Recent Results on the Implementation of a Burst Error and Burst Erasure Channel Emulator Using an FPGA Architecture

The behaviour of a transmission channel may be simulated using the performance abilities of current generation multiprocessing hardware, namely, a multicore Central Processing Unit (CPU), a general purpose Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), or a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). These were investigated by Cullinan et al. in a recent paper (published in 2012) where these three devices capabilities were compared to determine which device would be best suited towards which specific task. In particular, it was shown that, for the application which is objective of our work (i.e., for a transmission channel simulation), the FPGA is 26.67 times faster than the GPU and 10.76 times faster than the CPU. Motivated by these results, in this paper we propose and present a direct hardware emulation. In particular, a Cyclone II FPGA architecture is implemented to simulate a burst error channel behaviour, in which errors are clustered together, and a burst erasure channel behaviour, in which the erasures are clustered together. The results presented in the paper are valid for any FPGA architecture that may be considered for this scope

An investigation into jamming GSM systems through exploiting weaknesses in the control channel forward error correction scheme

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science in Engineering (Electrical), 2017The ability to communicate effectively is of key importance in military scenarios. The ability to interfere with these communications is a useful tool in gaining competitive advantages by disrupting enemy communications and protecting allied troops against threats such as remotely detonated explosives. By reducing the number of corrupt bits required by using customised error patterns, the transmission time required by a jammer can be reduced without sacrificing effectiveness. To this end a MATLAB simulation of the GSM control channel forward error correction scheme is tested against four jamming methodologies and three bit corruption techniques. These methodologies are aimed at minimising the number of transmitted jamming bits required from a jammer to prevent communications on the channel. By using custom error patterns it is possible to target individual components of the forward error correction scheme and bypass others. A ran dom error approach is implemented to test the system against random errors on the channel, a burst error approach is implemented to test the convolutional code against burst errors, and two proposed custom error patterns are implemented aimed at exploiting the Fire code’s error detection method. The burst error pattern approach required the least number of transmitted jamming bits. The system also shows improvements over current control channel jamming techniques in literature.XL201

Energy-efficient coding for high speed links

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-77).Throughput and energy-efficiency of high-speed chip-to-chip interconnects present critical bottlenecks in a whole range of important applications, from processor-memory interfaces, to network routers. These links currently rely solely on complex equalization techniques to maintain the bit error rate lower than 10-15. While applicable to data rates up to 10 Gb/s on most links, this approach does not scale well to higher data rates or better energy-efficiency. The work described in the thesis shows that it may be possible to use coding techniques to share the burden of combating errors, while increasing the throughput of the link or improving its energy-efficiency. Since codes here attempt to alleviate the impact of partially correlated sources of error (like reflections interference, crosstalk and jitter), an experimental setup was created for characterization of link channel properties and performance gains from different codes. Four codes, specifically Hamming, BCH, Fire, and SEC-DED codes, are implemented and analyzed with various configurations (i.e. different blocksizes, data rates, and detection or correction). Most significantly, it is discovered that detection and retransmission of even the simple codes implemented in this project may be able to maintain a bit error rate of 10-15.by Maxine Lee.M.Eng

Practical packet combining for use with cooperative and non-cooperative ARQ schemes in wireless sensor networks

Although it is envisaged that advances in technology will follow a "Moores Law" trend for many years to come, one of the aims of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is to reduce the size of the nodes as much as possible. The issue of limited resources on current devices may therefore not improve much with future designs as a result. There is a pressing need, therefore, for simple, efficient protocols and algorithms that can maximise the use of available resources in an energy efficient manner. In this thesis an improved packet combining scheme useful on low power, resource-constrained sensor networks is developed. The algorithm is applicable in areas where currently only more complex combining approaches are used. These include cooperative communications and hybrid-ARQ schemes which have been shown to be of major benefit for wireless communications. Using the packet combining scheme developed in this thesis more than an 85% reduction in energy costs are possible over previous, similar approaches. Both simulated and practical experiments are developed in which the algorithm is shown to offer up to approximately 2.5 dB reduction in the required Signal-to-Noise ratio (SNR) for a particular Packet Error Rate (PER). This is a welcome result as complex schemes, such as maximal-ratio combining, are not implementable on many of the resource constrained devices under consideration. A motivational side study on the transitional region is also carried out in this thesis. This region has been shown to be somewhat of a problem for WSNs. It is characterised by variable packet reception rate caused by a combination of fading and manufacturing variances in the radio receivers. Experiments are carried out to determine whether or not a spread-spectrum architecture has any effect on the size of this region, as has been suggested in previous work. It is shown that, for the particular setup tested, the transitional region still has significant extent even when employing a spread-spectrum architecture. This result further motivates the need for the packet combining scheme developed as it is precisely in zones such as the transitional region that packet combining will be of most benefit

Applications of Coding Theory to Sub-Linear Time Sparse Recovery Problems

This dissertation leverages the connection between coding theory and classical sparse recovery problems like sparse Fourier and Hadamard transform computations to understand properties of existing recovery algorithms under various signal models, propose improvements, and adopt them to interesting applications in theoretical computer science like pattern matching. In the first part of the dissertation, we begin by demonstrating the relationship between an extended Fast Fourier Aliasing-based Sparse Transform (FFAST) algorithm and the iterative hard decision decoding of product codes. We show that the FFAST algorithm is analogous to an iterative decoder for a carefully defined product code whose thresholds can be computed by an extension of Justensen's analysis to d-dimensional product codes. Interpreting the FFAST algorithm as decoding of a product code also provides insight into the performance of the FFAST algorithm when non-zero coefficients are not randomly chosen but are bursty such as what may be encountered in many practical applications like spectrum sensing. Recoverability results are guaranteed for the finite length case and we provided thresholds for the 1 and 2 burst cases asymptotically. It is further observed that the FFAST algorithm performs better for bursty signals in comparison to those for randomly chosen non-zero coefficients. We then consider the problem of computing the Walsh-Hadamard Transform (WHT) of an N = 2^n dimensional signal whose WHT is K-sparse, when the sparsity parameter K scales sub-linearly in N. We propose improvements to the algorithm by Scheibler et al. by introducing a two error correcting code at each check node. Further, through density evolution analysis and simulations we show that the proposed modification substantially improves the space and time complexity of the algorithm, sometimes achieving as much as a 70% reduction. We conclude by considering the substring/pattern matching problem of querying a string (or a database) of length N bits to determine all the locations where a substring (query) of length M appears either exactly or is within a Hamming distance of K from the query. We analyze the exact pattern matching problem where M consecutive symbols from x and is presented as a query, and the approximate pattern matching problem where we assume a noisy version of a substring. Our proposed algorithm is evaluated based on the sketching complexity, and the computational complexity in answering the query. Using a sparse Fourier transform computation based approach we show that all such matches can be determined with high probability in sub-linear time and space. Further, we present several extensions including optimization for longer query lengths, algorithmic improvements for correlated data sources, and a secured matching algorithm in an outsourced pattern matching setting

Comparison of proposals for the future aeronautical communication system LDACS

Um zukünftigen Kapazitätsbedarf in aeronautischer Navigation abzudecken, werden neue Bord und Boden Kommunikationsdienste gebraucht. Die europäische Organisation für Sicherheit und Luftnavigation, Eurocontrol, unterstützte die Entwicklung zweier Vorschläge für ein solches System. Der erste Vorschlag, genannt LDACS1, ist ein digitales Breitband OFDM basiertes System, welches vom Institut für Kommunikation und Navigation, DLR entwickelt wurde. Der zweite Vorschlag, LDACS2 wird von einem Projektteam bestehend aus EGIS ASVIA, Helios SWEDAVIA und anderen entwickelt. LDACS2 folgt einem single carrier Steuerung mit einer GMSK Modulation. Beide Systeme sind für das Bedienen des aeronautischen Teils des L-Band (960-1164 MHz) gedacht. Diese Frequenz wird jedoch bereits von verschiedenen aeronautischen alte Systemen wie z.B. zivile Luftfahrtnavigation DME oder militärische Kommunikationssystemen (vereinigtes taktisches Informationsverteilungssystem JTIDS) eingesetzt. Darüber hinaus, LDACS ist offen für in der Luft befindlich Empfangsstörungen. Ein entscheidender Punkt im Auswahlprozess für eine der LDACS Systeme ist die Gewährleistung für das Nebeneinander von LDACS und des legacy Systems. Einerseits muss bewiesen werden, dass LDACS nur einen geringen Einfluss auf das legacy System hat. Andererseits muss eine verlässliche Funktion trotz Empfangsstörung (Beeinträchtigung) gewährleistet werden. In dieser Masterarbeit ist die Leistung von LDACS2 analysiert. Die Aufgabe umfasst einige theoretische Überlegungen für Ermittlungen von Kapazität, spektrale Leistungsfähigkeit, Skalierbarkeit und die mögliche Zahl gleichzeitiger Nutzer. Das Ergebnis zeigt die Beschränkung der angebotenen bit rates pro Nutzer gemäß der limitierten Bandbreite. Jedoch für gering bis mittelmäßigen Inanspruchnahme von Anwendern, die angebotenen bit rates sind innerhalb einer akzeptablen Reichweite. Der Hauptteil dieser Arbeit befasst sich mit der Anwendung des LDACS2 Systems gemäß der Simulations-Software. Das umfasst die gesamte physikalische Schichtung und die grundlegenden Teile der höheren Schichtung. Besonderer Schwerpunkt ist auf die Anwendung und Beurteilung von wirksamen Kanal Entzerrung Algorithms, Analyse und Auswertung. Neben AWGN Kanälen wurden auch praxisbezogenen Luftfahrtfrequenzen angewandt. Es stellte sich heraus, dass das Kanalkodierung in dieser Ausführung nicht genügend.Ilmenau, Techn. Univ., Masterarbeit, 201

The development of an error-correcting scheme for use with a six-tone HF modem

This thesis describes the development of an error correcting system for a H.F. modem employing 6-tone Multi-Frequency Shift Keying (MFSK) as its modulation scheme. The modulation scheme was chosen to be compatible with equipment already in service and to eliminate the need to modify the existing communications infrastructure. A convolutional code together with either Viterbi decoding or Fano decoding is chosen to provide the error correction because of the potential power of such codes and because it is possible for these combinations of code and decoding method to work with any alphabet size. To detect whether correction has been successful a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) is embedded within the data block before encoding.A method of using a convolutional code to provide variable rate is presented. The method uses a systematic code so that it is possible for the scheme to have a quick look to see if the first data transmission has been received error free. A search for good codes is undertaken and the effect the alphabet size has on the code spectra discussed. It is shown that a good generator sequence for a binary code is also a good generator sequence for non-binary codes.To decode the convolutional code both the Viterbi maximum likelihood decoder and the Fano sequential decoder are studied. It is argued that the Fano sequential decoder is the better choice for this application because it makes better use of system resources which will be limited in the field equipment. It is also shown that the performance of multi-level codes is better than binary codes and that an alphabet size of around 6 is optimum.The throughput of the variable rate scheme and a number of fixed rate schemes is examined. It is shown that the variable rate scheme provides the best throughput at all data rates and that the throughput improvement at the higher data rates is greatest. The effect of interleaving is also examined and results presented.To support the variable rate scheme a protocol is developed that can be used on practical H.F. channels. The potential problems with errors on both the forward and return channel are analysed and mechanisms to deal with these built-in

Performance Analysis Of A Cellular System Using C-Ofdm Techniques

The basic idea of COFDM is to split the modulation samples of incoming data stream onto a large number of carriers instead of modulating a unique carrier. Therefore, COFDM is an effective technique for combating multi-path fading and for highbit- rate transmission over wireless channel. In a single carrier system a frequency Selective fading can cause the entire transmission link to fail, but in an COFDM multi carrier system, only a small percentage of the sub-carriers will be corrupted. Frequency and time interleaving in conjunction with forward error correction coding can then be used to correct for erroneous subcarriers. The background information with the aim to provide an intuitive explanation of our research motivation. C-OFDM is the modulation scheme of choice , as enshrined in International standard for all forms of digital broadcasting both audio and video and including satellite, terrestrial, and cable. In the existing standard the “coding” referred to consists of an inner convolutional code concatenated with an outer R-S code; here in this thesis, we replace the inner code with the coding like space time trellis code for analysi

WIMAX 802.16 PHYSICAL LAYER IMPLEMENTATION AND WIMAX COVERAGE AND PLANNING.

Over the last decade, the impact of wireless communication on the way we live and carry out business has been surpassed only by impact of the internet. But wireless communications is still in its infancy and the next stage of its development will be supplementing or replacing network infrastructure that was traditionally wired. The advent and adoption of the computer and the myriad software packages available for it offered the ability to generate a new wave of communication combining art, pictures, music and words into a targeted multimedia presentation. These presentations are large so that is requires higher bandwidth transmission facilities. Coupling this with the need for mobility, the solution would be wireless data delivery putting in consideration the bandwidth request. WiMAX technology is based on the IEEE 802.16 standard, it was only recently when the first IEEE 802.16 based equipment broadband began to enter the market. The additional spectrum, bandwidth and throughout capabilities of 802.16 will remarkably improve wireless data delivery and should allows even more wireless data service areas to be deployed economically. In this Final Year Project, a study about the IEEE 802.16 standard and mainly concentrate on the 802.16 PHY Layer behaviors was performed. A Simulink based model for the 802.16 PHY Layer was built for simulation and performance evaluation of WiMAX. MATLA