Modeling Interference Between OFDM/OQAM and CP-OFDM: Limitations of the PSD-Based Model

To answer the challenges put out by the next generation of wireless networks (5G), important research efforts have been undertaken during the last few years to find new waveforms that are better spectrally localized and less sensitive to asynchronism effects than the widely deployed Cyclic Prefix Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (CP-OFDM). One of the most studied schemes is OFDM-Offset Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (OFDM/OQAM) based on the PHYDYAS filter pulse. In the recent literature, spectrum coexistence between OFDM/OQAM and CP-OFDM is commonly studied based on the Power Spectral Density (PSD) model. In this paper, we show that this approach is flawed and we show that the actual interference injected by OFDM/OQAM systems onto CP-OFDM is much higher than what is classically expected with the PSD based model in the literature. We show that though using OFDM/OQAM in secondary systems is still advantageous, it brings limited gain in the context of coexistence with incumbent CP-OFDM systems.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures, ICT 201

Coexistence of OFDM and FBMC for Underlay D2D Communication in 5G Networks

Device-to-device (D2D) communication is being heralded as an important part of the solution to the capacity problem in future networks, and is expected to be natively supported in 5G. Given the high network complexity and required signalling overhead associated with achieving synchronization in D2D networks, it is necessary to study asynchronous D2D communications. In this paper, we consider a scenario whereby asynchronous D2D communication underlays an OFDMA macro-cell in the uplink. Motivated by the superior performance of new waveforms with increased spectral localization in the presence of frequency and time misalignments, we compare the system-level performance of a set-up for when D2D pairs use either OFDM or FBMC/OQAM. We first demonstrate that inter-D2D interference, resulting from misaligned communications, plays a significant role in clustered D2D topologies. We then demonstrate that the resource allocation procedure can be simplified when D2D pairs use FBMC/OQAM, since the high spectral localization of FBMC/OQAM results in negligible inter-D2D interference. Specifically, we identify that FBMC/OQAM is best suited to scenarios consisting of small, densely populated D2D clusters located near the encompassing cell's edge.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures, Accepted at IEEE Globecom 2016 Workshop

Prototyping FBMC/OQAM for 5G mobile communications proof of concept

[ANGLÈS] Nowadays, the number of wireless devices connected to the internet is rowing quite fast. However, the available spectrum will remain the same. Consequently, the next generation of mobile communications (5G) is driven by more spectral efficient waveforms. There are a number of candidate waveforms for 5G. One of them is the Filter Bank Multi-Carrier (FBMC) with Offset Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (OQAM) which is a variant of the current Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM). The FBMC/OQAM is not only suitable for providing higher rates but also for having a better spectral efficiency than OFDM. In other words, in FBMC/OQAM the adjacent channel interference is reduced and consequently more users can be using the spectrum simultaneously. This project constitutes an experience of prototyping FBMC/OQAM for the FPGA based platform miniBEE. Which does not only provides the hardware platform but also a useful set of tools for Software Defined Radio (SDR) development

D4.1 Draft air interface harmonization and user plane design

The METIS-II project envisions the design of a new air interface in order to fulfil all the performance requirements of the envisioned 5G use cases including some extreme low latency use cases and ultra-reliable transmission, xMBB requiring additional capacity that is only available in very high frequencies, as well as mMTC with extremely densely distributed sensors and very long battery life requirements. Designing an adaptable and flexible 5G Air Interface (AI), which will tackle these use cases while offering native multi-service support, is one of the key tasks of METIS-II WP4. This deliverable will highlight the challenges of designing an AI required to operate in a wide range of spectrum bands and cell sizes, capable of addressing the diverse services with often diverging requirements, and propose a design and suitability assessment framework for 5G AI candidates.Aydin, O.; Gebert, J.; Belschner, J.; Bazzi, J.; Weitkemper, P.; Kilinc, C.; Leonardo Da Silva, I.... (2016). D4.1 Draft air interface harmonization and user plane design. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.24542.0288

Efficient transmission design for machine type communications in future wireless communication systems

With a wide range of potential applications, the machine type communication (MTC) is gaining a tremendous interest among mobile network operators, system designers, MTC specialist companies, and research institutes. The idea of having electronic devices and systems automatically connected to each other without human intervention is one of the most significant objectives for future wireless communications. Low data rate transmission and the requirement for low energy consumption are two typical characteristics for MTC applications. In terms of supporting low cots MTC devices, industrial standards will be more efficient if designers can re-use many features of existing radio access technologies. This will yield a cost effective solution to support MTC in future communication systems. This thesis investigates efficient MTC waveform and receiver designs for superior signal transmission quality with low operational costs. In terms of the downlink receiver design, this thesis proposes a novel virtual carrier (VC) receiver system for MTC receivers, which aims to reduce the maximum bandwidth to improve the data processing efficiency and cost-efficiency by using analogue filters to extract only sub-carriers of interest. For the VC receiver systems, we thus reduce the sampling rate in order to reduce the number of subsequent processing operations, which significantly reduces the analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) cost and power consumption while providing high signal to interference noise ratio (SINR) and low bit to error rate (BER) to support low data rate MTC devices. Our theoretical equations account for the interference effect of aliasing on the sub-carrier location, and this helps the system designer to evaluate what kind of filters and receiver sampling rate can be used to balance the energy cost and detection performance. In terms of the uplink waveform design, considering the enhanced number of MTC devices in the future communication systems, i.e. the fifth generation (5G) communications, the same tight synchronisation as used in today appears not to be cost-effective or even possible. Synchronisation signals, which aim to provide a perfect time or frequency synchronisation in the current fourth generation (4G) communication systems (known as the long-term evolution, LTE), is much more costly for low data rate MTC transmissions. The system bandwidth will be significantly reduced if a base station tries to synchronise all received signals among hundreds or thousands MTC devices in one transmission time period. In terms of relaxing the synchronisation requirements, this thesis compares and analyses the side-lobe reduction performance for several candidate multi-carrier waveforms to avoid these problems. We also propose the infinite impulse response universal filtered multi-carrier (UFMC) system and the overlap and add UFMC system, which significantly reduce the processing complexity compared with the state of the art UFMC techniques. This thesis derives closed-form expressions for the interference caused by time offsets between adjacent unsynchronised MTC users. Our analytical equations can be used in both simple and complex time-offset transmission scenarios, and enable the system designer to evaluate the SINR, the theoretical Shannon capacity and the BER performance

MIMO designs for filter bank multicarrier and multiantenna systems based on OQAM

From the perspective of increasingly data rate requirements in mobile communications, it is deemed necessary to do further research so that the future goals can be reached. To that end, the radio-based communications are resorting to multicarrier modulations and spatial diversity. Until today, the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation is regarded as the dominant technology. On one hand, the OFDM modulation is able to accommodate multiantenna configurations in a very straightforward manner. On the other hand, the poor stopband attenuation exhibited by the OFDM modulation, highlights that a definitely tight synchronization is required. In addition, the cyclic prefix (CP) has to be sufficiently long to avoid inter-block interference, which may substantially reduce the spectral efficiency. In order to overcome the OFDM drawbacks, the filter bank multicarrier modulation based on OQAM (FBMC/OQAM) is introduced. This modulation does not need any CP and benefits from pulse shaping techniques. This aspect becomes crucial in cognitive radio networks and communication systems where nodes are unlikely to be synchronized. In principle, the poor frequency confinement exhibited by OFDM should tip the balance towards FBMC/OQAM. However, the perfect reconstruction property of FBMC/OQAM systems does not hold in presence of multipath fading. This means that the FBMC/OQAM modulation is affected by inter-symbol and inter-carrier interference, unless the channel is equalized to some extent. This observation highlights that the FBMC/OQAM extension to MIMO architectures becomes a big challenge due to the need to cope with both modulation- and multiantenna-induced interference. The goal of this thesis is to study how the FBMC/OQAM modulation scheme can benefit from the degrees of freedom provided by the spatial dimension. In this regard, the first attempt to put the research on track is based on designing signal processing techniques at reception. In this case the emphasis is on single-input-multiple-output (SIMO) architectures. Next, the possibility of pre-equalizing the channel at transmission is investigated. It is considered that multiple antennas are placed at the transmit side giving rise to a multiple-input-single-output (MISO) configuration. In this scenario, the research is not only focused on counteracting the channel but also on distributing the power among subcarriers. Finally, the joint transmitter and receiver design in multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems is covered. From the theory developed in this thesis, it is possible to conclude that the techniques originally devised in the OFDM context can be easily adapted to FBMC/OQAM systems if the channel frequency response is flat within the subchannels. However, metrics such as the peak to average power ratio or the sensitivity to the carrier frequency offset constraint the number of subcarriers, so that the frequency selectivity may be appreciable at the subcarrier level. Then, the flat fading assumption is not satisfied and the specificities of FBMC/OQAM systems have to be considered. In this situation, the proposed techniques allow FBMC/OQAM to remain competitive with OFDM. In addition, for some multiantenna configurations and propagation conditions FBMC/OQAM turns out to be the best choice. The simulation-based results together with the theoretical analysis conducted in this thesis contribute to make progress towards the application of FBMC/OQAM to MIMO channels. The signal processing techniques that are described in this dissertation allow designers to exploit the potentials of FBMC/OQAM and MIMO to improve the link reliability as well as the spectral efficiency