Interference Mitigation in Wireless Communications

The primary objective of this thesis is to design advanced interference resilient schemes for asynchronous slow frequency hopping wireless personal area networks (FH-WPAN) and time division multiple access (TDMA) cellular systems in interference dominant environments. We also propose an interference-resilient power allocation method for multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems. For asynchronous FH-WPANs in the presence of frequent packet collisions, we propose a single antenna interference canceling dual decision feedback (IC-DDF) receiver based on joint maximum likelihood (ML) detection and recursive least squares (RLS) channel estimation. For the system level performance evaluation, we propose a novel geometric method that combines bit error rate (BER) and the spatial distribution of the traffic load of CCI for the computation of packet error rate (PER). We also derived the probabilities of packet collision in multiple asynchronous FH-WPANs with uniform and nonuniform traffic patterns. For the design of TDMA receivers resilient to CCI in frequency selective channels, we propose a soft output joint detection interference rejection combining delayed decision feedback sequence estimation (JD IRC-DDFSE) scheme. In the proposed scheme, IRC suppresses the CCI, while DDFSE equalizes ISI with reduced complexity. Also, the soft outputs are generated from IRC-DDFSE decision metric to improve the performance of iterative or non-iterative type soft-input outer code decoders. For the design of interference resilient power allocation scheme in MIMO systems, we investigate an adaptive power allocation method using subset antenna transmission (SAT) techniques. Motivated by the observation of capacity imbalance among the multiple parallel sub-channels, the SAT method achieves high spectral efficiency by allocating power on a selected transmit antenna subset. For 4 x 4 V-BLAST MIMO systems, the proposed scheme with SAT showed analogous results. Adaptive modulation schemes combined with the proposed method increase the capacity gains. From a feasibility viewpoint, the proposed method is a practical solution to CCI-limited MIMO systems since it does not require the channel state information (CSI) of CCI.Ph.D.Committee Chair: Professor Gordon L. StBe

Single data set detection for multistatic doppler radar

The aim of this thesis is to develop and analyse single data set (SDS) detection algorithms that can utilise the advantages of widely-spaced (statistical) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar to increase their accuracy and performance. The algorithms make use of the observations obtained from multiple space-time adaptive processing (STAP) receivers and focus on covariance estimation and inversion to perform target detection. One of the main interferers for a Doppler radar has always been the radar’s own signal being reflected off the surroundings. The reflections of the transmitted waveforms from the ground and other stationary or slowly-moving objects in the background generate observations that can potentially raise false alarms. This creates the problem of searching for a target in both additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and highly-correlated (coloured) interference. Traditional STAP deals with the problem by using target-free training data to study this environment and build its characteristic covariance matrix. The data usually comes from range gates neighbouring the cell under test (CUT). In non-homogeneous or non-stationary environments, however, this training data may not reflect the statistics of the CUT accurately, which justifies the need to develop SDS methods for radar detection. The maximum likelihood estimation detector (MLED) and the generalised maximum likelihood estimation detector (GMLED) are two reduced-rank STAP algorithms that eliminate the need for training data when mapping the statistics of the background interference. The work in this thesis is largely based on these two algorithms. The first work derives the optimal maximum likelihood (ML) solution to the target detection problem when the MLED and GMLED are used in a multistatic radar scenario. This application assumes that the spatio-temporal Doppler frequencies produces in the individual bistatic STAP pairs of the MIMO system are ideally synchronised. Therefore the focus is on providing the multistatic outcome to the target detection problem. It is shown that the derived MIMO detectors possess the desirable constant false alarm rate (CFAR) property. Gaussian approximations to the statistics of the multistatic MLED and GMLED are derived in order to provide a more in-depth analysis of the algorithms. The viability of the theoretical models and their approximations are tested against a numerical simulation of the systems. The second work focuses on the synchronisation of the spatio-temporal Doppler frequency data from the individual bistatic STAP pairs in the multistatic MLED scenario. It expands the idea to a form that could be implemented in a practical radar scenario. To reduce the information shared between the bistatic STAP channels, a data compression method is proposed that extracts the significant contributions of the MLED likelihood function before transmission. To perform the inter-channel synchronisation, the Doppler frequency data is projected into the space of potential target velocities where the multistatic likelihood is formed. Based on the expected structure of the velocity likelihood in the presence of a target, a modification to the multistatic MLED is proposed. It is demonstrated through numerical simulations that the proposed modified algorithm performs better than the basic multistatic MLED while having the benefit of reducing the data exchange in the MIMO radar system

Reduced Receivers for Faster-than-Nyquist Signaling and General Linear Channels

Fast and reliable data transmission together with high bandwidth efficiency are important design aspects in a modern digital communication system. Many different approaches exist but in this thesis bandwidth efficiency is obtained by increasing the data transmission rate with the faster-than-Nyquist (FTN) framework while keeping a fixed power spectral density (PSD). In FTN consecutive information carrying symbols can overlap in time and in that way introduce a controlled amount of intentional intersymbol interference (ISI). This technique was introduced already in 1975 by Mazo and has since then been extended in many directions. Since the ISI stemming from practical FTN signaling can be of significant duration, optimum detection with traditional methods is often prohibitively complex, and alternative equalization methods with acceptable complexity-performance tradeoffs are needed. The key objective of this thesis is therefore to design reduced-complexity receivers for FTN and general linear channels that achieve optimal or near-optimal performance. Although the performance of a detector can be measured by several means, this thesis is restricted to bit error rate (BER) and mutual information results. FTN signaling is applied in two ways: As a separate uncoded narrowband communication system or in a coded scenario consisting of a convolutional encoder, interleaver and the inner ISI mechanism in serial concatenation. Turbo equalization where soft information in the form of log likelihood ratios (LLRs) is exchanged between the equalizer and the decoder is a commonly used decoding technique for coded FTN signals. The first part of the thesis considers receivers and arising stability problems when working within the white noise constraint. New M-BCJR algorithms for turbo equalization are proposed and compared to reduced-trellis VA and BCJR benchmarks based on an offset label idea. By adding a third low-complexity M-BCJR recursion, LLR quality is improved for practical values of M. M here measures the reduced number of BCJR computations for each data symbol. An improvement of the minimum phase conversion that sharpens the focus of the ISI model energy is proposed. When combined with a delayed and slightly mismatched receiver, the decoding allows a smaller M without significant loss in BER. The second part analyzes the effect of the internal metric calculations on the performance of Forney- and Ungerboeck-based reduced-complexity equalizers of the M-algorithm type for both ISI and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels. Even though the final output of a full-complexity equalizer is identical for both models, the internal metric calculations are in general different. Hence, suboptimum methods need not produce the same final output. Additionally, new models working in between the two extremes are proposed and evaluated. Note that the choice of observation model does not impact the detection complexity as the underlying algorithm is unaltered. The last part of the thesis is devoted to a different complexity reducing approach. Optimal channel shortening detectors for linear channels are optimized from an information theoretical perspective. The achievable information rates of the shortened models as well as closed form expressions for all components of the optimal detector of the class are derived. The framework used in this thesis is more general than what has been previously used within the area

MIMO transmission for 4G wireless communications

Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200

Cramer-Rao Lower Bounds for the Synchronization of UWB Signals

We present Cramér-Rao lower bounds (CRLBs) for the synchronization of UWB signals which should be tight lower bounds for the theoretical performance limits of UWB synchronizers. The CRLBs are investigated for both single-pulse systems and time-hopping systems in AWGN and multipath channels. Insights are given into the relationship between CRLBs for different Gaussian monocycles. An approximation method of the CRLBs is discussed when nuisance parameters exist. CRLBs in multipath channels are studied and formulated for three scenarios depending on the way multipath interference is treated. We find that a larger number of multipaths implies higher CRLBs and inferior performance of the synchronizers, and multipath interference on CRLBs cannot be eliminated completely except in very special cases. As every estimate of time delay could not be perfect, the least influence of the synchronization error on the performance of receivers is quantified

Development and performance evaluation of a multistatic radar system

Multistatic radar systems are of emerging interest as they can exploit spatial diversity, enabling improved performance and new applications. Their development is being fuelled by advances in enabling technologies in such fields as communications and Digital Signal Processing (DSP). Such systems differ from typical modern active radar systems through consisting of multiple spatially diverse transmitter and receiver sites. Due to this spatial diversity, these systems present challenges in managing their operation as well as in usefully combining the multiple sources of information to give an output to the radar operator. In this work, a novel digital Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) based coherent multistatic radar system designed at University College London, named ‘NetRad’, has been developed to produce some of the first published experimental results, investigating the challenges of operating such a system, and determining what level of performance might be achievable. Full detail of the various stages involved in the combination of data from the component transmitter-receiver pairs within a multistatic system is investigated, and many of the practical issues inherent are discussed. Simulation and subsequent experimental verification of several centralised and decentralised detection algorithms in terms of localisation (resolution and parameter estimation) of targets was undertaken. The computational cost of the DSP involved in multistatic data fusion is also considered. This gave a clear demonstration of several of the benefits of multistatic radar. Resolution of multiple targets that would have been unresolvable in a conventional monostatic system was shown. Targets were also shown to be plotted as two-dimensional vector position and velocities from use of time delay and Doppler shift information only. A range of targets were used including some such as walking people which were particularly challenging due to the variability of Radar Cross Section (RCS). Performance improvements were found to be dependant on the type of multistatic radar, method of data fusion and target characteristics in question. It is likely that future work will look to further explore the optimisation of multistatic radar for the various measures of performance identified and discussed in this work