Digital and Mixed Domain Hardware Reduction Algorithms and Implementations for Massive MIMO

Emerging 5G and 6G based wireless communications systems largely rely on multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems to reduce inherently extensive path losses, facilitate high data rates, and high spatial diversity. Massive MIMO systems used in mmWave and sub-THz applications consists of hundreds perhaps thousands of antenna elements at base stations. Digital beamforming techniques provide the highest flexibility and better degrees of freedom for phased antenna arrays as compared to its analog and hybrid alternatives but has the highest hardware complexity. Conventional digital beamformers at the receiver require a dedicated analog to digital converter (ADC) for every antenna element, leading to ADCs for elements. The number of ADCs is the key deterministic factor for the power consumption of an antenna array system. The digital hardware consists of fast Fourier transform (FFT) cores with a multiplier complexity of (N log2N) for an element system to generate multiple beams. It is required to reduce the mixed and digital hardware complexities in MIMO systems to reduce the cost and the power consumption, while maintaining high performance. The well-known concept has been in use for ADCs to achieve reduced complexities. An extension of the architecture to multi-dimensional domain is explored in this dissertation to implement a single port ADC to replace ADCs in an element system, using the correlation of received signals in the spatial domain. This concept has applications in conventional uniform linear arrays (ULAs) as well as in focal plane array (FPA) receivers. Our analysis has shown that sparsity in the spatio-temporal frequency domain can be exploited to reduce the number of ADCs from N to where . By using the limited field of view of practical antennas, multiple sub-arrays are combined without interferences to achieve a factor of K increment in the information carrying capacity of the ADC systems. Applications of this concept include ULAs and rectangular array systems. Experimental verifications were done for a element, 1.8 - 2.1 GHz wideband array system to sample using ADCs. This dissertation proposes that frequency division multiplexing (FDM) receiver outputs at an intermediate frequency (IF) can pack multiple (M) narrowband channels with a guard band to avoid interferences. The combined output is then sampled using a single wideband ADC and baseband channels are retrieved in the digital domain. Measurement results were obtained by employing a element, 28 GHz antenna array system to combine channels together to achieve a 75% reduction of ADC requirement. Implementation of FFT cores in the digital domain is not always exact because of the finite precision. Therefore, this dissertation explores the possibility of approximating the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) matrix to achieve reduced hardware complexities at an allowable cost of accuracy. A point approximate DFT (ADFT) core was implemented on digital hardware using radix-32 to achieve savings in cost, size, weight and power (C-SWaP) and synthesized for ASIC at 45-nm technology

To Develop and Implement Low Power, High Speed VLSI for Processing Signals using Multirate Techniques

Multirate technique is necessary for systems with different input and output sampling rates. Recent advances in mobile computing and communication applications demand low power and high speed VLSI DSP systems [4]. This Paper presents Multirate modules used for filtering to provide signal processing in wireless communication system. Many architecture developed for the design of low complexity, bit parallel Multiple Constant Multiplications operation which dominates the complexity of DSP systems. However, major drawbacks of present approaches are either too costly or not efficient enough. On the other hand, MCM and digit-serial adder offer alternative low complexity designs, since digit-serial architecture occupy less area and are independent of the data word length [1][10]. Multiple Constant Multiplications is efficient way to reduce the number of addition and subtraction in polyphase filter implementation. This Multirate design methodology is systematic and applicable to many problems. In this paper, attention has given to the MCM & digit serial architecture with shifting and adding techniques that offers alternative low complexity in operations. This paper also focused on Multirate Signal Processing Modules using Voltage and Technology scaling. Reduction of power consumption is important for VLSI system and also it becomes one of the most critical design parameter. Transistorized Multirate module which has full custom design with different circuit topology and optimization level simulated on cadence platform. Multirate modules are used AMI 0.6 um, TSMC 0.35 um, and TSMC 0.25 um technologies for different voltage scaling. The presented methodology provides a systematic way to derive circuit technique for high speed operation at a low supply voltage. Multirate polyphase interpolator and decimator are also designed and optimized at architectural level in order to analyze the terms power consumption, area and speed. DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.150314

An Alternative Carry-save Arithmetic for New Generation Field Programmable Gate Arrays

In this work, a double carry-save addition operation is proposed, which is efficiently synthesized for 6-input LUT-based eld programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The proposed arithmetic operation is based on redundant number representation and provides carry propagation-free addition. Using the proposed arithmetic operation, a compact and fast multiply and accumulate unit is designed. To our knowledge, the proposed design provides the fastest multiply-add operation for 6-input LUT-based FPGA systems. A nite impulse response lter implementation is given to show the performance of the proposed structure. The proposed implementation provides a dramatic performance increase, which is at least 2 times faster than conventional binary multiply-add implementations

Algorithms and Circuits for Analog-Digital Hybrid Multibeam Arrays

Fifth generation (5G) and beyond wireless communication systems will rely heavily on larger antenna arrays combined with beamforming to mitigate the high free-space path-loss that prevails in millimeter-wave (mmW) and above frequencies. Sharp beams that can support wide bandwidths are desired both at the transmitter and the receiver to leverage the glut of bandwidth available at these frequency bands. Further, multiple simultaneous sharp beams are imperative for such systems to exploit mmW/sub-THz wireless channels using multiple reflected paths simultaneously. Therefore, multibeam antenna arrays that can support wider bandwidths are a key enabler for 5G and beyond systems. In general, N-beam systems using N-element antenna arrays will involve circuit complexities of the order of N2. This dissertation investigates new analog, digital and hybrid low complexity multibeam beamforming algorithms and circuits for reducing the associated high size, weight, and power (SWaP) complexities in larger multibeam arrays. The research efforts on the digital beamforming aspect propose the use of a new class of discrete Fourier transform (DFT) approximations for multibeam generation to eliminate the need for digital multipliers in the beamforming circuitry. For this, 8-, 16- and 32-beam multiplierless multibeam algorithms have been proposed for uniform linear array applications. A 2.4 GHz 16-element array receiver setup and a 5.8 GHz 32-element array receiver system which use field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) as digital backend have been built for real-time experimental verification of the digital multiplierless algorithms. The multiplierless algorithms have been experimentally verified by digitally measuring beams. It has been shown that the measured beams from the multiplierless algorithms are in good agreement with the exact counterpart algorithms. Analog realizations of the proposed approximate DFT transforms have also been investigated leading to low-complex, high bandwidth circuits in CMOS. Further, a novel approach for reducing the circuit complexity of analog true-time delay (TTD) N-beam beamforming networks using N-element arrays has been proposed for wideband squint-free operation. A sparse factorization of the N-beam delay Vandermonde beamforming matrix is used to reduce the total amount of TTD elements that are needed for obtaining N number of beams in a wideband array. The method has been verified using measured responses of CMOS all-pass filters (APFs). The wideband squint-free multibeam algorithm is also used to propose a new low-complexity hybrid beamforming architecture targeting future 5G mmW systems. Apart from that, the dissertation also explores multibeam beamforming architectures for uniform circular arrays (UCAs). An algorithm having N log N circuit complexity for simultaneous generation of N-beams in an N-element UCA is explored and verified

An Ultra-Low Power Holter and Low Complexity Design Using Mixed Signal Processor

[[abstract]]An ultra-low power, portable, and easily implemented Holter recorder is necessary for patients or researchers of electrocardiogram (ECG). Such a Holter recorder with off-the-shelf components is realized with mixed signal processor (MSP) in this paper. To decrease the complexity of analog circuits and the interference of 60 Hz noise from power line, we use the MSP to implement a finite impulse response (FIR) filter which is equiripple design. We also integrate the ring buffer for the input samples and the symmetrical characteristic of the FIR filter for efficiently computing convolution. The experimental results show that the ECG output signal with the PQRST feature is easy to be distinguished. This ECG signal is recorded for 24 hours using a SD card. Furthermore, the ECG signal is transmitted with a smartphone via Bluetooth to decrease the burden of the Holter recorder. As a result, this paper uses the Lomb method for the spectral analysis of Heart Rate Variability (HRV) better than Fast Fourier Transform (FFT).[[incitationindex]]EI[[booktype]]電子版[[booktype]]紙

Teaching Hardware Design of Fixed-Point Digital Signal Processing Systems

Signal processing theory and practice are enabling and driving forces behind multimedia devices, communications systems, and even such diverse fields as automotive and medical systems. Over 90 % of the signal processing systems on the market used fixed-point arithmetic because of the cost, power, and area savings that fixed-point systems provide. However, most colleges and universities do not teach or teach only a very little fixed-point signal processing. This issue is being addressed slowly around the country but now a new challenge or opportunity presents itself. As reconfigurable logic technology matures, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are increasingly used for signal processing systems. They have the advantage of tremendous throughput, great flexibility, and system integration. The challenge is that signal processing in FPGAs is a much less constrained problem than signal processing in special purpose microprocessors. The opportunity arises in that it is now possible to explore more options and, more especially, to take a more systems-level approach to signal processing systems. In short, designing a signal processing system using FPGAs provides opportunities to look at many system design issues and trade-offs in a classroom setting. We have developed a course to teach signal processing in FPGAs at Georgia Institute of Technology and in this paper we consider the challenges and methods of teaching fixedpoint system design in this course. We discuss the topics chosen and how they differ from traditional microprocessor-based courses. We also discuss how systems engineering concepts are woven into the course.