Toward the implementation of analog LDPC decoders for long codewords

Error control codes are used in virtually every digital communication system. Traditionally, decoders have been implemented digitally. Analog decoders have been recently shown to have the potential to outperform digital decoders in terms of area and power/speed ratio. Analog designers have attempted to fully understand and exploit this potential for large decoders. However, large codes are generally still implemented with digital circuits. Nevertheless, in this thesis a number of aspects of analog decoder implementation are investigated with the hope of enabling the design of large analog decoders. In this thesis, we study and modify analog circuits used in a decoding algorithm known as the sum-product algorithm for implementation in a CMOS 90 nm technology. We apply a current-mode approach at the input nodes of these circuits and show through simulations that the power/speed ratio will be improved. Interested in studying the dynamics of decoders, we model an LDPC code in MATLAB's Simulink. We then apply the linearization technique on the modeled LDPC code in order to linearize the decoder about an initial state as its solution point. Challenges associated with decoder linearization are discussed. We also design and implement a chip comprised of the sum-product circuits with different configurations and sizes in order to study the effect of mismatch on the accuracy of the outputs. Unfortunately, testing of the chip fails as a result of errors in either the packaging process or fabrication

D11.2 Consolidated results on the performance limits of wireless communications

Deliverable D11.2 del projecte europeu NEWCOM#The report presents the Intermediate Results of N# JRAs on Performance Limits of Wireless Communications and highlights the fundamental issues that have been investigated by the WP1.1. The report illustrates the Joint Research Activities (JRAs) already identified during the first year of the project which are currently ongoing. For each activity there is a description, an illustration of the adherence and relevance with the identified fundamental open issues, a short presentation of the preliminary results, and a roadmap for the joint research work in the next year. Appendices for each JRA give technical details on the scientific activity in each JRA.Peer ReviewedPreprin

A Continuous-Time Recurrent Neural Network for Joint Equalization and Decoding – Analog Hardware Implementation Aspects

Equalization and channel decoding are “traditionally” two cascade processes at the receiver side of a digital transmission. They aim to achieve a reliable and efficient transmission. For high data rates, the energy consumption of their corresponding algorithms is expected to become a limiting factor. For mobile devices with limited battery’s size, the energy consumption, mirrored in the lifetime of the battery, becomes even more crucial. Therefore, an energy-efficient implementation of equalization and decoding algorithms is desirable. The prevailing way is by increasing the energy efficiency of the underlying digital circuits. However, we address here promising alternatives offered by mixed (analog/digital) circuits. We are concerned with modeling joint equalization and decoding as a whole in a continuous-time framework. In doing so, continuous-time recurrent neural networks play an essential role because of their nonlinear characteristic and special suitability for analog very-large-scale integration (VLSI). Based on the proposed model, we show that the superiority of joint equalization and decoding (a well-known fact from the discrete-time case) preserves in analog. Additionally, analog circuit design related aspects such as adaptivity, connectivity and accuracy are discussed and linked to theoretical aspects of recurrent neural networks such as Lyapunov stability and simulated annealing

Iterative decoding and detection for physical layer network coding

PhD ThesisWireless networks comprising multiple relays are very common and it is important that all users are able to exchange messages via relays in the shortest possible time. A promising technique to achieve this is physical layer network coding (PNC), where the time taken to exchange messages between users is achieved by exploiting the interference at the relay due to the multiple incoming signals from the users. At the relay, the interference is demapped to a binary sequence representing the exclusive-OR of both users’ messages. The time to exchange messages is reduced because the relay broadcasts the network coded message to both users, who can then acquire the desired message by applying the exclusive-OR of their original message with the network coded message. However, although PNC can increase throughput it is at the expense of performance degradation due to errors resulting from the demapping of the interference to bits. A number of papers in the literature have investigated PNC with an iterative channel coding scheme in order to improve performance. However, in this thesis the performance of PNC is investigated for end-to-end (E2E) the three most common iterative coding schemes: turbo codes, low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes and trellis bit-interleaved coded modulation with iterative decoding (BICM-ID). It is well known that in most scenarios turbo and LDPC codes perform similarly and can achieve near-Shannon limit performance, whereas BICM-ID does not perform quite as well but has a lower complexity. However, the results in this thesis show that on a two-way relay channel (TWRC) employing PNC, LDPC codes do not perform well and BICM-ID actually outperforms them while also performing comparably with turbo codes. Also presented in this thesis is an extrinsic information transfer (ExIT) chart analysis of the iterative decoders for each coding scheme, which is used to explain this surprising result. Another problem arising from the use of PNC is the transfer of reliable information from the received signal at the relay to the destination nodes. The demapping of the interference to binary bits means that reliability information about the received signal is lost and this results in a significant degradation in performance when applying soft-decision decoding at the destination nodes. This thesis proposes the use of traditional angle modulation (frequency modulation (FM) and phase modulation (PM)) when broadcasting from the relay, where the real and imaginary parts of the complex received symbols at the relay modulate the frequency or phase of a carrier signal, while maintaining a constant envelope. This is important since the complex received values at the relay are more likely to be centred around zero and it undesirable to transmit long sequences of low values due to potential synchronisation problems at the destination nodes. Furthermore, the complex received values, obtained after angle demodulation, are used to derive more reliable log-likelihood ratios (LLRs) of the received symbols at the destination nodes and consequently improve the performance of the iterative decoders for each coding scheme compared with conventionally coded PNC. This thesis makes several important contributions: investigating the performance of different iterative channel coding schemes combined with PNC, presenting an analysis of the behaviour of different iterative decoding algorithms when PNC is employed using ExIT charts, and proposing the use of angle modulation at the relay to transfer reliable information to the destination nodes to improve the performance of the iterative decoding algorithms. The results from this thesis will also be useful for future research projects in the areas of PNC that are currently being addressed, such as synchronisation techniques and receiver design.Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research

Deep Learning Techniques for Music Generation -- A Survey

This paper is a survey and an analysis of different ways of using deep learning (deep artificial neural networks) to generate musical content. We propose a methodology based on five dimensions for our analysis: Objective - What musical content is to be generated? Examples are: melody, polyphony, accompaniment or counterpoint. - For what destination and for what use? To be performed by a human(s) (in the case of a musical score), or by a machine (in the case of an audio file). Representation - What are the concepts to be manipulated? Examples are: waveform, spectrogram, note, chord, meter and beat. - What format is to be used? Examples are: MIDI, piano roll or text. - How will the representation be encoded? Examples are: scalar, one-hot or many-hot. Architecture - What type(s) of deep neural network is (are) to be used? Examples are: feedforward network, recurrent network, autoencoder or generative adversarial networks. Challenge - What are the limitations and open challenges? Examples are: variability, interactivity and creativity. Strategy - How do we model and control the process of generation? Examples are: single-step feedforward, iterative feedforward, sampling or input manipulation. For each dimension, we conduct a comparative analysis of various models and techniques and we propose some tentative multidimensional typology. This typology is bottom-up, based on the analysis of many existing deep-learning based systems for music generation selected from the relevant literature. These systems are described and are used to exemplify the various choices of objective, representation, architecture, challenge and strategy. The last section includes some discussion and some prospects.Comment: 209 pages. This paper is a simplified version of the book: J.-P. Briot, G. Hadjeres and F.-D. Pachet, Deep Learning Techniques for Music Generation, Computational Synthesis and Creative Systems, Springer, 201

Fulcrum: Flexible Network Coding for Heterogeneous Devices

Producción CientíficaWe introduce Fulcrum, a network coding framework that achieves three seemingly conflicting objectives: 1) to reduce the coding coefficient overhead down to nearly n bits per packet in a generation of n packets; 2) to conduct the network coding using only Galois field GF(2) operations at intermediate nodes if necessary, dramatically reducing computing complexity in the network; and 3) to deliver an end-to-end performance that is close to that of a high-field network coding system for high-end receivers, while simultaneously catering to low-end receivers that decode in GF(2). As a consequence of 1) and 3), Fulcrum has a unique trait missing so far in the network coding literature: providing the network with the flexibility to distribute computational complexity over different devices depending on their current load, network conditions, or energy constraints. At the core of our framework lies the idea of precoding at the sources using an expansion field GF(2 h ), h > 1, to increase the number of dimensions seen by the network. Fulcrum can use any high-field linear code for precoding, e.g., Reed-Solomon or Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC). Our analysis shows that the number of additional dimensions created during precoding controls the trade-off between delay, overhead, and computing complexity. Our implementation and measurements show that Fulcrum achieves similar decoding probabilities as high field RLNC but with encoders and decoders that are an order of magnitude faster.Green Mobile Cloud project (grant DFF-0602-01372B)Colorcast project (grant DFF-0602-02661B)TuneSCode project (grant DFF - 1335-00125)Danish Council for Independent Research (grant DFF-4002-00367)Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad - Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (grants MTM2012-36917-C03-03 / MTM2015-65764-C3-2-P / MTM2015-69138-REDT)Agencia Estatal de Investigación - Fondo Social Europeo (grant RYC-2016-20208)Aarhus Universitets Forskningsfond Starting (grant AUFF-2017-FLS-7-1

Super-orthogonal space-time turbo codes in Rayleigh fading channels.

Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.The vision of anytime, anywhere communications coupled by the rapid growth of wireless subscribers and increased volumes of internet users, suggests that the widespread demand for always-on access data, is sure to be a major driver for the wireless industry in the years to come. Among many cutting edge wireless technologies, a new class of transmission techniques, known as Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) techniques, has emerged as an important technology leading to promising link capacity gains of several fold increase in data rates and spectral efficiency. While the use of MIMO techniques in the third generation (3G) standards is minimal, it is anticipated that these technologies will play an important role in the physical layer of fixed and fourth generation (4G) wireless systems. Concatenated codes, a class of forward error correction codes, of which Turbo codes are a classical example, have been shown to achieve reliable performance which approach the Shannon limit. An effective and practical way to approach the capacity of MIMO wireless channels is to employ space-time coding (STC). Space-Time coding is based on introducing joint correlation in transmitted signals in both the space and time domains. Space-Time Trellis Codes (STTCs) have been shown to provide the best trade-off in terms of coding gain advantage, improved data rates and computational complexity. Super-Orthogonal Space-Time Trellis Coding (SOSTTC) is the recently proposed form of space-time trellis coding which outperforms its predecessor. The code has a systematic design method to maximize the coding gain for a given rate, constellation size, and number of states. Simulation and analytical results are provided to justify the improved performance. The main focus of this dissertation is on STTCs, SOSTTCs and their concatenated versions in quasi-static and rapid Rayleigh fading channels. Turbo codes and space-time codes have made significant impact in terms of the theory and practice by closing the gap on the Shannon limit and the large capacity gains provided by the MIMO channel, respectively. However, a convincing solution to exploit the capabilities provided by a MIMO channel would be to build the turbo processing principle into the design of MIMO architectures. The field of concatenated STTCs has already received much attention and has shown improved performance over conventional STTCs. Recently simple and double concatenated STTCs structures have shown to provide a further improvement performance. Motivated by this fact, two concatenated SOSTTC structures are proposed called Super-orthogonal space-time turbo codes. The performance of these new concatenated SOSTTC is compared with that of concatenated STTCs and conventional SOSTTCs with simulations in Rayleigh fading channels. It is seen that the SOST-CC system outperforms the ST-CC system in rapid fading channels, whereas it maintains performance similar to that in quasi-static. The SOST-SC system has improved performance for larger frame lengths and overall maintains similar performance with ST-SC systems. A further investigation of these codes with channel estimation errors is also provided

Cellular, Wide-Area, and Non-Terrestrial IoT: A Survey on 5G Advances and the Road Towards 6G

The next wave of wireless technologies is proliferating in connecting things among themselves as well as to humans. In the era of the Internet of things (IoT), billions of sensors, machines, vehicles, drones, and robots will be connected, making the world around us smarter. The IoT will encompass devices that must wirelessly communicate a diverse set of data gathered from the environment for myriad new applications. The ultimate goal is to extract insights from this data and develop solutions that improve quality of life and generate new revenue. Providing large-scale, long-lasting, reliable, and near real-time connectivity is the major challenge in enabling a smart connected world. This paper provides a comprehensive survey on existing and emerging communication solutions for serving IoT applications in the context of cellular, wide-area, as well as non-terrestrial networks. Specifically, wireless technology enhancements for providing IoT access in fifth-generation (5G) and beyond cellular networks, and communication networks over the unlicensed spectrum are presented. Aligned with the main key performance indicators of 5G and beyond 5G networks, we investigate solutions and standards that enable energy efficiency, reliability, low latency, and scalability (connection density) of current and future IoT networks. The solutions include grant-free access and channel coding for short-packet communications, non-orthogonal multiple access, and on-device intelligence. Further, a vision of new paradigm shifts in communication networks in the 2030s is provided, and the integration of the associated new technologies like artificial intelligence, non-terrestrial networks, and new spectra is elaborated. Finally, future research directions toward beyond 5G IoT networks are pointed out.Comment: Submitted for review to IEEE CS&

Study of phase noise in optical coherent systems

Le bruit de phase est un problème important dans la conception de systèmes cohérents optiques. Bien que le bruit de phase soit étudié énormément dans les communications sans fil, certains aspects de bruit de phase sont nouveaux dans des systèmes cohérents optiques. Dans cette thèse, nous explorons les statistiques de bruit de phase dans les systèmes optiques cohérentes et proposons une nouvelle technique pour améliorer la robustesse du système envers le bruit de phase. Notre première contribution traite de l’étude des statistiques de bruit de phase en présence de compensation électronique de la dispersion chromatique (CD) dans des systèmes cohérents. Nous montrons que le modèle proposé précédemment pour l’interaction de CD avec bruit de phase doit être modifié à cause d’un modèle trop simple pour la récupération de phase. Nous dérivons une expression plus précise pour le bruit de phase estimé par la récupération de phase avec décision dirigée (DD), et utilisons cette expression pour modifier les statistiques de décision pour les symboles reçus. Nous calculons le taux d’erreur binaire (BER) pour le format de transmission DQPSK semi-analytiquement en utilisant nos statistiques de décision modifiées et montrons que pour la récupération de phase idéale, le BER semi-analytique est bien assorti avec le BER simulé avec la technique Monte-Carlo (MC). Notre deuxième contribution est l’adaptation d’une technique de codage MLCM pour les systèmes cohérents limités par le bruit de phase et le bruit blanc additif Gaussien (AWGN). Nous montrons que la combinaison d’une constellation optimisée pour le bruit de phase avec MLCM offre un système robuste à complexité modérée. Nous vérifions que la performance de MLCM dans des systèmes cohérents avec constellations 16-aires se détériorés par le bruit de phase non-linéaire et de Wiener. Pour le bruit de phase non-linéaire, notre conception de MLCM démontre une performance supérieure par rapport àune conception de MLCM déjà présente dans la littérature. Pour le bruit de phase de Wiener, nous comparons deux format de transmission, constellations carrées et optimisée pour bruit de phase, et deux techniques de codage, MLCM et codage à débit uniforme. Nos résultats expérimentaux pour BER après codage suivent les mêmes tendances que le BER simulé et confirment notre conception.Phase noise is an important issue in designing today’s optical coherent systems. Although phase noise is studied heavily in wireless communications, some aspects of phase noise are novel in optical coherent systems. In this thesis we explore phase noise statistics in optical coherent systems and propose a novel technique to increase system robustness toward phase noise. Our first contribution deals with the study of phase noise statistics in the presence of electronic chromatic dispersion (CD) compensation in coherent systems. We show that previously proposed model for phase noise and CD interaction must be modified due to an overly simple model of carrier phase recovery. We derive a more accurate expression for the estimated phase noise of decision directed (DD) carrier phase recovery, and use this expression to modify the decision statistics of received symbols. We calculate bit error rate (BER) of a differential quadrature phase shift keying (DQPSK) system semi-analytically using our modified decision statistics and show that for ideal DD carrier phase recovery the semi-analytical BER matches the BER simulated via Monte-Carlo (MC) technique. We show that the semi-analytical BER is a lower bound of simulated BER from Viterbi-Viterbi (VV) carrier phase recovery for a wide range of practical system parameters. Our second contribution is concerned with adapting a multi-level coded modulation (MLCM) technique for phase noise and additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) limited coherent system. We show that the combination of a phase noise optimized constellation with MLCM offers a phase-noise robust system at moderate complexity. We propose a numerical method to design set-partitioning (mapping bits to symbols) and optimizing code rates for minimum block error rate (BLER).We verify MLCM performance in coherent systems of 16-ary constellations impaired by nonlinear and Wiener phase noise. For nonlinear phase noise, superior performance of our MLCM design over a previously designed MLCM system is demonstrated in terms of BLER. For Wiener phase noise, we compare optimized and square 16-QAM constellations assuming either MLCM or uniform rate coding. We compare post forward error correction (FEC) BER in addition to BLER by both simulation and experiment and show that superior BLER performance is translated into post FEC BER. Our experimental post FEC BER results follow the same trends as simulated BER, validating our design