System capacity enhancement for 5G network and beyond

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyThe demand for wireless digital data is dramatically increasing year over year. Wireless communication systems like Laptops, Smart phones, Tablets, Smart watch, Virtual Reality devices and so on are becoming an important part of people’s daily life. The number of mobile devices is increasing at a very fast speed as well as the requirements for mobile devices such as super high-resolution image/video, fast download speed, very short latency and high reliability, which raise challenges to the existing wireless communication networks. Unlike the previous four generation communication networks, the fifth-generation (5G) wireless communication network includes many technologies such as millimetre-wave communication, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), visual light communication (VLC), heterogeneous network (HetNet) and so forth. Although 5G has not been standardised yet, these above technologies have been studied in both academia and industry and the goal of the research is to enhance and improve the system capacity for 5G networks and beyond by studying some key problems and providing some effective solutions existing in the above technologies from system implementation and hardware impairments’ perspective. The key problems studied in this thesis include interference cancellation in HetNet, impairments calibration for massive MIMO, channel state estimation for VLC, and low latency parallel Turbo decoding technique. Firstly, inter-cell interference in HetNet is studied and a cell specific reference signal (CRS) interference cancellation method is proposed to mitigate the performance degrade in enhanced inter-cell interference coordination (eICIC). This method takes carrier frequency offset (CFO) and timing offset (TO) of the user’s received signal into account. By reconstructing the interfering signal and cancelling it afterwards, the capacity of HetNet is enhanced. Secondly, for massive MIMO systems, the radio frequency (RF) impairments of the hardware will degrade the beamforming performance. When operated in time duplex division (TDD) mode, a massive MIMO system relies on the reciprocity of the channel which can be broken by the transmitter and receiver RF impairments. Impairments calibration has been studied and a closed-loop reciprocity calibration method is proposed in this thesis. A test device (TD) is introduced in this calibration method that can estimate the transmitters’ impairments over-the-air and feed the results back to the base station via the Internet. The uplink pilots sent by the TD can assist the BS receivers’ impairment estimation. With both the uplink and downlink impairments estimates, the reciprocity calibration coefficients can be obtained. By computer simulation and lab experiment, the performance of the proposed method is evaluated. Channel coding is an essential part of a wireless communication system which helps fight with noise and get correct information delivery. Turbo codes is one of the most reliable codes that has been used in many standards such as WiMAX and LTE. However, the decoding process of turbo codes is time-consuming and the decoding latency should be improved to meet the requirement of the future network. A reverse interleave address generator is proposed that can reduce the decoding time and a low latency parallel turbo decoder has been implemented on a FPGA platform. The simulation and experiment results prove the effectiveness of the address generator and show that there is a trade-off between latency and throughput with a limited hardware resource. Apart from the above contributions, this thesis also investigated multi-user precoding for MIMO VLC systems. As a green and secure technology, VLC is achieving more and more attention and could become a part of 5G network especially for indoor communication. For indoor scenario, the MIMO VLC channel could be easily ill-conditioned. Hence, it is important to study the impact of the channel state to the precoding performance. A channel state estimation method is proposed based on the signal to interference noise ratio (SINR) of the users’ received signal. Simulation results show that it can enhance the capacity of the indoor MIMO VLC system

Architecture and Advanced Electronics Pathways Toward Highly Adaptive Energy- Efficient Computing

With the explosion of the number of compute nodes, the bottleneck of future computing systems lies in the network architecture connecting the nodes. Addressing the bottleneck requires replacing current backplane-based network topologies. We propose to revolutionize computing electronics by realizing embedded optical waveguides for onboard networking and wireless chip-to-chip links at 200-GHz carrier frequency connecting neighboring boards in a rack. The control of novel rate-adaptive optical and mm-wave transceivers needs tight interlinking with the system software for runtime resource management

A review of communication-oriented optical wireless systems

This article presents an overview of optical wireless (OW) communication systems that operate both in the short- (personal and indoor systems) and the long-range (outdoor and hybrid) regimes. Each of these areas is discussed in terms of (a) key requirements, (b) their application framework, (c) major impairments and applicable mitigation techniques, and (d) current and/or future trends. Personal communication systems are discussed within the context of point-to-point ultra-high speed data transfer. The most relevant application framework and related standards are presented, including the next generation Giga-IR standard that extends personal communication speeds to over 1 Gb/s. As far as indoor systems are concerned, emphasis is given on modeling the dispersive nature of indoor OW channels, on the limitations that dispersion imposes on user mobility and dispersion mitigation techniques. Visible light communication systems, which provide both illumination and communication over visible or hybrid visible/ infrared LEDs, are presented as the most important representative of future indoor OW systems. The discussion on outdoor systems focuses on the impact of atmospheric effects on the optical channel and associated mitigation techniques that extend the realizable link lengths and transfer rates. Currently, outdoor OW is commercially available at 10 Gb/s Ethernet speeds for Metro networks and Local-Area-Network interconnections and speeds are expected to increase as faster and more reliable optical components become available. This article concludes with hybrid optical wireless/radio-frequency (OW/RF) systems that employ an additional RF link to improve the overall system reliability. Emphasis is given on cooperation techniques between the reliable RF subsystem and the broadband OW system

Proceedings of the Fifth International Mobile Satellite Conference 1997

Satellite-based mobile communications systems provide voice and data communications to users over a vast geographic area. The users may communicate via mobile or hand-held terminals, which may also provide access to terrestrial communications services. While previous International Mobile Satellite Conferences have concentrated on technical advances and the increasing worldwide commercial activities, this conference focuses on the next generation of mobile satellite services. The approximately 80 papers included here cover sessions in the following areas: networking and protocols; code division multiple access technologies; demand, economics and technology issues; current and planned systems; propagation; terminal technology; modulation and coding advances; spacecraft technology; advanced systems; and applications and experiments

Security and Privacy for Modern Wireless Communication Systems

The aim of this reprint focuses on the latest protocol research, software/hardware development and implementation, and system architecture design in addressing emerging security and privacy issues for modern wireless communication networks. Relevant topics include, but are not limited to, the following: deep-learning-based security and privacy design; covert communications; information-theoretical foundations for advanced security and privacy techniques; lightweight cryptography for power constrained networks; physical layer key generation; prototypes and testbeds for security and privacy solutions; encryption and decryption algorithm for low-latency constrained networks; security protocols for modern wireless communication networks; network intrusion detection; physical layer design with security consideration; anonymity in data transmission; vulnerabilities in security and privacy in modern wireless communication networks; challenges of security and privacy in node–edge–cloud computation; security and privacy design for low-power wide-area IoT networks; security and privacy design for vehicle networks; security and privacy design for underwater communications networks

Physical Layer Techniques for Indoor Wireless Visible Light Communications

The growing demand for bandwidth-hungry applications and increasing number of smart interconnected devices has increased the data traffic on radio access networks. Subsequently, the saturating spectral efficiencies in crowded radio frequency spectrum has impelled the researchers to exploit the optical spectrum for communications. In particular, many developments in the visible light communication (VLC) as a combined lighting and communications system have taken place. Despite abundant optical bandwidth, the data transmission rates and power efficiencies in VLC are partly limited by the electrical channel bandwidth and the type of signalling sets which can be used in this intensity modulated, direct detected system. In order to improve the power and spectral efficiencies, this thesis focuses on physical layer (PHY) techniques. The state-of-the-art single channel modulations (SCM) based on M-PAM, multi-channel modulations (MCM) based on OFDM, and IEEE standardised multi-colour modulations are investigated comprehensively through simulations and theoretical analysis, over representative VLC channels considering the optical properties of front-end devices. The bit error performances and spectral efficiencies of DC-biased and non DC-biased MCM systems are compared. A new vector coding based MCM is proposed to optimally utilise the channel state information at the transmitter as an alternative to optical OFDM. The throughputs, peak-to-average power ratios and DC-bias requirements of SCM and MCM systems are investigated which show that the lower DC-bias requirements reduce power consumed for the same throughput in SCM systems when compared to MCM systems. A new quad-chromatic colour shift keying (CSK) system is proposed which reduces power requirements and complexity, enhances throughput and realises a four-dimensional signalling to outperform the IEEE standardised tri-chromatic CSK system. For improved power efficiency and throughput of VLC PHY, use of rate-adaptive binary convolutional coding and Viterbi decoding is proposed along with frequency domain channel equalisation to mitigate temporal dispersion over representative VLC channels

Modeling EMI Resulting from a Signal Via Transition Through Power/Ground Layers

Signal transitioning through layers on vias are very common in multi-layer printed circuit board (PCB) design. For a signal via transitioning through the internal power and ground planes, the return current must switch from one reference plane to another reference plane. The discontinuity of the return current at the via excites the power and ground planes, and results in noise on the power bus that can lead to signal integrity, as well as EMI problems. Numerical methods, such as the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD), Moment of Methods (MoM), and partial element equivalent circuit (PEEC) method, were employed herein to study this problem. The modeled results are supported by measurements. In addition, a common EMI mitigation approach of adding a decoupling capacitor was investigated with the FDTD method

MOCAST 2021

The 10th International Conference on Modern Circuit and System Technologies on Electronics and Communications (MOCAST 2021) will take place in Thessaloniki, Greece, from July 5th to July 7th, 2021. The MOCAST technical program includes all aspects of circuit and system technologies, from modeling to design, verification, implementation, and application. This Special Issue presents extended versions of top-ranking papers in the conference. The topics of MOCAST include:Analog/RF and mixed signal circuits;Digital circuits and systems design;Nonlinear circuits and systems;Device and circuit modeling;High-performance embedded systems;Systems and applications;Sensors and systems;Machine learning and AI applications;Communication; Network systems;Power management;Imagers, MEMS, medical, and displays;Radiation front ends (nuclear and space application);Education in circuits, systems, and communications