Error Correction For Automotive Telematics Systems

One benefit of data communication over the voice channel of the cellular network is to reliably transmit real-time high priority data in case of life critical situations. An important implementation of this use-case is the pan-European eCall automotive standard, which has already been deployed since 2018. This is the first international standard for mobile emergency call that was adopted by multiple regions in Europe and the world. Other countries in the world are currently working on deploying a similar emergency communication system, such as in Russia and China. Moreover, many experiments and road tests are conducted yearly to validate and improve the requirements of the system. The results have proven that the requirements are unachievable thus far, with a success rate of emergency data delivery of only 70%. The eCall in-band modem transmits emergency information from the in-vehicle system (IVS) over the voice channel of the circuit switch real time communication system to the public safety answering point (PSAP) in case of a collision. The voice channel is characterized by the non-linear vocoder which is designed to compress speech waveforms. In addition, multipath fading, caused by the surrounding buildings and hills, results in severe signal distortion and causes delays in the transmission of the emergency information. Therefore, to reliably transmit data over the voice channels, the in-band modem modulates the data into speech-like (SL) waveforms, and employs a powerful forward error correcting (FEC) code to secure the real-time transmission. In this dissertation, the Turbo coded performance of the eCall in-band modem is first evaluated through the adaptive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel and the adaptive multi-rate (AMR) voice channel. The modulation used is biorthogonal pulse position modulation (BPPM). Simulations are conducted for both the fast and robust eCall modem. The results show that the distortion added by the vocoder is significantly large and degrades the system performance. In addition, the robust modem performs better than the fast modem. For instance, to achieve a bit error rate (BER) of 10^{-6} using the AMR compression rate of 7.4 kbps, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) required is 5.5 dB for the robust modem while a SNR of 7.5 dB is required for the fast modem. On the other hand, the fading effect is studied in the eCall channel. It was shown that the fading distribution does not follow a Rayleigh distribution. The performance of the in-band modem is evaluated through the AWGN, AMR and fading channel. The results are compared with a Rayleigh fading channel. The analysis shows that strong fading still exists in the voice channel after power control. The results explain the large delays and failure of the emergency data transmission to the PSAP. Thus, the eCall standard needs to re-evaluate their requirements in order to consider the impact of fading on the transmission of the modulated signals. The results can be directly applied to design real-time emergency communication systems, including modulation and coding

Near maximum likelihood multiuser receivers for direct sequence code division multiple access

Wideband wireless access based on direct-sequence code-division multiple access (DS-CDMA) has been adopted for third-generation mobile communications systems. Hence, DS-CDMA downlink communications systems form the platform for the work in this thesis. The principles of the spread spectrum concept and DS-CDMA technology are first outlined, including a description of the system model and the conventional receiver. The two classes of codes used in this system, namely spreading codes and forward error correction codes (including Turbo codes), are discussed. Due to the fact that practical communications channels are non-ideal, the performance of an individual user is interference limited. As a result, the capacity of the system is greatly restricted. Fortunately, multiuser detection is a scheme that can effectively counteract this multiple access interference. However, the optimum multiuser detection scheme is far too computationally intensive for practical use. Hence, the fundamental interest here is to retain the advantages of multiuser detection and simplify its implementation. The objective of the thesis is to investigate the optimum multiuser receiver, regarded on a chip level sampling basis. The aim is to reduce the complexity of the optimum receiver to a practical and implementable level while retaining its good performance. The thesis first reviews various existing multiuser receivers. The chip-based maximum likelihood sequence estimation (CBMLSE) detector is formulated and implemented. However, the number of states in the state-transition trellis is still exponential in the number of users. Complexity cannot be reduced substantially without changing the structure of the trellis. A new detector is proposed which folds up the original state-transition trellis such that the number of states involved is greatly reduced. The performance is close to that of the CBMLSE. The folded trellis detector (FTD) can also be used as a preselection stage for the CBMLSE. The FTD selects with high accuracy the few symbol vectors that are more likely to be transmitted. The CBMLSE is then used to determine the most likely symbol vector out of the small subset of vectors. The performance of this scheme is as good as the CBMLSE. The FTD is also applied in an iterative multiuser receiver that exploits the powerful iterative algorithm of Turbo codes

Evaluation of Overlay/underlay Waveform via SD-SMSE Framework for Enhancing Spectrum Efficiency

Recent studies have suggested that spectrum congestion is mainly due to the inefficient use of spectrum rather than its unavailability. Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) and Cognitive Radio (CR) are two terminologies which are used in the context of improved spectrum efficiency and usage. The DSA concept has been around for quite some time while the advent of CR has created a paradigm shift in wireless communications and instigated a change in FCC policy towards spectrum regulations. DSA can be broadly categorized as using a 1) Dynamic Exclusive Use Model, 2) Spectrum Commons or Open sharing model or 3) Hierarchical Access model. The hierarchical access model envisions primary licensed bands, to be opened up for secondary users, while inducing a minimum acceptable interference to primary users. Spectrum overlay and spectrum underlay technologies fall within the hierarchical model, and allow primary and secondary users to coexist while improving spectrum efficiency. Spectrum overlay in conjunction with the present CR model considers only the unused (white) spectral regions while in spectrum underlay the underused (gray) spectral regions are utilized. The underlay approach is similar to ultra wide band (UWB) and spread spectrum (SS) techniques utilize much wider spectrum and operate below the noise floor of primary users. Software defined radio (SDR) is considered a key CR enabling technology. Spectrally modulated, Spectrally encoded (SMSE) multi-carrier signals such as Orthogonal Frequency Domain Multiplexing (OFDM) and Multi-carrier Code Division Multiple Access (MCCDMA) are hailed as candidate CR waveforms. The SMSE structure supports and is well-suited for SDR based CR applications. This work began by developing a general soft decision (SD) CR framework, based on a previously developed SMSE framework that combines benefits of both the overlay and underlay techniques to improve spectrum efficiency and maximizing the channel capacity. The resultant SD-SMSE framework provides a user with considerable flexibility to choose overlay, underlay or hybrid overlay/underlay waveform depending on the scenario, situation or need. Overlay/Underlay SD-SMSE framework flexibility is demonstrated by applying it to a family of SMSE modulated signals such as OFDM, MCCDMA, Carrier Interferometry (CI) MCCDMA and Transform Domain Communication System (TDCS). Based on simulation results, a performance analysis of Overlay, Underlay and hybrid Overlay/Underlay waveforms are presented. Finally, the benefits of combining overlay/underlay techniques to improve spectrum efficiency and maximize channel capacity are addressed

Multiuser detection employing recurrent neural networks for DS-CDMA systems.

Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.Over the last decade, access to personal wireless communication networks has evolved to a point of necessity. Attached to the phenomenal growth of the telecommunications industry in recent times is an escalating demand for higher data rates and efficient spectrum utilization. This demand is fuelling the advancement of third generation (3G), as well as future, wireless networks. Current 3G technologies are adding a dimension of mobility to services that have become an integral part of modem everyday life. Wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) is the standardized multiple access scheme for 3G Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS). As an air interface solution, CDMA has received considerable interest over the past two decades and a great deal of current research is concerned with improving the application of CDMA in 3G systems. A factoring component of CDMA is multiuser detection (MUD), which is aimed at enhancing system capacity and performance, by optimally demodulating multiple interfering signals that overlap in time and frequency. This is a major research problem in multipoint-to-point communications. Due to the complexity associated with optimal maximum likelihood detection, many different sub-optimal solutions have been proposed. This focus of this dissertation is the application of neural networks for MUD, in a direct sequence CDMA (DS-CDMA) system. Specifically, it explores how the Hopfield recurrent neural network (RNN) can be employed to give yet another suboptimal solution to the optimization problem of MUD. There is great scope for neural networks in fields encompassing communications. This is primarily attributed to their non-linearity, adaptivity and key function as data classifiers. In the context of optimum multiuser detection, neural networks have been successfully employed to solve similar combinatorial optimization problems. The concepts of CDMA and MUD are discussed. The use of a vector-valued transmission model for DS-CDMA is illustrated, and common linear sub-optimal MUD schemes, as well as the maximum likelihood criterion, are reviewed. The performance of these sub-optimal MUD schemes is demonstrated. The Hopfield neural network (HNN) for combinatorial optimization is discussed. Basic concepts and techniques related to the field of statistical mechanics are introduced and it is shown how they may be employed to analyze neural classification. Stochastic techniques are considered in the context of improving the performance of the HNN. A neural-based receiver, which employs a stochastic HNN and a simulated annealing technique, is proposed. Its performance is analyzed in a communication channel that is affected by additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) by way of simulation. The performance of the proposed scheme is compared to that of the single-user matched filter, linear decorrelating and minimum mean-square error detectors, as well as the classical HNN and the stochastic Hopfield network (SHN) detectors. Concluding, the feasibility of neural networks (in this case the HNN) for MUD in a DS-CDMA system is explored by quantifying the relative performance of the proposed model using simulation results and in view of implementation issues