Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces for Wireless Communications: Principles, Challenges, and Opportunities

Recently there has been a flurry of research on the use of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) in wireless networks to create smart radio environments. In a smart radio environment, surfaces are capable of manipulating the propagation of incident electromagnetic waves in a programmable manner to actively alter the channel realization, which turns the wireless channel into a controllable system block that can be optimized to improve overall system performance. In this article, we provide a tutorial overview of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) for wireless communications. We describe the working principles of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) and elaborate on different candidate implementations using metasurfaces and reflectarrays. We discuss the channel models suitable for both implementations and examine the feasibility of obtaining accurate channel estimates. Furthermore, we discuss the aspects that differentiate RIS optimization from precoding for traditional MIMO arrays highlighting both the arising challenges and the potential opportunities associated with this emerging technology. Finally, we present numerical results to illustrate the power of an RIS in shaping the key properties of a MIMO channel.Comment: to appear in the IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking (TCCN

Decomposition of optical MIMO systems using polynomial matrix factorization

Within the last years the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology has revolutionized the optical fiber community. Theoretically, the concept of MIMO is well understood and shows some similarities to wireless MIMO systems. The interference in broadband MIMO systems can be removed by applying a spatio-temporal vector coding (STVC) channel description and using singular value decomposition (SVD) in combination with signal pre- and post-processing. In this contribution a newly developed SVD algorithm for polynomial matrices (PMSVD) is analyzed and compared to the commonly used SVD-based STVC. The PMSVD is implemented by an iterative polynomial matrix eigenvalue decomposition (PEVD) algorithm, namely the second order sequential best rotation algorithm (SBR2). The bit-error rate (BER) performance is evaluated and optimized by applying bit and power allocation schemes. For our simulations, the specific impulse responses of the (2 × 2) MIMO channel, including a 1.4 km multi-mode fiber and optical couplers at both ends, are measured for the operating wavelength of 1576 nm. The computer simulation results show that the PMSVD could be an alternative signal processing approach compared to conventional SVD-based MIMO approaches in frequency-selective MIMO channels

Multi-cell Coordination Techniques for DL OFDMA Multi-hop Cellular Networks

The main objective of this project is to design coordinated spectrum sharing and reuse techniques among cells with the goal of mitigating interference at the cell edge and enhance the overall system capacity. The performance of the developed algorithm will be evaluated in an 802.16m (WiMAX) environment. In conventional cellular networks, frequency planning is usually considered to keep an acceptable signal-to-interference-plus noise ratio (SINR) level, especially at cell boundaries. Frequency assignations are done under a cell-by-cell basis, without any coordination between them to manage interference. Particularly this approach, however, hampers the system spectral efficiency at low reuse rates. For a specific reuse factor, the system throughput depends highly on the mobile station (MS) distribution and the channel conditions of the users to be served. If users served from different base stations (BS) experience a low level of interference, radio resources may be reused, applying a high reuse factor and thus, increasing the system spectral efficiency. On the other side, if the served users experience large interference, orthogonal transmissions are better and therefore a lower frequency reuse factor should be used. As a consequence, a dynamic reuse factor is preferable over a fixed one. This work addresses the design of joint multi-cell resource allocation and scheduling with coordination among neighbouring base stations (outer coordination) or sectors belonging to the same one (inner coordination) as a way to achieve flexible reuse factors. We propose a convex optimization framework to address the problem of coordinating bandwidth allocation in BS coordination problems. The proposed framework allows for different scheduling policies, which have an impact on the suitability of the reuse factor, since they determine which users have to be served. Therefore, it makes sense to consider the reuse factor as a result of the scheduling decision. To support the proposed techniques the BSs shall be capable of exchanging information with each other (decentralized approach) or with some control element in the back-haul network as an ASN gateway or some self-organization control entity (centralized approach)

INTERFERENCE MANAGEMENT IN LTE SYSTEM AND BEYOUND

The key challenges to high throughput in cellular wireless communication system are interference, mobility and bandwidth limitation. Mobility has never been a problem until recently, bandwidth has been constantly improved upon through the evolutions in cellular wireless communication system but interference has been a constant limitation to any improvement that may have resulted from such evolution. The fundamental challenge to a system designer or a researcher is how to achieve high data rate in motion (high speed) in a cellular system that is intrinsically interference-limited. Multi-antenna is the solution to data on the move and the capacity of multi-antenna system has been demonstrated to increase proportionally with increase in the number of antennas at both transmitter and receiver for point-to-point communications and multi-user environment. However, the capacity gain in both uplink and downlink is limited in a multi-user environment like cellular system by interference, the number of antennas at the base station, complexity and space constraint particularly for a mobile terminal. This challenge in the downlink provided the motivation to investigate successive interference cancellation (SIC) as an interference management tool LTE system and beyond. The Simulation revealed that ordered successive interference (OSIC) out performs non-ordered successive interference cancellation (NSIC) and the additional complexity is justified based on the associated gain in BER performance of OSIC. The major drawback of OSIC is that it is not efficient in network environment employing power control or power allocation. Additional interference management techniques will be required to fully manage the interference.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Deep Learning-based Limited Feedback Designs for MIMO Systems

We study a deep learning (DL) based limited feedback methods for multi-antenna systems. Deep neural networks (DNNs) are introduced to replace an end-to-end limited feedback procedure including pilot-aided channel training process, channel codebook design, and beamforming vector selection. The DNNs are trained to yield binary feedback information as well as an efficient beamforming vector which maximizes the effective channel gain. Compared to conventional limited feedback schemes, the proposed DL method shows an 1 dB symbol error rate (SER) gain with reduced computational complexity.Comment: to appear in IEEE Wireless Commun. Let

A New Analytical Model for SIM–OFDM Contradicts the Previously Claimed Features

The Subcarrier Index Modulation OFDM (SIM–OFDM) appeared in 2009 promising a –3 dB transmitted power reduction without affecting the system performance. Therefore, it became an attractive choice to upgrade the communication systems with researchers’ increasing interest. Despite the research efforts in SIM–OFDM field, there was no in-depth investigation for such transmitted power reduction or the system’s performance. The claimed power reduction relies on probabilistic assumptions that were not validated considering system operation concepts. This paper provides a new analytical model that characterizes the actual SIM–OFDM behavior. The contribution of this model is the inclusion of the majority condition in the derivation of 1’s pmf which modifies the 1’s pmf into a complex nonlinear function that is always higher than 1/2. The new pmf effect upon the power reduction, synchronization, and the overall Bit Error Rate (BER) is investigated. The new analytical model shows that the –3 dB power reduction cannot be achieved. Also, no successful synchronization can be established unless extra subcarrier is added that will create a frame like communication system. Such scheme increases BER if the carrier is falsely detected creating a Frame Error Rate (FER) which might lead to serious problem