Evaluation of Overlay/underlay Waveform via SD-SMSE Framework for Enhancing Spectrum Efficiency

Recent studies have suggested that spectrum congestion is mainly due to the inefficient use of spectrum rather than its unavailability. Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) and Cognitive Radio (CR) are two terminologies which are used in the context of improved spectrum efficiency and usage. The DSA concept has been around for quite some time while the advent of CR has created a paradigm shift in wireless communications and instigated a change in FCC policy towards spectrum regulations. DSA can be broadly categorized as using a 1) Dynamic Exclusive Use Model, 2) Spectrum Commons or Open sharing model or 3) Hierarchical Access model. The hierarchical access model envisions primary licensed bands, to be opened up for secondary users, while inducing a minimum acceptable interference to primary users. Spectrum overlay and spectrum underlay technologies fall within the hierarchical model, and allow primary and secondary users to coexist while improving spectrum efficiency. Spectrum overlay in conjunction with the present CR model considers only the unused (white) spectral regions while in spectrum underlay the underused (gray) spectral regions are utilized. The underlay approach is similar to ultra wide band (UWB) and spread spectrum (SS) techniques utilize much wider spectrum and operate below the noise floor of primary users. Software defined radio (SDR) is considered a key CR enabling technology. Spectrally modulated, Spectrally encoded (SMSE) multi-carrier signals such as Orthogonal Frequency Domain Multiplexing (OFDM) and Multi-carrier Code Division Multiple Access (MCCDMA) are hailed as candidate CR waveforms. The SMSE structure supports and is well-suited for SDR based CR applications. This work began by developing a general soft decision (SD) CR framework, based on a previously developed SMSE framework that combines benefits of both the overlay and underlay techniques to improve spectrum efficiency and maximizing the channel capacity. The resultant SD-SMSE framework provides a user with considerable flexibility to choose overlay, underlay or hybrid overlay/underlay waveform depending on the scenario, situation or need. Overlay/Underlay SD-SMSE framework flexibility is demonstrated by applying it to a family of SMSE modulated signals such as OFDM, MCCDMA, Carrier Interferometry (CI) MCCDMA and Transform Domain Communication System (TDCS). Based on simulation results, a performance analysis of Overlay, Underlay and hybrid Overlay/Underlay waveforms are presented. Finally, the benefits of combining overlay/underlay techniques to improve spectrum efficiency and maximize channel capacity are addressed

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

Analytical Studies of Fragmented-Spectrum Multi-Level OFDM-CDMA Technique in Cognitive Radio Networks

In this paper, we present a multi-user resource allocation framework using fragmented-spectrum synchronous OFDM-CDMA modulation over a frequency-selective fading channel. In particular, given pre-existing communications in the spectrum where the system is operating, a channel sensing and estimation method is used to obtain information of subcarrier availability. Given this information, some real-valued multi-level orthogonal codes, which are orthogonal codes with values of $\{\pm1,\pm2,\pm3,\pm4, ... \}$, are provided for emerging new users, i.e., cognitive radio users. Additionally, we have obtained a closed form expression for bit error rate of cognitive radio receivers in terms of detection probability of primary users, CR users' sensing time and CR users' signal to noise ratio. Moreover, simulation results obtained in this paper indicate the precision with which the analytical results have been obtained in modeling the aforementioned system.Comment: 6 pages and 3 figure

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

Adaptive Communications for Next Generation Broadband Wireless Access Systems

Un dels aspectes claus en el disseny i gestió de les xarxes sense fils d'accés de banda ampla és l'ús eficient dels recursos radio. Des del punt de vista de l'operador, l'ample de banda és un bé escàs i preuat que s´ha d'explotar i gestionar de la forma més eficient possible tot garantint la qualitat del servei que es vol proporcionar. Per altra banda, des del punt de vista del usuari, la qualitat del servei ofert ha de ser comparable al de les xarxes fixes, requerint així un baix retard i una baixa pèrdua de paquets per cadascun dels fluxos de dades entre la xarxa i l'usuari. Durant els darrers anys s´han desenvolupat nombroses tècniques i algoritmes amb l'objectiu d'incrementar l'eficiència espectral. Entre aquestes tècniques destaca l'ús de múltiples antenes al transmissor i al receptor amb l'objectiu de transmetre diferents fluxos de dades simultaneament sense necessitat d'augmentar l'ample de banda. Per altra banda, la optimizació conjunta de la capa d'accés al medi i la capa física (fent ús de l'estat del canal per tal de gestionar de manera optima els recursos) també permet incrementar sensiblement l'eficiència espectral del sistema.L'objectiu d'aquesta tesi és l'estudi i desenvolupament de noves tècniques d'adaptació de l'enllaç i gestió dels recursos ràdio aplicades sobre sistemes d'accés ràdio de propera generació (Beyond 3G). Els estudis realitzats parteixen de la premissa que el transmisor coneix (parcialment) l'estat del canal i que la transmissió es realitza fent servir un esquema multiportadora amb múltiples antenes al transmisor i al receptor. En aquesta tesi es presenten dues línies d'investigació, la primera per casos d'una sola antenna a cada banda de l'enllaç, i la segona en cas de múltiples antenes. En el cas d'una sola antena al transmissor i al receptor, un nou esquema d'assignació de recursos ràdio i priorització dels paquets (scheduling) és proposat i analitzat integrant totes dues funcions sobre una mateixa entitat (cross-layer). L'esquema proposat té com a principal característica la seva baixa complexitat i que permet operar amb transmissions multimedia. Alhora, posteriors millores realitzades per l'autor sobre l'esquema proposat han permès també reduir els requeriments de senyalització i combinar de forma óptima usuaris d'alta i baixa mobilitat sobre el mateix accés ràdio, millorant encara més l'eficiència espectral del sistema. En cas d'enllaços amb múltiples antenes es proposa un nou esquema que combina la selecció del conjunt optim d'antenes transmissores amb la selecció de la codificació espai- (frequència-) temps. Finalment es donen una sèrie de recomanacions per tal de combinar totes dues línies d'investigació, així con un estat de l'art de les tècniques proposades per altres autors que combinen en part la gestió dels recursos ràdio i els esquemes de transmissió amb múltiples antenes.Uno de los aspectos claves en el diseño y gestión de las redes inalámbricas de banda ancha es el uso eficiente de los recursos radio. Desde el punto de vista del operador, el ancho de banda es un bien escaso y valioso que se debe explotar y gestionar de la forma más eficiente posible sin afectar a la calidad del servicio ofrecido. Por otro lado, desde el punto de vista del usuario, la calidad del servicio ha de ser comparable al ofrecido por las redes fijas, requiriendo así un bajo retardo y una baja tasa de perdida de paquetes para cada uno de los flujos de datos entre la red y el usuario. Durante los últimos años el número de técnicas y algoritmos que tratan de incrementar la eficiencia espectral en dichas redes es bastante amplio. Entre estas técnicas destaca el uso de múltiples antenas en el transmisor y en el receptor con el objetivo de poder transmitir simultáneamente diferentes flujos de datos sin necesidad de incrementar el ancho de banda. Por otro lado, la optimización conjunta de la capa de acceso al medio y la capa física (utilizando información de estado del canal para gestionar de manera óptima los recursos) también permite incrementar sensiblemente la eficiencia espectral del sistema.El objetivo de esta tesis es el estudio y desarrollo de nuevas técnicas de adaptación del enlace y la gestión de los recursos radio, y su posterior aplicación sobre los sistemas de acceso radio de próxima generación (Beyond 3G). Los estudios realizados parten de la premisa de que el transmisor conoce (parcialmente) el estado del canal a la vez que se considera que la transmisión se realiza sobre un sistema de transmisión multiportadora con múltiple antenas en el transmisor y el receptor. La tesis se centra sobre dos líneas de investigación, la primera para casos de una única antena en cada lado del enlace, y la segunda en caso de múltiples antenas en cada lado. Para el caso de una única antena en el transmisor y en el receptor, se ha desarrollado un nuevo esquema de asignación de los recursos radio así como de priorización de los paquetes de datos (scheduling) integrando ambas funciones sobre una misma entidad (cross-layer). El esquema propuesto tiene como principal característica su bajo coste computacional a la vez que se puede aplicar en caso de transmisiones multimedia. Posteriores mejoras realizadas por el autor sobre el esquema propuesto han permitido también reducir los requisitos de señalización así como combinar de forma óptima usuarios de alta y baja movilidad. Por otro lado, en caso de enlaces con múltiples antenas en transmisión y recepción, se presenta un nuevo esquema de adaptación en el cual se combina la selección de la(s) antena(s) transmisora(s) con la selección del esquema de codificación espacio-(frecuencia-) tiempo. Para finalizar, se dan una serie de recomendaciones con el objetivo de combinar ambas líneas de investigación, así como un estado del arte de las técnicas propuestas por otros autores que combinan en parte la gestión de los recursos radio y los esquemas de transmisión con múltiples antenas.In Broadband Wireless Access systems the efficient use of the resources is crucial from many points of views. From the operator point of view, the bandwidth is a scarce, valuable, and expensive resource which must be exploited in an efficient manner while the Quality of Service (QoS) provided to the users is guaranteed. On the other hand, a tight delay and link quality constraints are imposed on each data flow hence the user experiences the same quality as in fixed networks. During the last few years many techniques have been developed in order to increase the spectral efficiency and the throughput. Among them, the use of multiple antennas at the transmitter and the receiver (exploiting spatial multiplexing) with the joint optimization of the medium access control layer and the physical layer parameters.In this Ph.D. thesis, different adaptive techniques for B3G multicarrier wireless systems are developed and proposed focusing on the SS-MC-MA and the OFDM(A) (IEEE 802.16a/e/m standards) communication schemes. The research lines emphasize into the adaptation of the transmission having (Partial) knowledge of the Channel State Information for both; single antenna and multiple antenna links. For single antenna links, the implementation of a joint resource allocation and scheduling strategy by including adaptive modulation and coding is investigated. A low complexity resource allocation and scheduling algorithm is proposed with the objective to cope with real- and/or non-real- time requirements and constraints. A special attention is also devoted in reducing the required signalling. However, for multiple antenna links, the performance of a proposed adaptive transmit antenna selection scheme jointly with space-time block coding selection is investigated and compared with conventional structures. In this research line, mainly two optimizations criteria are proposed for spatial link adaptation, one based on the minimum error rate for fixed throughput, and the second focused on the maximisation of the rate for fixed error rate. Finally, some indications are given on how to include the spatial adaptation into the investigated and proposed resource allocation and scheduling process developed for single antenna transmission

Multi-user detection for multi-carrier communication systems

Doctor of PhilosophyDepartment of Electrical and Computer EngineeringBalasubramaniam NatarajanWireless broadband communications is a rapidly growing industry. New enabling technologies such as multi-carrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) are shaping the future of wireless systems. However, research efforts in improving MC-CDMA receiver performance have received limited attention and there is a need for innovative receiver designs for next generation MC-CDMA. In this thesis, we propose novel multi-user detection (MUD) schemes to enhance the performance of both synchronous and asynchronous MC-CDMA. First, we adapt the ant colony optimization (ACO) approach to solve the optimal MUD problem in MC-CDMA systems. Our simulations indicate that the ACO based MUD converges to the optimal BER performance in relatively few iterations providing more that 95% savings in computational complexity. Second, we propose a new MUD structure specifically for asynchronous MC-CDMA. Previously proposed MUDs for asynchronous MC-CDMA perform the detection for one user (desired user) at a time, mandating multiple runs of the algorithm to detect all users' symbols. In this thesis, for the first time we present a MUD structure that detects all users' symbols simultaneously in one run by extending the receiver's integration window to capture the energy scattered in two consecutive symbol durations. We derive the optimal, decorrelator and minimum mean square error (MMSE) MUD for the extended window case. Our simulations demonstrate that the proposed MUD structures not only perform similar to a MUD that detects one user at a time, but its computational complexity is significantly lower. Finally, we extend the MUD ideas to multicarrier implementation of single carrier systems. Specifically, we employ the novel MUD structure as a multi-symbol detection scheme in CI-CDMA and illustrate the resulting performance gain via simulations

Wideband Channel Sounding Techniques for Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks

In recent years, cognitive radio has drawn extensive research attention due to its ability to improve the efficiency of spectrum usage by allowing dynamic spectrum resource sharing between primary and secondary users. The concept of cognitive radio was first presented by Joseph Mitola III and Gerald Q. Maguire, Jr., in which either network or wireless node itself changes particular transmission and reception parameters to execute its tasks efficiently without interfering with the primary users [1]. Such a transceiving mechanism and network environment is called the dynamic spectrum access (DSA) network. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allows any type of transmission in unlicensed bands at any time as long as their transmit power level obeys specific FCC regulations. Performing channel sounding as a secondary user in such an environment becomes a challenge due to the rapidly changing network environment and also the limited transmission power. Moreover, to obtain the long term behavior of the channel in the DSA network is impractical with conventional channel sounders due to frequent changes in frequency, transmission bandwidth, and power. Conventional channel sounding techniques need to be adapted accordingly to be operated in the DSA networks. In this dissertation, two novel channel sounding system frameworks are proposed. The Multicarrier Direct Sequence Swept Time-Delay Cross Correlation (MC-DS-STDCC) channel sounding technique is designed for the DSA networks aiming to perform channel sounding across a large bandwidth with minimal interference. It is based on the STDCC channel sounder and Multicarrier Direct Sequence Code Division Multiple Access (MC-DS-CDMA) technique. The STDCC technique, defined by Parsons [2], was first employed by Cox in the measurement of 910 MHz band [3{6]. The MC-DS-CDMA technique enables the channel sounder to be operated at different center frequencies with low transmit power. Hence, interference awareness and frequency agility are achieved. The OFDM-based channel sounder is an alternative to the MC-DS-STDCC technique. It utilizes user data as the sounding signal such that the interference is minimized during the course of transmission. Furthermore, the OFDM-based channel sounder requires lower sampling rate than the MC-DS-STDCC system since no spreading is necessary

Link adaptation for MC-CDMA radio interface

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Multicarrier CDMA systems with MIMO technology

The rapid demand for broadband wireless access with fast multimedia services initiated a vast research on the development of new wireless systems that will provide high spectral efficiencies and data rates. A potential candidate for future generation wireless systems is multi-carrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA). To achieve higher user capacities and increase the system data rate, various multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technologies such as spatial multiplexing and spatial diversity techniques have been proposed recently and combined with MC-CDMA.This research proposes a chip level coded ordered successive spatial and multiuser interference cancellation (OSSMIC) receiver for downlink MIMO MC-CDMA systems. As the conventional chip level OSIC receiver [1] is unable to overcome multiple access interference (MAI) and performs poorly in multiuser scenarios, the proposed receiver cancels both spatial and multiuser interference by requiring only the knowledge of the desired user's spreading sequence. Simulation results show that the proposed receiver not only performs better than the existing linear detectors [2] but also outperforms both the chip and symbol level OSIC receivers. In this work we also compare the error rate performance between our proposed system and MIMO orthogonal frequency division multiple access (MIMO OFDMA) system and we justify the comparisons with a pairwise error probability (PEP) analysis. MIMO MC-CDMA demonstrates a better performance over MIMO OFDMA under low system loads whereas in high system loads, MIMO OFDMA outperforms MIMO MC-CDMA. However if all users' spreading sequences are used at the desired user receiver, MIMO MC-CDMA performs better than MIMO OFDMA at all system loads.In the second part of this work, user grouping algorithms are proposed to provide power minimisation in grouped MC-CDMA and space-time block code (STBC) MC-CDMA systems. When the allocation is performed without a fair data rate requirement, the optimal solution to the minimisation problem is provided. However when some fairness is considered, the optimal solution requires high computational complexity and hence we solve this problem by proposing two suboptimal algorithms. Simulation results illustrate a significantly reduced power consumption in comparison with other techniques.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceEPSRCGBUnited Kingdo