MIMO signal processing in offset-QAM based filter bank multicarrier systems

Next-generation communication systems have to comply with very strict requirements for increased flexibility in heterogeneous environments, high spectral efficiency, and agility of carrier aggregation. This fact motivates research in advanced multicarrier modulation (MCM) schemes, such as filter bank-based multicarrier (FBMC) modulation. This paper focuses on the offset quadrature amplitude modulation (OQAM)-based FBMC variant, known as FBMC/OQAM, which presents outstanding spectral efficiency and confinement in a number of channels and applications. Its special nature, however, generates a number of new signal processing challenges that are not present in other MCM schemes, notably, in orthogonal-frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). In multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) architectures, which are expected to play a primary role in future communication systems, these challenges are intensified, creating new interesting research problems and calling for new ideas and methods that are adapted to the particularities of the MIMO-FBMC/OQAM system. The goal of this paper is to focus on these signal processing problems and provide a concise yet comprehensive overview of the recent advances in this area. Open problems and associated directions for future research are also discussed.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Spectrally Modulated Spectrally Encoded Framework Based Cognitive Radio in Mobile Environment

Radio spectrum has become a precious resource, and it has long been the dream of wireless communication engineers to maximize the utilization of the radio spectrum. Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) and Cognitive Radio (CR) have been considered promising to enhance the efficiency and utilization of the spectrum. Since some of the spectrum bands are occupied by primary users (PUs), the available spectrum for secondary users (SUs) are non-contiguous, and multi-carrier transmission technologies become the natural solution to occupy those non-contiguous bands. Non-contiguous multi-carrier based modulations, such as NC-OFDM (non-contiguous Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), NC-MC-CDMA (non-contiguous multi-carrier code division multiple access) and NC-SC-OFDM (non-contiguous single carrier OFDM), allow the SUs to utilize the available spectrum. Spectrally Modulated Spectrally Encoded (SMSE) framework offers a general framework to generate multi-carrier based waveform for CR. However, it is well known that all multi-carrier transmission technologies suffer significant performance degradation resulting from inter-carrier interference (ICI) in high mobility environments. Current research work in cognitive radio has not sufficiently considered and addressed this issue yet. Hence, it is highly desired to study the effect of mobility on CR communication systems and how to improve the performance through affordable low-complexity signal processing techniques. In this dissertation, we analyze the inter-carrier interference for SMSE based multi-carrier transmissions in CR, and propose multiple ICI mitigation techniques and carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimator. Specifically, (1) an ICI self-cancellation algorithm is adapted to the MC-CDMA system by designing new spreading codes to enable the system with the capability to reduce the ICI; (2) a blind ICI cancellation technique named Total ICI Cancellation is proposed to perfectly remove the ICI effect for OFDM and MC-CDMA systems and provide the performance approximately identical to that of the systems without ICI; (3) a novel modulation scheme, called Magnitude Keyed Modulation (MKM), is proposed to combine with SC-OFDM system and provide ICI immunity feature so that the system performance is not affected by the mobility or carrier frequency offset; (4) a blind carrier frequency offset estimation algorithm is proposed to accurately estimate the CFO; (5) finally, compared to traditional ICI analysis and cancellation techniques with assumption of constant carrier frequency offset among all the subcarriers, subcarrier varying CFO scenario is considered for the wideband multi-carrier transmission and non-contiguous multi-carrier transmission for CR, and an ICI total cancellation algorithm is proposed for the multi-carrier system with subcarrier varying CFOs to entirely remove the ICI

Spectrally Modulated Spectrally Encoded Framework Based Cognitive Radio in Mobile Environment

Radio spectrum has become a precious resource, and it has long been the dream of wireless communication engineers to maximize the utilization of the radio spectrum. Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) and Cognitive Radio (CR) have been considered promising to enhance the efficiency and utilization of the spectrum. Since some of the spectrum bands are occupied by primary users (PUs), the available spectrum for secondary users (SUs) are non-contiguous, and multi-carrier transmission technologies become the natural solution to occupy those non-contiguous bands. Non-contiguous multi-carrier based modulations, such as NC-OFDM (non-contiguous Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), NC-MC-CDMA (non-contiguous multi-carrier code division multiple access) and NC-SC-OFDM (non-contiguous single carrier OFDM), allow the SUs to utilize the available spectrum. Spectrally Modulated Spectrally Encoded (SMSE) framework offers a general framework to generate multi-carrier based waveform for CR. However, it is well known that all multi-carrier transmission technologies suffer significant performance degradation resulting from inter-carrier interference (ICI) in high mobility environments. Current research work in cognitive radio has not sufficiently considered and addressed this issue yet. Hence, it is highly desired to study the effect of mobility on CR communication systems and how to improve the performance through affordable low-complexity signal processing techniques. In this dissertation, we analyze the inter-carrier interference for SMSE based multi-carrier transmissions in CR, and propose multiple ICI mitigation techniques and carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimator. Specifically, (1) an ICI self-cancellation algorithm is adapted to the MC-CDMA system by designing new spreading codes to enable the system with the capability to reduce the ICI; (2) a blind ICI cancellation technique named Total ICI Cancellation is proposed to perfectly remove the ICI effect for OFDM and MC-CDMA systems and provide the performance approximately identical to that of the systems without ICI; (3) a novel modulation scheme, called Magnitude Keyed Modulation (MKM), is proposed to combine with SC-OFDM system and provide ICI immunity feature so that the system performance is not affected by the mobility or carrier frequency offset; (4) a blind carrier frequency offset estimation algorithm is proposed to accurately estimate the CFO; (5) finally, compared to traditional ICI analysis and cancellation techniques with assumption of constant carrier frequency offset among all the subcarriers, subcarrier varying CFO scenario is considered for the wideband multi-carrier transmission and non-contiguous multi-carrier transmission for CR, and an ICI total cancellation algorithm is proposed for the multi-carrier system with subcarrier varying CFOs to entirely remove the ICI

Multiuser MIMO-OFDM for Next-Generation Wireless Systems

This overview portrays the 40-year evolution of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) research. The amelioration of powerful multicarrier OFDM arrangements with multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems has numerous benefits, which are detailed in this treatise. We continue by highlighting the limitations of conventional detection and channel estimation techniques designed for multiuser MIMO OFDM systems in the so-called rank-deficient scenarios, where the number of users supported or the number of transmit antennas employed exceeds the number of receiver antennas. This is often encountered in practice, unless we limit the number of users granted access in the base station’s or radio port’s coverage area. Following a historical perspective on the associated design problems and their state-of-the-art solutions, the second half of this treatise details a range of classic multiuser detectors (MUDs) designed for MIMO-OFDM systems and characterizes their achievable performance. A further section aims for identifying novel cutting-edge genetic algorithm (GA)-aided detector solutions, which have found numerous applications in wireless communications in recent years. In an effort to stimulate the cross pollination of ideas across the machine learning, optimization, signal processing, and wireless communications research communities, we will review the broadly applicable principles of various GA-assisted optimization techniques, which were recently proposed also for employment inmultiuser MIMO OFDM. In order to stimulate new research, we demonstrate that the family of GA-aided MUDs is capable of achieving a near-optimum performance at the cost of a significantly lower computational complexity than that imposed by their optimum maximum-likelihood (ML) MUD aided counterparts. The paper is concluded by outlining a range of future research options that may find their way into next-generation wireless systems

Capacity, coding and interference cancellation in multiuser multicarrier wireless communications systems

Multicarrier modulation and multiuser systems have generated a great deal of research during the last decade. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a multicarrier modulation generated with the inverse Discrete Fourier Transform, which has been adopted for standards in wireless and wire-line communications. Multiuser wireless systems using multicarrier modulation suffer from the effects of dispersive fading channels, which create multi-access, inter-symbol, and inter-carrier interference (MAI, ISI, ICI). Nevertheless, channel dispersion also provides diversity, which can be exploited and has the potential to increase robustness against fading. Multiuser multi-carrier systems can be implemented using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), a flexible orthogonal multiplexing scheme that can implement time and frequency division multiplexing, and using multicarrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA). Coding, interference cancellation, and resource sharing schemes to improve the performance of multiuser multicarrier systems on wireless channels were addressed in this dissertation. Performance of multiple access schemes applied to a downlink multiuser wireless system was studied from an information theory perspective and from a more practical perspective. For time, frequency, and code division, implemented using OFDMA and MC-CDMA, the system outage capacity region was calculated for a correlated fading channel. It was found that receiver complexity determines which scheme offers larger capacity regions, and that OFDMA results in a better compromise between complexity and performance than MC-CDMA. From the more practical perspective of bit error rate, the effects of channel coding and interleaving were investigated. Results in terms of coding bounds as well as simulation were obtained, showing that OFDMAbased orthogonal multiple access schemes are more sensitive to the effectiveness of the code to provide diversity than non-orthogonal, MC-CDMA-based schemes. While cellular multiuser schemes suffer mainly from MAI, OFDM-based broadcasting systems suffer from ICI, in particular when operating as a single frequency network (SFN). It was found that for SFN the performance of a conventional OFDM receiver rapidly degrades when transmitters have frequency synchronization errors. Several methods based on linear and decision-feedback ICI cancellation were proposed and evaluated, showing improved robustness against ICI. System function characterization of time-variant dispersive channels is important for understanding their effects on single carrier and multicarrier modulation. Using time-frequency duality it was shown that MC-CDMA and DS-CDMA are strictly dual on dispersive channels. This property was used to derive optimal matched filter structures, and to determine a criterion for the selection of spreading sequences for both DS and MC CDMA. The analysis of multiple antenna systems provided a unified framework for the study of DS-CDMA and MC-CDMA on time and frequency dispersive channels, which can also be used to compare their performance

Transmission Experiment of Bandwidth Compressed Carrier Aggregation in a Realistic Fading Channel

In this paper, an experimental testbed is designed to evaluate the performance of a bandwidth compressed multicarrier technique termed spectrally efficient frequency division multiplexing (SEFDM) in a carrier aggregation (CA) scenario1. Unlike orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), SEFDM is a non-orthogonal waveform which, relative to OFDM, packs more sub-carriers in a given bandwidth, thereby improving spectral efficiency. CA is a long term evolution-advanced (LTE-Advanced) featured technique that offers a higher throughput by aggregating multiple legacy radio bands. Considering the scarcity of radio spectrum, SEFDM signals can be utilized to enhance CA performance. The combination of the two techniques results in a larger number of aggregated component carriers (CCs) and therefore increased data rate in a given bandwidth with no additional spectral allocation. It is experimentally shown that CA-SEFDM can aggregate up to 7 CCs in a limited bandwidth while CA-OFDM can only put 5 CCs in the same bandwidth. In this work, LTE-like framed CA-SEFDM signals are generated and delivered through a realistic LTE channel. A complete experimental setup is described together with error performance and effective spectral efficiency comparisons. Experimental results show that the measured BER performance for CA-SEFDM is very close to CA-OFDM and the effective spectral efficiency of CA-SEFDM can be substantially higher than that of CA-OFDM