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

Linear MMSE Receivers for Interference Suppression & Multipath Diversity Combining in Long-Code DS-CDMA Systems

This thesis studies the design and implementation of a linear minimum mean-square error (LMMSE) receiver in asynchronous bandlimited direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) systems that employ long-code pseudo-noise (PN) sequences and operate in multipath environments. The receiver is shown to be capable of multiple-access interference (MAI) suppression and multipath diversity combining without the knowledge of other users' signature sequences. It outperforms any other linear receiver by maximizing output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) with the aid of a new chip filter which exploits the cyclostationarity of the received signal and combines all paths of the desired user that fall within its supported time span. This work is motivated by the shortcomings of existing LMMSE receivers which are either incompatible with long-code CDMA or constrained by limitations in the system model. The design methodology is based on the concept of linear/conjugate linear (LCL) filtering and satisfying the orthogonality conditions to achieve the LMMSE filter response. Moreover, the proposed LMMSE receiver addresses two drawbacks of the coherent Rake receiver, the industry's current solution for multipath reception. First, unlike the Rake receiver which uses the chip-matched filter (CMF) and treats interference as additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), the LMMSE receiver suppresses interference by replacing the CMF with a new chip pulse filter. Second, in contrast to the Rake receiver which only processes a subset of strongest paths of the desired user, the LMMSE receiver harnesses the energy of all paths of the desired user that fall within its time support, at no additional complexity. The performance of the proposed LMMSE receiver is analyzed and compared with that of the coherent Rake receiver with probability of bit error, Pe, as the figure of merit. The analysis is based on the accurate improved Gaussian approximation (IGA) technique. Closed form conditional Pe expressions for both the LMMSE and Rake receivers are derived. Furthermore, it is shown that if quadriphase random spreading, moderate to large spreading factors, and pulses with small excess bandwidth are used, the widely-used standard Gaussian Approximation (SGA) technique becomes accurate even for low regions of Pe. Under the examined scenarios tailored towards current narrowband system settings, the LMMSE receiver achieves 60% gain in capacity (1. 8 dB in output SNR) over the selective Rake receiver. A third of the gain is due to interference suppression capability of the receiver while the rest is credited to its ability to collect the energy of the desired user diversified to many paths. Future wideband systems will yield an ever larger gain. Adaptive implementations of the LMMSE receiver are proposed to rid the receiver from dependence on the knowledge of multipath parameters. The adaptive receiver is based on a fractionally-spaced equalizer (FSE) whose taps are updated by an adaptive algorithm. Training-based, pilot-channel-aided (PCA), and blind algorithms are developed to make the receiver applicable to both forward and reverse links, with or without the presence of pilot signals. The blind algorithms are modified versions of the constant modulus algorithm (CMA) which has not been previously studied for long-code CDMA systems. Extensive simulation results are presented to illustrate the convergence behavior of the proposed algorithms and quantify their performance loss under various levels of MAI. Computational complexities of the algorithms are also discussed. These three criteria (performance loss, convergence rate, and computational complexity) determine the proper choice of an adaptive algorithm with respect to the requirements of the specific application in mind

Spectrum Adaptation in Cognitive Radio Systems with Operating Constraints

The explosion of high-data-rate-demanding wireless applications such as smart-phones and wireless Internet access devices, together with growth of existing wireless services, are creating a shortage of the scarce Radio Frequency (RF) spectrum. However, several spectrum measurement campaigns revealed that current spectrum usage across time and frequency is inefficient, creating the artificial shortage of the spectrum because of the traditional exclusive command-and-control model of using the spectrum. Therefore, a new concept of Cognitive Radio (CR) has been emerging recently in which unlicensed users temporarily borrow spectrum from the licensed Primary Users (PU) based on the Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) technique that is also known as the spectrum sharing concept. A CR is an intelligent radio system based on the Software Defined Radio platform with artificial intelligence capability which can learn, adapt, and reconfigure through interaction with the operating environment. A CR system will revolutionize the way people share the RF spectrum, lowering harmful interference to the licensed PU of the spectrum, fostering innovative DSA technology and giving people more choices when it comes to using the wireless-communication-dependent applications without having any spectrum congestion problems. A key technical challenge for enabling secondary access to the licensed spectrum adaptation is to ensure that the CR does not interfere with the licensed incumbent users. However, incumbent user behavior is dynamic and requires CR systems to adapt this behavior in order to maintain smooth information transmission. In this context, the objective of this dissertation is to explore design issues for CR systems focusing on adaptation of physical layer parameters related to spectrum sensing, spectrum shaping, and rate/power control. Specifically, this dissertation discusses dynamic threshold adaptation for energy detector spectrum sensing, spectrum allocation and power control in Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing-(OFDM-)based CR with operating constraints, and adjacent band interference suppression techniques in turbo-coded OFDM-based CR systems

Ultra-wideband systems exploiting orthonormal waveforms

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Power line communications over time-varying frequency-selective power line channels for smart home applications

Many countries in the world are developing the next generation power grid, the smart grid, to combat the ongoing severe environmental problems and achieve e�cient use of the electricity power grid. Smart metering is an enabling technology in the smart grid to address the energy wasting problem. It monitors and optimises the power consumption of consumers' devices and appliances. To ensure proper operation of smart metering, a reliable communication infrastructure plays a crucial role. Power line communication (PLC) is regarded as a promising candidate that will ful�l the requirements of smart grid applications. It is also the only wired technology which has a deployment cost comparable to wireless communication. PLC is most commonly used in the low-voltage (LV) power network which includes indoor power networks and the outdoor LV distribution networks. In this thesis we consider using PLC in the indoor power network to support the communication between the smart meter and a variety of appliances that are connected to the network. Power line communication (PLC) system design in indoor power network is challenging due to a variety of channel impairments, such as time-varying frequency-selective channel and complex impulsive noise scenarios. Among these impairments, the timevarying channel behaviour is an interesting topic that hasn't been thoroughly investigated. Therefore, in this thesis we focus on investigating this behaviour and developing a low-cost but reliable PLC system that is able to support smart metering applications in indoor environments. To aid the study and design of such a system, the characterisation and modelling of indoor power line channel are extensively investigated in this thesis. In addition, a exible simulation tool that is able to generate random time-varying indoor power line channel realisations is demonstrated. Orthogonal frequency division modulation (OFDM) is commonly used in existing PLC standards. However, when it is adopted for time-varying power line channels, it may experience signi�cant intercarrier interference (ICI) due to the Doppler spreading caused by channel time variation. Our investigation on the performance of an ordinary OFDM system over time-varying power line channel reveals that if ICI is not properly compensated, the system may su�er from severe performance loss. We also investigate the performance of some linear equalisers including zero forcing (ZF), minimum mean squared error (MMSE) and banded equalisers. Among them, banded equalisers provide the best tradeo� between complexity and performance. For a better tradeo� between complexity and performance, time-domain receiver windowing is usually applied together with banded equalisers. This subject has been well investigated for wireless communication, but not for PLC. In this thesis, we investigate the performance of some well-known receiver window design criteria that was developed for wireless communication for time-varying power line channels. It is found that these criteria do not work well over time-varying power line channels. Therefore, to �ll this gap, we propose an alternative window design criterion in this thesis. Simulations have shown that our proposal outperforms the other criteria

Constant modulus based blind adaptive multiuser detection.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.Signal processing techniques such as multi user detection (MUD) have the capability of greatly enhancing the performance and capacity of future generation wireless communications systems. Blind adaptive MUD's have many favourable qualities and their application to OS-COMA systems has attracted a lot of attention. The constant modulus algorithm is widely deployed in blind channel equalizations applications. The central premise of this thesis is that the constant modulus cost function is very suitable for the purposes of blind adaptive MUD for future generation wireless communications systems. To prove this point, the adaptive performance of blind (and non-blind) adaptive MUD's is derived analytically for all the schemes that can be made to fit the same generic structure as the constant modulus scheme. For the first time, both the relative and absolute performance levels of the different adaptive algorithms are computed, which gives insights into the performance levels of the different blind adaptive MUD schemes, and demonstrates the merit of the constant modulus based schemes. The adaptive performance of the blind adaptive MUD's is quantified using the excess mean square error (EMSE) as a metric, and is derived for the steady-state, tracking, and transient stages of the adaptive algorithms. If constant modulus based MUD's are suitable for future generation wireless communications systems, then they should also be capable of suppressing multi-rate DS-COMA interference and also demonstrate the ability to suppress narrow band interference (NBI) that arises in overlay systems. Multi-rate DS-COMA provides the capability of transmitting at various bit rates and quality of service levels over the same air interface. Limited spectrum availability may lead to the implementation of overlay systems whereby wide-band COMA signal are collocated with existing narrow band services. Both overlay systems and multi-rate DS-COMA are important features of future generation wireless communications systems. The interference patterns generated by both multi-rate OS-COMA and digital NBI are cyclostationary (or periodically time varying) and traditional MUD techniques do not take this into account and are thus suboptimal. Cyclic MUD's, although suboptimal, do however take the cyclostationarity of the interference into account, but to date there have been no cyclic MUD's based on the constant modulus cost function proposed. This thesis thus derives novel, blind adaptive, cyclic MUD's based on the constant modulus cost function, for direct implementation on the FREquency SHift (FRESH) filter architecture. The FRESH architecture provides a modular and thus flexible implementation (in terms of computational complexity) of a periodically time varying filter. The operation of the blind adaptive MUD on these reduced complexity architectures is also explored.· The robustness of the new cyclic MUD is proven via a rigorous mathematical proof. An alternate architecture to the FRESH filter is the filter bank. Using the previously derived analytical framework for the adaptive performance of MUD's, the relative performance of the adaptive algorithms on the FRESH and filter bank architectures is examined. Prior to this thesis, no conclusions could be drawn as to which architecture would yield superior performance. The performance analysis of the adaptive algorithms is also extended in this thesis in order to consider the effects of timing jitrer at the receiver, signature waveform mismatch, and other pertinent issues that arise in realistic implementation scenarios. Thus, through a careful analytical approach, which is verified by computer simulation results, the suitability of constant modulus based MUD's is established in this thesis

Phase-locked loop, delay-locked loop, and linear decorrelating detector for asynchronous multirate DS-CDMA system

The performance of phase synchronization and code tracking of a digital phase-locked loop (PLL) and delay-locked loop (DLL), respectively, is investigated in wideband asynchronous multirate DS-CDMA system. Dynamic Partial Correlation (DPC) method is proposed to evaluate the autocorrelation and its power spectrum density (PSD) of the cross-correlated terms in the presence of multirate multiple access interference (MMAI) under additive white gaussian noise (AWGN) and fading channel environments. The steady-state probability density function (PDF) and variance of the phase estimator error and code tracking jitter is evaluated by solving the first-order Fokker-Planck equation. Among many linear multiuser detectors which decouple the multiple access interference from each of the interfering users, one-shot window linear decorrelating detector (LDD) based on a one bit period to reduce the complexity of the LDD has attracted wide attention as an implementation scheme. Therefore, we propose Hybrid Selection Diversity/ Maximal Ratio Combining (Hybrid SD/MRC) one-shot window linear decorrelating detector (LDD) for asynchronous DS-CDMA systems. The selection diversity scheme at the input of the Hybrid SD/MRC LDD is based on choosing the branch with the maximum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of all filter outputs. The MR Combining scheme at the output of the Hybrid SD/MRC LDD adopts to maximize the output SNR and thus compensates for the enhanced output noise. The Hybrid SD/MRC one-shot LDD with PLL is introduced to track its phase error and to improve the demodulation performance. The probability density functions of the maximum SNR of the SD combiner, the near-far resistance (NFR) of one-shot LDD by Gaussian approximation, and the maximum SNR of the MR combiner for Hybrid SD/MRC LDD are evaluated, and the bit error probability is obtained from these pdfs. The performance of Hybrid SD/MRC one-shot LDD is assessed in a Rayleigh fading channel

Mathematical optimization techniques for resource allocation and spatial multiplexing in spectrum sharing networks

Due to introduction of smart phones with data intensive multimedia and interactive applications and exponential growth of wireless devices, there is a shortage for useful radio spectrum. Even though the spectrum has become crowded, many spectrum occupancy measurements indicate that most of the allocated spectrum is underutilised. Hence radically new approaches in terms of allocation of wireless resources are required for better utilization of radio spectrum. This has motivated the concept of opportunistic spectrum sharing or the so-called cognitive radio technology that has great potential to improve spectrum utilization. The cognitive radio technology allows an opportunistic user namely the secondary user to access the spectrum of the licensed user (known as primary user) provided that the secondary transmission does not harmfully affect the primary user. This is possible with the introduction of advanced resource allocation techniques together with the use of wireless relays and spatial diversity techniques. In this thesis, various mathematical optimization techniques have been developed for the efficient use of radio spectrum within the context of spectrum sharing networks. In particular, optimal power allocation techniques and centralised and distributed beamforming techniques have been developed. Initially, an optimization technique for subcarrier and power allocation has been proposed for an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) based secondary wireless network in the presence of multiple primary users. The solution is based on integer linear programming with multiple interference leakage and transmission power constraints. In order to enhance the spectrum efficiency further, the work has been extended to allow multiple secondary users to occupy the same frequency band under a multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) framework. A sum rate maximization technique based on uplink-downlink duality and dirty paper coding has been developed for the MIMO based OFDMA network. The work has also been extended to handle fading scenarios based on maximization of ergodic capacity. The optimization techniques for MIMO network has been extended to a spectrum sharing network with relays. This has the advantage of extending the coverage of the secondary network and assisting the primary network in return for the use of the primary spectrum. Finally, instead of considering interference mitigation, the recently emerged concept of interference alignment has been used for the resource allocation in spectrum sharing networks. The performances of all these new algorithms have been demonstrated using MATLAB based simulation studies