Initial synchronisation of wideband and UWB direct sequence systems: single- and multiple-antenna aided solutions

This survey guides the reader through the open literature on the principle of initial synchronisation in single-antenna-assisted single- and multi-carrier Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) as well as Direct Sequence-Ultra WideBand (DS-UWB) systems, with special emphasis on the DownLink (DL). There is a paucity of up-to-date surveys and review articles on initial synchronization solutions for MIMO-aided and cooperative systems - even though there is a plethora of papers on both MIMOs and on cooperative systems, which assume perfect synchronization. Hence this paper aims to ?ll the related gap in the literature

Modelling and Comparative Performance Analysis of a Time Reversed UWB System

The effects of multipath propagation lead to a significant decrease in system performance in most of the proposed ultra-wideband communication systems. A time-reversed system utilises the multipath channel impulse response to decrease receiver complexity, through a prefiltering at the transmitter. This paper discusses the modelling and comparative performance of a UWB system utilising time-reversed communications. System equations are presented, together with a semianalytical formulation on the level of intersymbol interference and multiuser interference. The standardised IEEE 802.15.3a channel model is applied, and the estimated error performance is compared through simulation with the performance of both time-hopped time-reversed and RAKE-based UWB systems

Radio channel characterisation and system-level modelling for ultra wideband body-centric wireless communications

PhDThe next generation of wireless communication is evolving towards user-centric networks, where constant and reliable connectivity and services are essential. Bodycentric wireless network (BCWN) is the most exciting and emerging 4G technology for short (1-5 m) and very short (below 1 m) range communication systems. It has got numerous applications including healthcare, entertainment, surveillance, emergency, sports and military. The major difference between the BCWN and conventional wireless systems is the radio channel over which the communication takes place. The human body is a hostile medium from the radio propagation perspective and it is therefore important to understand and characterise the effect of the human body on the antenna elements, the radio propagation channel parameters and hence the system performance. In addition, fading is another concern that affects the reliability and quality of the wireless link, which needs to be taken into account for a low cost and reliable wireless communication system for body-centric networks. The complex nature of the BCWN requires operating wireless devices to provide low power requirements, less complexity, low cost and compactness in size. Apart from these characteristics, scalable data rates and robust performance in most fading conditions and jamming environment, even at low signal to noise ratio (SNR) is needed. Ultra-wideband (UWB) technology is one of the most promising candidate for BCWN as it tends to fulfill most of these requirements. The thesis focuses on the characterisation of ultra wideband body-centric radio propagation channel using single and multiple antenna techniques. Apart from channel characterisation, system level modelling of potential UWB radio transceivers for body-centric wireless network is also proposed. Channel models with respect to large scale and delay analysis are derived from measured parameters. Results and analyses highlight the consequences of static and dynamic environments in addition to the antenna positions on the performance of body-centric wireless communication channels. Extensive measurement i campaigns are performed to analyse the significance of antenna diversity to combat the channel fading in body-centric wireless networks. Various diversity combining techniques are considered in this process. Measurement data are also used to predict the performance of potential UWB systems in the body-centric wireless networks. The study supports the significance of single and multiple antenna channel characterisation and modelling in producing suitable wireless systems for ultra low power body-centric wireless networks.University of Engineering and Technology Lahore Pakista

Noise-based Transmit Reference Modulation:A Feasibility Analysis

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) receive huge research interest for a multitude of applications, ranging from remote monitoring applications, such as monitoring of potential forest fires, floods and air pollution, to domestic and industrial monitoring of temperature, humidity, vibration, stress, etc. In the former set of applications, a large number of nodes can be involved which are usually deployed in remote or inaccessible environments. Due to logistic and cost reasons, battery replacement is undesired. Energy-efficient radios are needed, with a power-demand so little that batteries can last the lifetime of the node or that the energy can be harvested from the environment. Coherent direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) based radios are widely employed in monitoring applications, due to their overall resilience to channel impairments and robustness against interference. However, a DSSS rake receiver has stringent requirements on precise synchronization and accurate channel knowledge. To obviate the complexity of a coherent DSSS receiver, particularly for low data rate sensor networks, a DSSS scheme that has fast synchronization and possibly low power consumption, is much desired. In this regard, this thesis studies a noncoherent DSSS scheme called transmit reference (TR), which promises a simple receiver architecture and fast synchronization. In traditional TR, the modulated information signal is sent along an unmodulated reference signal, with a small time offset between them. In this thesis, we present and investigate a variant of TR, called noise-based frequency offset modulation (N-FOM), which uses pure noise as the spreading signal and a small frequency offset (instead of a time offset) to separate the information and reference signals. The detection is based on correlation of the received signal with a frequency-shifted version of itself, which collects the transmitted energy without compromising the receiver simplicity. Analytical expressions on performance metrics, supplemented by simulation results, improve understanding of the underlying mechanisms and provide insights into utility of N-FOM in low-power WSNs. In point-to-point line-of-sight (LOS) communication, it was observed that the communication scheme has a minimal utility. The energy-detector type of receiver mixes all in-band signals, which magnifies the overall noise. Particularly, the self-mixing of the transmitted signal also elevates the noise level, which increases with a further increase in the received signal energy. Therefore, for a fixed set of system parameters, the performance attains an asymptote with increasing transmission power. The phenomenon also establishes a non-monotonic relation between performance and the spreading factor. It was observed that a higher spreading factor in N-FOM is beneficial only in a high-SNR regime. After developing an understanding of the performance degrading mechanisms, few design considerations are listed. It is found that a suitable choice of the receiver front-end filter can maximize the SNR. However, the optimal filter depends on received signal and noise levels. A practically feasible – albeit suboptimal – filter is presented which gives close to the optimal performance. Next, timing synchronization is considered. The implications of synchronization errors are analyzed, and a synchronization strategy is devised. The proposed synchronization strategy has little overhead and can be easily implemented for symbol-level synchronization. The N-FOM LOS link model is extended to assess the performance degradation due to interference. Performance metrics are derived which quantify the effects of multiple-user interference, as well as that from external interferers, such as WiFi. Since the correlation operation mixes all in-band signals, the total interfering entities are quadratically increased. The research shows the vulnerability of N-FOM to interference, which makes it optimistic to operate in a crowded shared spectrum (such as the ISM 2.4\,GHz band). We also observe an upper limit on the number of mutually interfering links in a multiple access (MA) network, that can be established with an acceptable quality. The scheme is further investigated for its resilience against impairments introduced by a dense multipath environment. It is observed that despite the noise enhancement, the N-FOM system performs reasonably well in a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) communication. The detection mechanism exploits the multipath channel diversity and leads to an improved performance in a rich scattering environment. An analytical expression for outage probability is also derived. The results indicate that a healthy N-FOM link with very low outage probability can be established at a nominal value of the received bit SNR. It is also found that the choice of the frequency offset is central to the system design. Due to multiple practical implications associated with this parameter, the maximum data rate and the number of usable frequency offsets are limited, particularly in a MA NLOS communication scenario. The analysis evolves into a rule-of-thumb criterion for the data rate and the frequency offset. It is deduced that, due to its limited capability to coexist in a shared spectrum, N-FOM is not a replacement for coherent DSSS systems. The scheme is mainly suited to a low data rate network with low overall traffic, operating in an interference-free rich scattering environment. Such a niche of sensor applications could benefit from N-FOM where the design goal requires a simple detection mechanism and immunity to multipath fading

Initial Synchronisation in the Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Aided Single- and Multi-Carrier DS-CDMA as well as DS-UWB Downlink

In this thesis, we propose and investigate code acquisition schemes employing both colocated and cooperative Multiple Input/Multiple Output (MIMO) aided Single-Carrier (SC) and Multi-Carrier (MC) Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) DownLink (DL) schemes. We study their characteristics and performance in terms of both Non-Coherent (NC) and Differentially Coherent (DC) MIMO scenarios. Furthermore, we also propose iterative code acquisition schemes for the Direct Sequence-Ultra WideBand (DS-UWB) DL. There is a paucity of code acquisition techniques designed for transmit diversity aided systems. Moreover, there are no in-depth studies representing the fundamental characteristics of code acquisition schemes employing both co-located and cooperative MIMOs. Hence we investigate both NC and DC code acquisition schemes in the co-located and cooperative MIMO aided SC and MC DS-CDMA DL, when communicating over spatially uncorrelated Rayleigh channels. The issues of NC initial and post-initial acquisition schemes as well as DC schemes are studied as a function of the number of co-located antennas by quantifying the attainable correct detection probability and mean acquisition time performances. The research of DS-UWB systems has recently attracted a significant interest in both the academic and industrial community. In the DS-UWB DL, initial acquisition is required for both coarse timing as well as code phase alignment. Both of these constitute a challenging problem owing to the extremely short chip-duration of UWB systems. This leads to a huge acquisition search space size, which is represented as the product of the number of legitimate code phases in the uncertainty region of the PN code and the number of legitimate signalling pulse positions. Therefore the benefits of the iterative code acquisition schemes are analysed in terms of the achievable correct detection probability and mean acquisition time performances. Hence we significantly reduce the search space size with the aid of a Tanner graph based Message Passing (MP) technique, which is combined with the employment of beneficially selected generator polynomials, multiple receive antennas and appropriately designed multiple-component decoders. Finally, we characterise a range of two-stage iterative acquisition schemes employing iterative MP designed for a multiple receive antenna assisted DS-UWB DL scenario

Initial synchronisation in the multiple-input multiple-output aided single- and multi-carrier DS-CDMA as well as DS-UWB downlink

In this thesis, we propose and investigate code acquisition schemes employing both colocated and cooperative Multiple Input/Multiple Output (MIMO) aided Single-Carrier (SC) and Multi-Carrier (MC) Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) DownLink (DL) schemes. We study their characteristics and performance in terms of both Non-Coherent (NC) and Differentially Coherent (DC) MIMO scenarios. Furthermore, we also propose iterative code acquisition schemes for the Direct Sequence-Ultra WideBand (DS-UWB) DL. There is a paucity of code acquisition techniques designed for transmit diversity aided systems. Moreover, there are no in-depth studies representing the fundamental characteristics of code acquisition schemes employing both co-located and cooperative MIMOs. Hence we investigate both NC and DC code acquisition schemes in the co-located and cooperative MIMO aided SC and MC DS-CDMA DL, when communicating over spatially uncorrelated Rayleigh channels. The issues of NC initial and post-initial acquisition schemes as well as DC schemes are studied as a function of the number of co-located antennas by quantifying the attainable correct detection probability and mean acquisition time performances. The research of DS-UWB systems has recently attracted a significant interest in both the academic and industrial community. In the DS-UWB DL, initial acquisition is required for both coarse timing as well as code phase alignment. Both of these constitute a challenging problem owing to the extremely short chip-duration of UWB systems. This leads to a huge acquisition search space size, which is represented as the product of the number of legitimate code phases in the uncertainty region of the PN code and the number of legitimate signalling pulse positions. Therefore the benefits of the iterative code acquisition schemes are analysed in terms of the achievable correct detection probability and mean acquisition time performances. Hence we significantly reduce the search space size with the aid of a Tanner graph based Message Passing (MP) technique, which is combined with the employment of beneficially selected generator polynomials, multiple receive antennas and appropriately designed multiple-component decoders. Finally, we characterise a range of two-stage iterative acquisition schemes employing iterative MP designed for a multiple receive antenna assisted DS-UWB DL scenario.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

The Future of the Operating Room: Surgical Preplanning and Navigation using High Accuracy Ultra-Wideband Positioning and Advanced Bone Measurement

This dissertation embodies the diversity and creativity of my research, of which much has been peer-reviewed, published in archival quality journals, and presented nationally and internationally. Portions of the work described herein have been published in the fields of image processing, forensic anthropology, physical anthropology, biomedical engineering, clinical orthopedics, and microwave engineering. The problem studied is primarily that of developing the tools and technologies for a next-generation surgical navigation system. The discussion focuses on the underlying technologies of a novel microwave positioning subsystem and a bone analysis subsystem. The methodologies behind each of these technologies are presented in the context of the overall system with the salient results helping to elucidate the difficult facets of the problem. The microwave positioning system is currently the highest accuracy wireless ultra-wideband positioning system that can be found in the literature. The challenges in producing a system with these capabilities are many, and the research and development in solving these problems should further the art of high accuracy pulse-based positioning