschlagenen Techniken mit den anderen Wellenformen des Standes der Technik, die in der Literatur vorgeschlagen wurden. Wir zeigen, dass raumzeitblockierte UW-OFDM-Systeme mit den vorgeschlagenen Methoden nicht nur andere Wellenformen signifikant übertreffen, sondern auch zu Empfängern mit geringer Rechnerkomplexität führen. Der zweite Anwendungsbereich umfasst optische Systeme im sichtbaren Band (390-700 nm), die in Plastic Optical Fibers (POFs), Multimode-Fasern oder OWC-Systemen wie der Kommunikation über Visible Light Communication (VLC) verwendet werden können. VLC kann Lösungen für eine Reihe von Anwendungen anbieten, einschließlich drahtloser lokaler, persönlicher und Körperbereichsnetzwerke (WLAN, WPAN und WBANs), Innenlokalisierung und -navigation, Fahrzeugnetze, U-Bahn- und Unterwassernetze und bietet eine Reihe von Datenraten von wenigen Mbps zu 10 Gbps. VLC nutzt voll sichtbare Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) für den doppelten Zweck der Beleuchtung und Datenkommunikation bei sehr hohen Geschwindigkeiten. Daher verwenden solche Systeme Intensitätsmodulation und Direct Detection (IM / DD), wodurch gefordert wird, dass das Sendesignal reellwertig und positiv sein sollte. Dies impliziert auch, dass die herkömmlichen Wellenformen, die für die Radio Frequency (RF) Kommunikation ausgelegt sind, nicht direkt verwendet werden können. Zum Beispiel muss eine hermetische Symmetrie auf das CP-OFDM angewendet werden, um ein reellwertiges Signal zu erhalten (oft als Discrete Multitone Transmission (DMT) bezeichnet), das im Gegenzug die Bandbreiteneffizienz verringert. Darüber hinaus begrenzt die LED / LED-Treiberkombination die elektrische Bandbreite. Alle diese Faktoren erfordern die Verwendung spektral effizienter Übertragungsverfahren zusammen mit robusten Entzerrungsschemata, um hohe Datenraten zu erzielen. Deshalb schlagen wir im zweiten Teil der Arbeit Übertragungsverfahren vor, die für solche optischen Systeme am besten geeignet sind. Insbesondere demonstrieren wir die Leistung der PAM-Blockübertragung mit Frequenzbereichsausgleich. Wir zeigen, dass dieses Schema nicht nur leistungsstärker ist, sondern auch alle modernen Verfahren wie CP-DMT-Schemata übertrifft. Wir schlagen auch neue UW-DMT-Schemata vor, die vom UW-OFDM-Konzept abgeleitet sind. Diese Schemata zeigen auch ein sehr überlegenes Bitfehlerverhältnis (BER) -Performance gegenüber den herkömmlichen CP-DMT-Schemata. Der dritte Anwendungsbereich konzentriert sich auf mehrdimensionale Signalverarbeitungstechniken. Bei der Verwendung von MIMO, STBCs, Mehrbenutzerverarbeitung und Mehrträgerwellenformen bei der drahtlosen Kommunikation ist das empfangene Signal mehrdimensional und kann eine multilineare Struktur aufweisen. In diesem Zusammenhang können Signalverarbeitungstechniken, die auf einem Tensor-Modell basieren, gleichzeitig von mehreren Formen von Diversität profitieren, um Mehrbenutzer-Signaltrennung / -entzerrung und Kanalschätzung durchzuführen. Dieser Vorteil ist eine direkte Konsequenz der Eigenschaft der wesentlichen Eindeutigkeit, die für matrixbasierte Ansätze nicht verfügbar ist. Tensor-Zerlegung wie die Higher Order Singular Value Decomposition (HOSVD) und die Canonical Polyadic Decomposition (CPD) werden weithin zur Durchführung dieser Aufgaben empfohlen. Die Leistung dieser Techniken wird oft mit zeitraubenden Monte-Carlo-Versuchen bewertet. Im letzten Teil der Arbeit führen wir eine Störungsanalyse erster Ordnung dieser Tensor-Zerlegungsmethoden durch. Insbesondere führen wir eine analytische Performanceanalyse des Semi-algebraischen Frameworks für approximative Canonical polyadic decompositions Simultaneous matrix diagonalizations (SECSI) durch. Das SECSI-Framework ist ein effizientes Werkzeug zur Berechnung der CPD eines rauscharmen Tensor mit niedrigem Rang. Darüber hinaus werden die erhaltenen analytischen Ausdrücke in Bezug auf die Momente zweiter Ordnung des Rauschens formuliert, so dass abgesehen von einem Mittelwert von Null keine Annahmen über die Rauschstatistik erforderlich sind. Wir zeigen, dass die abgeleiteten analytischen Ergebnisse eine ausgezeichnete Übereinstimmung mit den Monte-Carlo-Simulationen zeigen.The widespread use of mobile internet and smart applications has led to an explosive growth in mobile data traffic. With the rise of smart homes, smart buildings, and smart cities, this demand is ever growing since future communication systems will require the integration of multiple networks serving diverse sectors, domains and applications, such as multimedia, virtual or augmented reality, machine-to-machine (M2M) communication / the Internet of things (IoT), automotive applications, and many more. Therefore, in the future, the communication systems will not only be required to provide Gbps wireless connectivity but also fulfil other requirements such as low latency and massive machine type connectivity while ensuring the quality of service. Without significant technological advances to increase the system capacity, the existing telecommunications infrastructure will be unable to support these multi-dimensional requirements. This poses an important demand for suitable waveforms with improved spectral characteristics and signal processing solutions with an increased flexibility. Moreover, future wireless networks will be required to exploit several frequency bands, such as lower frequency bands (typically with frequencies below 10 GHz), mm-wave bands (few hundred GHz at the most), and THz bands. Many alternative technologies such as optical wireless communication (OWC), dynamic radio systems, and cellular radar should also be investigated to assess their true potential. Especially, OWC offers large but yet unexploited optical band in the visible spectrum that uses light as a means to carry information. Therefore, future communication systems can be seen as composite hybrid networks that consist of a number of different wireless networks based on radio and optical access. On the other hand, it poses a significant challenge to come up with advanced signal processing solutions in multiple areas of communication systems. This thesis contributes to this goal by demonstrating methods for finding efficient algebraic solutions to various applications of multi-channel digital signal processing. In particular, we contribute to three different scientific fields, i.e., waveforms, optical wireless systems, and multi-dimensional signal processing. Currently, cyclic prefix orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CP-OFDM) is the widely adopted multicarrier technique for most of the communication systems. However, to overcome the CP-OFDM demerits in terms of poor spectral containment, poor robustness in highly asynchronous environments, and inflexibility of parameter choice, and many alternative waveforms have been proposed. Such multicarrier waveforms include filter bank multicarrier (FBMC), generalized frequency division multiplexing (GFDM), universal filter multicarrier (UFMC), and unique word orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (UW-OFDM). These new air interface schemes take different approaches to overcome some of the inherent deficiencies in CP-OFDM. Some of these waveforms have been well investigated while others are still in its infancy. Specifically, the integration of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) concepts with UW-OFDM and UFMC is still at an early stage of research. Therefore, in the first part of this thesis, we propose novel linear and successive interference cancellation techniques for MIMO UW-OFDM systems. The design of these techniques is aimed to result in receivers with a low computational complexity. Another focus area is the applicability of space-time block codes (STBCs) to UW-OFDM and UFMC waveforms. For this purpose, we present novel techniques along with detection procedures. We also compare the performance of these waveforms with our proposed techniques to the other state-of-the-art waveforms that has been proposed in the literature. We demonstrate that space-time block coded UW-OFDM systems with the proposed methods not only outperform other waveforms significantly but also results in receivers with a low computational complexity. The second application area comprises of optical systems in the visible band (390-700 nm) that can be utilized in plastic optical fibers (POFs), multimode fibers or OWC systems such as visible light communication (VLC). VLC can provide solutions for a number of applications including wireless local, personal, and body area networks (WLAN, WPAN, and WBANs), indoor localization and navigation, vehicular networks, underground and underwater networks, offering a range of data rates from a few Mbps to 10 Gbps. VLC takes full advantage of visible light emitting diodes (LEDs) for the dual purpose of illumination and data communications at very high speeds. Because of the incoherent nature of the LED sources, such systems employ intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD), thus demanding that the transmit signal should be real-valued and positive. This also implies that the conventional waveforms designed for the radio frequency (RF) communication cannot be directly used. For example, a Hermitian symmetry has to be applied to the CP-OFDM spectrum to obtain a real-valued signal (often referred to as discrete multitone transmission (DMT)) that in return reduces the bandwidth efficiency. Moreover, the LED/LED driver combination limits the electrical bandwidth. All these factors require the use of spectrally efficient transmission schemes along with robust equalization schemes to achieve high data rates. Therefore, in the second part of the thesis, we propose transmission schemes that are best suited for such optical systems. Specifically, we demonstrate the performance of PAM block transmission with frequency domain equalization. We show that this scheme is not only more power efficient but also outperforms all of the state-of-the-art schemes such as CP-DMT schemes. We also propose novel UW-DMT schemes that are derived from the UW-OFDM concept. These schemes also show a much superior bit error ratio (BER) performance over the conventional CP-DMT schemes. The third application area focuses on multi-dimensional signal processing techniques. With the use of MIMO, STBCs, multi-user processing, and multicarrier waveforms in wireless communications, the received signal is multidimensional in nature and may exhibit a multilinear structure. In this context, signal processing techniques based on a tensor model can simultaneously benefit from multiple forms of diversity to perform multi-user signal separation/equalization and channel estimation. This advantage is a direct consequence of the essential uniqueness property that is not available for matrix based approaches. Tensor decompositions such as the higher order singular value decomposition (HOSVD) and the canonical polyadic decomposition (CPD) are widely recommended for performing these tasks. The performance of these techniques is often evaluated using time consuming Monte-Carlo trials. In the last part of the thesis, we perform a first-order perturbation analysis of the truncated HOSVD and the Semi-algebraic framework for approximate Canonical polyadic decompositions via Simultaneous matrix diagonalizations (SECSI). The SECSI framework is an efficient tool for the computation of the approximate CPD of a low-rank noise corrupted tensor. Especially, the SECSI framework shows a much improved performance and comparatively low-complexity as compared to the conventional algorithms such as alternative least squares (ALS). Moreover, it also facilitates the implementation on a parallel hardware architecture. The obtained analytical expressions for both algorithms are formulated in terms of the second-order moments of the noise, such that apart from a zero-mean, no assumptions on the noise statistics are required. We demonstrate that the derived analytical results exhibit an excellent match to the Monte-Carlo simulations