Scattered Pilots and Virtual Carriers Based Frequency Offset Tracking for OFDM Systems: Algorithms, Identifiability, and Performance Analysis

In this paper, we propose a novel carrier frequency offset (CFO) tracking algorithm for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems by exploiting scattered pilot carriers and virtual carriers embedded in the existing OFDM standards. Assuming that the channel remains constant during two consecutive OFDM blocks and perfect timing, a CFO tracking algorithm is proposed using the limited number of pilot carriers in each OFDM block. Identifiability of this pilot based algorithm is fully discussed under the noise free environment, and a constellation rotation strategy is proposed to eliminate the c-ambiguity for arbitrary constellations. A weighted algorithm is then proposed by considering both scattered pilots and virtual carriers. We find that, the pilots increase the performance accuracy of the algorithm, while the virtual carriers reduce the chance of CFO outlier. Therefore, the proposed tracking algorithm is able to achieve full range CFO estimation, can be used before channel estimation, and could provide improved performance compared to existing algorithms. The asymptotic mean square error (MSE) of the proposed algorithm is derived and simulation results agree with the theoretical analysis

Joint semiblind frequency offset and channel estimation for multiuser MIMO-OFDM uplink

A semiblind method is proposed for simultaneously estimating the carrier frequency offsets (CFOs) and channels of an uplink multiuser multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) system. By incorporating the CFOs into the transmitted symbols and channels, the MIMO-OFDM with CFO is remodeled into an MIMO-OFDM without CFO. The known blind method for channel estimation (Zeng and Ng in 2004) (Y. H. Zeng and T. S. Ng, "A semi-blind channel estimation method for multi-user multi-antenna OFDM systems," IEEE Trans. Signal Process., vol. 52, no. 5, pp. 1419-1429, May 2004.) is then directly used for the remodeled system to obtain the shaped channels with an ambiguity matrix. A pilot OFDM block for each user is then exploited to resolve the CFOs and the ambiguity matrix. Two dedicated pilot designs, periodical and consecutive pilots, are discussed. Based on each pilot design and the estimated shaped channels, two methods are proposed to estimate the CFOs. As a result, based on the second-order statistics (SOS) of the received signal and one pilot OFDM block, the CFOs and channels are found simultaneously. Finally, a fast equalization method is given to recover the signals corrupted by the CFOs. © 2007 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Signal and System Design for Wireless Power Transfer : Prototype, Experiment and Validation

A new line of research on communications and signals design for Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) has recently emerged in the communication literature. Promising signal strategies to maximize the power transfer efficiency of WPT rely on (energy) beamforming, waveform, modulation and transmit diversity, and a combination thereof. To a great extent, the study of those strategies has so far been limited to theoretical performance analysis. In this paper, we study the real over-the-air performance of all the aforementioned signal strategies for WPT. To that end, we have designed, prototyped and experimented an innovative radiative WPT architecture based on Software-Defined Radio (SDR) that can operate in open-loop and closed-loop (with channel acquisition at the transmitter) modes. The prototype consists of three important blocks, namely the channel estimator, the signal generator, and the energy harvester. The experiments have been conducted in a variety of deployments, including frequency flat and frequency selective channels, under static and mobility conditions. Experiments highlight that a channeladaptive WPT architecture based on joint beamforming and waveform design offers significant performance improvements in harvested DC power over conventional single-antenna/multiantenna continuous wave systems. The experimental results fully validate the observations predicted from the theoretical signal designs and confirm the crucial and beneficial role played by the energy harvester nonlinearity.Comment: Accepted to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communication

Techniques to Improve the Efficiency of Data Transmission in Cable Networks

The cable television (CATV) networks, since their introduction in the late 1940s, have now become a crucial part of the broadcasting industry. To keep up with growing demands from the subscribers, cable networks nowadays not only provide television programs but also deliver two-way interactive services such as telephone, high-speed Internet and social TV features. A new standard for CATV networks is released every five to six years to satisfy the growing demands from the mass market. From this perspective, this thesis is concerned with three main aspects for the continuing development of cable networks: (i) efficient implementations of backward-compatibility functions from the old standard, (ii) addressing and providing solutions for technically-challenging issues in the current standard and, (iii) looking for prospective features that can be implemented in the future standard. Since 1997, five different versions of the digital CATV standard had been released in North America. A new standard often contains major improvements over the previous one. The latest version of the standard, namely DOCSIS 3.1 (released in late 2013), is packed with state-of-the-art technologies and allows approximately ten times the amount of traffic as compared to the previous standard, DOCSIS 3.0 (released in 2008). Backward-compatibility is a must-have function for cable networks. In particular, to facilitate the system migration from older standards to a newer one, the backward compatible functions in the old standards must remain in the newer-standard products. More importantly, to keep the implementation cost low, the inherited backward compatible functions must be redesigned by taking advantage of the latest technology and algorithms. To improve the backward-compatibility functions, the first contribution of the thesis focuses on redesigning the pulse shaping filter by exploiting infinite impulse response (IIR) filter structures as an alternative to the conventional finite impulse response (FIR) structures. Comprehensive comparisons show that more economical filters with better performance can be obtained by the proposed design algorithm, which considers a hybrid parameterization of the filter's transfer function in combination with a constraint on the pole radius to be less than 1. The second contribution of the thesis is a new fractional timing estimation algorithm based on peak detection by log-domain interpolation. When compared with the commonly-used timing detection method, which is based on parabolic interpolation, the proposed algorithm yields more accurate estimation with a comparable implementation cost. The third contribution of the thesis is a technique to estimate the multipath channel for DOCSIS 3.1 cable networks. DOCSIS 3.1 is markedly different from prior generations of CATV networks in that OFDM/OFDMA is employed to create a spectrally-efficient signal. In order to effectively demodulate such a signal, it is necessary to employ a demodulation circuit which involves estimation and tracking of the multipath channel. The estimation and tracking must be highly accurate because extremely dense constellations such as 4096-QAM and possibly 16384-QAM can be used in DOCSIS 3.1. The conventional OFDM channel estimators available in the literature either do not perform satisfactorily or are not suitable for the DOCSIS 3.1 channel. The novel channel estimation technique proposed in this thesis iteratively searches for parameters of the channel paths. The proposed technique not only substantially enhances the channel estimation accuracy, but also can, at no cost, accurately identify the delay of each echo in the system. The echo delay information is valuable for proactive maintenance of the network. The fourth contribution of this thesis is a novel scheme that allows OFDM transmission without the use of a cyclic prefix (CP). The structure of OFDM in the current DOCSIS 3.1 does not achieve the maximum throughput if the channel has multipath components. The multipath channel causes inter-symbol-interference (ISI), which is commonly mitigated by employing CP. The CP acts as a guard interval that, while successfully protecting the signal from ISI, reduces the transmission throughput. The problem becomes more severe for downstream direction, where the throughput of the entire system is determined by the user with the worst channel. To solve the problem, this thesis proposes major alterations to the current DOCSIS 3.1 OFDM/OFDMA structure. The alterations involve using a pair of Nyquist filters at the transceivers and an efficient time-domain equalizer (TEQ) at the receiver to reduce ISI down to a negligible level without the need of CP. Simulation results demonstrate that, by incorporating the proposed alterations to the DOCSIS 3.1 down-link channel, the system can achieve the maximum throughput over a wide range of multipath channel conditions