Channel Estimation for Ambient Backscatter Communication Systems with Massive-Antenna Reader

Ambient backscatter, an emerging green communication technology, has aroused great interest from both academia and industry. One open problem for ambient backscatter communication (AmBC) systems is channel estimation for a massive-antenna reader. In this paper, we focus on channel estimation problem in AmBC systems with uniform linear array (ULA) at the reader which consists of large number of antennas. We first design a two-step method to jointly estimate channel gains and direction of arrivals (DoAs), and then refine the estimates through angular rotation. Additionally, Cramer-Rao lower bounds (CRLBs) are derived for both the modulus of the channel gain and the DoA estimates. Simulations are then provided to validate the analysis, and to show the efficiency of the proposed approach.Comment: 5 figures, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 29 March, 201

A Tractable Product Channel Model for Line-of-Sight Scenarios

We present a general and tractable fading model for line-of-sight (LOS) scenarios, which is based on the product of two independent and non-identically distributed $\kappa$-$\mu$ shadowed random variables. Simple closed-form expressions for the probability density function, cumulative distribution function and moment-generating function are derived, which are as tractable as the corresponding expressions derived from a product of Nakagami-$m$ random variables. This model simplifies the challenging characterization of LOS product channels, as well as combinations of LOS channels with non-LOS ones. We leverage these results to analyze performance measures of interest in the contexts of wireless powered and backscatter communications, where both forward and reverse links are inherently of LOS nature, as well as in device-to-device communications subject to composite fading. In these contexts, the model shows a higher flexibility when fitting field measurements with respect to conventional approaches based on product distributions with deterministic LOS, together with a more complete physical interpretation of the underlying propagation characteristics.Comment: This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessibl