Ordered Tomlinson-Harashima Precoding in G.fast Downstream

G.fast is an upcoming next generation DSL standard envisioned to use bandwidth up to 212 MHz. Far-end crosstalk (FEXT) at these frequencies greatly overcomes direct links. Its cancellation based on non-linear Tomlinson-Harashima Precoding (THP) proved to show significant advantage over standard linear precoding. This paper proposes a novel THP structure in which ordering of successive interference pre-cancellation can be optimized for downstream with non-cooperating receivers. The optimized scheme is compared to existing THP structure denoted as equal-rate THP which is widely adopted in wireless downlink. Structure and performance of both methods differ significantly favoring the proposed scheme. The ordering that maximizes the minimum rate (max-min fairness) for each tone of the discrete multi-tone modulation is the familiar V-BLAST ordering. However, V-BLAST does not lead to the global maximum when applied independently on each tone. The proposed novel Dynamic Ordering (DO) strategy takes into account asymmetric channel statistics to yield the highest minimum aggregated rate.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figures, Accepted at the 2015 IEEE Globecom 2015, Selected Areas in Communications: Access Networks and Systems, 6-10 December, 201

Novel Efficient Precoding Techniques for Multiuser MIMO Systems

In Multiuser MIMO (MU-MIMO) systems, precoding is essential to eliminate or minimize the multiuser interference (MUI). However, the design of a suitable precoding algorithm with good overall performance and low computational complexity at the same time is quite challenging, especially with the increase of system dimensions. In this thesis, we explore the art of novel low-complexity high-performance precoding algorithms with both linear and non-linear processing strategies. Block diagonalization (BD)-type based precoding techniques are well-known linear precoding strategies for MU-MIMO systems. By employing BD-type precoding algorithms at the transmit side, the MU-MIMO broadcast channel is decomposed into multiple independent parallel SU-MIMO channels and achieves the maximum diversity order at high data rates. The main computational complexity of BD-type precoding algorithms comes from two singular value decomposition (SVD) operations, which depend on the number of users and the dimensions of each user's channel matrix. In this thesis, two categories of low-complexity precoding algorithms are proposed to reduce the computational complexity and improve the performance of BD-type precoding algorithms. One is based on multiple LQ decompositions and lattice reductions. The other one is based on a channel inversion technique, QR decompositions, and lattice reductions to decouple the MU-MIMO channel into equivalent SU-MIMO channels. Both of the two proposed precoding algorithms can achieve a comparable sum-rate performance as BD-type precoding algorithms, substantial bit error rate (BER) performance gains, and a simplified receiver structure, while requiring a much lower complexity. Tomlinson-Harashima precoding (THP) is a prominent nonlinear processing technique employed at the transmit side and is a dual to the successive interference cancelation (SIC) detection at the receive side. Like SIC detection, the performance of THP strongly depends on the ordering of the precoded symbols. The optimal ordering algorithm, however, is impractical for MU-MIMO systems with multiple receive antennas. We propose a multi-branch THP (MB-THP) scheme and algorithms that employ multiple transmit processing and ordering strategies along with a selection scheme to mitigate interference in MU-MIMO systems. Two types of multi-branch THP (MB-THP) structures are proposed. The first one employs a decentralized strategy with diagonal weighted filters at the receivers of the users and the second uses a diagonal weighted filter at the transmitter. The MB-MMSE-THP algorithms are also derived based on an extended system model with the aid of an LQ decomposition, which is much simpler compared to the conventional MMSE-THP algorithms. Simulation results show that a better BER performance can be achieved by the proposed MB-MMSE-THP precoder with a small computational complexity increase

Robust spatio-temporal partial-response signaling over a frequency-selective fading MIMO channel with imperfect CSI

Partial-response signaling is known to facilitate the equalizer design because a controlled amount of residual interference is permitted. The design of the target impulse response of the partial-response precoder often assumes perfect channel state information, which is unfortunately not available at the transmitter in most practical applications. Consequently, this contribution focuses instead on the robust and joint design of a spatio-temporal target impulse response and the equalization coefficients for a frequency-selective fading multiple-input multiple-output communication channel based on current and/or previous noisy channel estimates. More precisely, the error in the channel estimates is statistically modeled, and robustness is achieved by minimizing the mean-squared estimation error averaged over the joint distribution of the actual channel and the available channel estimates. Numerical results of the bit error rate confirm that the proposed robust partial-response signaling not only provides a significant performance gain compared to traditional full-response signaling, but also outperforms the naive approach, which ignores channel estimation errors

Ordered Tomlinson-Harashima Precoding in G.fast Downstream

G.fast is an upcoming next generation DSL standard envisioned to use bandwidth up to 212 MHz. Far-end crosstalk (FEXT) at these frequencies greatly overcomes direct links. Its cancellation based on non-linear Tomlinson-Harashima Precoding (THP) proved to show significant advantage over standard linear precoding. This paper proposes a novel THP structure in which ordering of successive interference pre-cancellation can be optimized for downstream with non-cooperating receivers. The optimized scheme is compared to existing THP structure denoted as equal-rate THP which is widely adopted in wireless downlink. Structure and performance of both methods differ significantly favoring the proposed scheme. The ordering that maximizes the minimum rate (max-min fairness) for each tone of the discrete multi-tone modulation is the familiar V-BLAST ordering. However, V-BLAST does not lead to the global maximum when applied independently on each tone. The proposed novel Dynamic Ordering (DO) strategy takes into account asymmetric channel statistics to yield the highest minimum aggregated rate

Interference Exploitation via Symbol-Level Precoding: Overview, State-of-the-Art and Future Directions

Interference is traditionally viewed as a performance limiting factor in wireless communication systems, which is to be minimized or mitigated. Nevertheless, a recent line of work has shown that by manipulating the interfering signals such that they add up constructively at the receiver side, known interference can be made beneficial and further improve the system performance in a variety of wireless scenarios, achieved by symbol-level precoding (SLP). This paper aims to provide a tutorial on interference exploitation techniques from the perspective of precoding design in a multi-antenna wireless communication system, by beginning with the classification of constructive interference (CI) and destructive interference (DI). The definition for CI is presented and the corresponding mathematical characterization is formulated for popular modulation types, based on which optimization-based precoding techniques are discussed. In addition, the extension of CI precoding to other application scenarios as well as for hardware efficiency is also described. Proof-of-concept testbeds are demonstrated for the potential practical implementation of CI precoding, and finally a list of open problems and practical challenges are presented to inspire and motivate further research directions in this area