Adaptive relaying protocol multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing systems

In wireless broadband communications, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) has been adopted as a promising technique to mitigate multi-path fading and provide high spectral efficiency. In addition, cooperative communication can explore spatial diversity where several users or nodes share their resources and cooperate through distributed transmission. The concatenation of the OFDM technique with relaying systems can enhance the overall performance in terms of spectral efficiency and improve robustness against the detrimental effects of fading. Hybrid relay selection is proposed to overcome the drawbacks of conventional forwarding schemes. However, exciting hybrid relay protocols may suffer some limitations when used for transmission over frequency-selective channels. The combination of cooperative protocols with OFDM systems has been extensively utilized in current wireless networks, and have become a promising solution for future high data rate broadband communication systems including 3D video transmission. This thesis covers two areas of high data rate networks. In the first part, several techniques using cooperative OFDM systems are presented including relay selection, space time block codes, resource allocation and adaptive bit and power allocation to introduce diversity. Four (4) selective OFDM relaying schemes are studied over wireless networks; selective OFDM; selective OFDMA; selective block OFDM and selective unequal block OFDM. The closed-form expression of these schemes is derived. By exploiting the broadcast nature, it is demonstrated that spatial diversity can be improved. The upper bound of outage probability for the protocols is derived. A new strategy for hybrid relay selection is proposed to improve the system performance by removing the sub-carriers that experience deep fading. The per subcarrier basis selection is considered with respect to the predefined threshold signal-to-noise ratio. The closed-form expressions of the proposed protocol in terms of bit error probability and outage probability are derived and compared with conventional hybrid relay selection. Adaptive bit and power allocation is also discussed to improve the system performance. Distributed space frequency coding applied to hybrid relay selection to obtain full spatial and full data rate transmission is explored. Two strategies, single cluster and multiple clusters, are considered for the Alamouti code at the destination by using a hybrid relay protocol. The power allocation with and without sub-carrier pairing is also investigated to mitigate the effect of multipath error propagation in frequency-selective channels. The second part of this thesis investigates the application of cooperative OFDM systems to high data rate transmission. Recently, there has been growing attention paid to 3D video transmission over broadband wireless channels. Two strategies for relay selection hybrid relay selection and first best second best are proposed to implement unequal error protection in the physical layer over error prone channels. The closed-form expressions of bit error probability and outage probability for both strategies are examined. The peak signal-to-noise ratio is presented to show the quality of reconstruction of the left and right views

Diversity techniques for broadband wireless communications: performance enhancement and analysis

The diversity techniques have been proven to be effective for next generation broadband wireless communications, and are the focus of this thesis. The diversity techniques can be broadly categorized into three types: Space, Time, and Frequency. In this thesis, we are mainly concerned with frequency and space diversity techniques. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a frequency diversity technique which offers several benefits such as easier digital implementation, immunity to multipath channels, low complexity channel equalization, etc. Despite these desirable features, there are few inherent problems in OFDM such as high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). High PAPR demands large dynamic range in the transmitted chain such as digital to analog converter (DAC) and power amplifier (PA). Unless pre-processed, the transmitted signal gets distorted due to quantization errors and inter-modulation. In the initial stage of PhD candidature, the author focused on PAPR reduction techniques. A simple modification on conventional iterative clipping and filtering (ICF) technique was proposed which has less computational complexity. The power savings achievable from clipping and filtering method was considered next. Furthermore the ICF is compared with another distortion-less PAPR reduction technique called Selective Mapping (SLM) based on power savings. Finally, impact of clipping and filtering on the channel estimation was analyzed. Space diversity seeks to exploit the multi-path characteristics of wireless channels to improve the performance. The simplest form of the space diversity is the receive diversity where two or more antennas with sufficient spacing collect independent copies of the same transmitted signal, which contributes to better signal reception. In this thesis new analytical expressions for spectral efficiency, capacity, and error rates were presented for adaptive systems with channel estimation error. Beamforming (steering signal towards desired receiver) is another useful technique in multiple-antenna systems to further improve the system performance. MRT (Maximal Ratio Transmission) or MIMO-MRC is such system where the transmitter, based on channel feedback from the receiver, uses weighting factors to steer the transmitted signal. Closed form expressions for symbol error rates were derived for MRT system with channel estimation error. The results were extended to evaluate closed form expressions of error rates for Rectangular QAM. Antenna correlation was considered in another contribution on MRC systems. Relay and Cooperative networks represent another form of spatial diversity and have recently attracted significant research attention. These networks rely on intermediate nodes called "relays" to establish communication between the source and the destination. In addition to coverage extension, the relay networks have shown to offer cooperative diversity when there is a direct link or multiple relays. The first contribution is to analyze a dual-hop amplify-forward relay networks with dissimilar fading scenarios. Next error rates of Rectangular QAM for decode-forward selection relay system are derived. Multiple antenna at relay is included to analyze the benefits of dual spatial diversity over Rayleigh and Nakagami fading channels. Antenna selection is a cost-effective way to exploit the antenna diversity. General Order Antenna Selection (GOAS), based on Ordered Statistics, is used to evaluate signal statistics for a MIMO relay network

RESOURCE ALLOCATION FOR WIRELESS RELAY NETWORKS

In this thesis, we propose several resource allocation strategies for relay networks in the context of joint power and bandwidth allocation and relay selection, and joint power allocation and subchannel assignment for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems. Sharing the two best ordered relays with equal power between the two users over Rayleigh flat fading channels is proposed to establish full diversity order for both users. Closed form expressions for the outage probability, and bit error probability (BEP) performance measures for both amplify and forward (AF) and decode and forward (DF) cooperative communication schemes are developed for different scenarios. To utilize the full potentials of relay-assisted transmission in multi user systems, we propose a mixed strategy of AF relaying and direct transmission, where the user transmits part of the data using the relay, and the other part is transmitted using the direct link. The resource allocation problem is formulated to maximize the sum rate. A recursive algorithm alternating between power allocation and bandwidth allocation steps is proposed to solve the formulated resource allocation problem. Due to the conflict between limited wireless resources and the fast growing wireless demands, Stackelberg game is proposed to allocate the relay resources (power and bandwidth) between competing users, aiming to maximize the relay benefits from selling its resources. We prove the uniqueness of Stackelberg Nash Equilibrium (SNE) for the proposed game. We develop a distributed algorithm to reach SNE, and investigate the conditions for the stability of the proposed algorithm. We propose low complexity algorithms for AF-OFDMA and DF-OFDMA systems to assign the subcarriers to the users based on high SNR approximation aiming to maximize the weighted sum rate. Auction framework is proposed to devise competition based solutions for the resource allocation of AF-OFDMA aiming tomaximize either vi the sum rate or the fairness index. Two auction algorithms are proposed; sequential and one-shot auctions. In sequential auction, the users evaluate the subcarrier based on the rate marginal contribution. In the one-shot auction, the users evaluate the subcarriers based on an estimate of the Shapley value and bids on all subcarriers at once