A Near-Optimal Linear Crosstalk Canceler for VDSL

Crosstalk is the major source of performance degradation in VDSL. Several crosstalk cancelers have been proposed to address this. Unfortunately they suffer from error propagation, high complexity and long latency. In this paper we present a simple, linear zero forcing (ZF) crosstalk canceler. This design has a low complexity, no latency and does not suffer from error propagation. Furthermore, due to the well conditioned structure of the VDSL channel matrix, the ZF design causes negligible noise enhancement. A lower bound on the performance of the linear ZF canceler is derived. This allows performance to be predicted without explicit knowledge of the crosstalk channels, which simplies service provisioning considerably. This bound shows that the linear ZF canceler operates close to the single user bound. So the linear ZF canceler is a low complexity, low latency design with predictable, near-optimal performance. The combination of spectral optimization and crosstalk cancellation is also considered. Spectra optimization in a multi-access channel generally involves a highly complex optimization problem. Since the linear ZF canceler decouples transmission on each line, the spectrum on each modem can be optimized independently, leading to a signicant reduction in complexity.

FMCW Signals for Radar Imaging and Channel Sounding

A linear / stepped frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) signal has for a long time been used in radar and channel sounding. A novel FMCW waveform known as “Gated FMCW” signal is proposed in this thesis for the suppression of strong undesired signals in microwave radar applications, such as: through-the-wall, ground penetrating, and medical imaging radar. In these applications the crosstalk signal between antennas and the reflections form the early interface (wall, ground surface, or skin respectively) are much stronger in magnitude compared to the backscattered signal from the target. Consequently, if not suppressed they overshadow the target’s return making detection a difficult task. Moreover, these strong unwanted reflections limit the radar’s dynamic range and might saturate or block the receiver causing the reflection from actual targets (especially targets with low radar cross section) to appear as noise. The effectiveness of the proposed waveform as a suppression technique was investigated in various radar scenarios, through numerical simulations and experiments. Comparisons of the radar images obtained for the radar system operating with the standard linear FMCW signal and with the proposed Gated FMCW waveform are also made. In addition to the radar work the application of FMCW signals to radio propagation measurements and channel characterisation in the 60 GHz and 2-6 GHz frequency bands in indoor and outdoor environments is described. The data are used to predict the bit error rate performance of the in-house built measurement based channel simulator and the results are compared with the theoretical multipath channel simulator available in Matlab

Experimental Bayesian Quantum Phase Estimation on a Silicon Photonic Chip

Quantum phase estimation is a fundamental subroutine in many quantum algorithms, including Shor's factorization algorithm and quantum simulation. However, so far results have cast doubt on its practicability for near-term, non-fault tolerant, quantum devices. Here we report experimental results demonstrating that this intuition need not be true. We implement a recently proposed adaptive Bayesian approach to quantum phase estimation and use it to simulate molecular energies on a Silicon quantum photonic device. The approach is verified to be well suited for pre-threshold quantum processors by investigating its superior robustness to noise and decoherence compared to the iterative phase estimation algorithm. This shows a promising route to unlock the power of quantum phase estimation much sooner than previously believed

Study of spacecraft transponder power amplifier Final report

Communications satellite wideband transponder feasibility study with direct RF to RF CONVERSION and TWT in re-entrant mod

BICEP2 II: Experiment and Three-Year Data Set

We report on the design and performance of the BICEP2 instrument and on its three-year data set. BICEP2 was designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) on angular scales of 1 to 5 degrees ($\ell$=40-200), near the expected peak of the B-mode polarization signature of primordial gravitational waves from cosmic inflation. Measuring B-modes requires dramatic improvements in sensitivity combined with exquisite control of systematics. The BICEP2 telescope observed from the South Pole with a 26~cm aperture and cold, on-axis, refractive optics. BICEP2 also adopted a new detector design in which beam-defining slot antenna arrays couple to transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers, all fabricated on a common substrate. The antenna-coupled TES detectors supported scalable fabrication and multiplexed readout that allowed BICEP2 to achieve a high detector count of 500 bolometers at 150 GHz, giving unprecedented sensitivity to B-modes at degree angular scales. After optimization of detector and readout parameters, BICEP2 achieved an instrument noise-equivalent temperature of 15.8 $\mu$K sqrt(s). The full data set reached Stokes Q and U map depths of 87.2 nK in square-degree pixels (5.2 $\mu$K arcmin) over an effective area of 384 square degrees within a 1000 square degree field. These are the deepest CMB polarization maps at degree angular scales to date. The power spectrum analysis presented in a companion paper has resulted in a significant detection of B-mode polarization at degree scales.Comment: 30 pages, 24 figure

Range-resolved optical interferometric signal processing

The ability to identify the range of an interferometric signal is very useful in interferometry, allowing the suppression of parasitic signal components or permitting several signal sources to be multiplexed. Two novel range-resolved optical interferometric signal processing techniques, employing very different working principles, are theoretically described and experimentally demonstrated in this thesis. The first technique is based on code-division multiplexing (CDM), which is combined with single-sideband signal processing, resulting in a technique that, unlike prior work, only uses a single, regular electro-optic phase modulator to perform both range-based signal identification and interferometric phase evaluation. The second approach uses sinusoidal optical frequency modulation (SFM), induced by injection current modulation of a diode laser, to introduce range-dependent carriers to determine phase signals in interferometers of non-zero optical path difference. Here, a key innovation is the application of a smooth window function, which, when used together with a time-variant demodulation approach, allows optical path lengths of constituent interferometers to be continuously and independently variable, subject to a minimum separation, greatly increasing the practicality of the approach. Both techniques are applied to fibre segment interferometry, where fibre segments that act as long-gauge length interferometric sensors are formed between pairs of partial in-fibre reflectors. Using a regular single-mode laser diode, six fibre segments of length 12.5 cm are multiplexed with a quadrature bandwidth of 43 kHz and a phase noise floor of 0.19 mrad · Hz -0.5 using the SFM technique. In contrast, the 16.5 m spatial resolution achieved with the CDM technique points towards its applicability in medium-to-long range sensing. The SFM technique also allows high linearity, with cyclic errors as low as 1 mrad demonstrated, and with modelling indicating further room for improvement. Additionally, in an industrial measurement, the SFM technique is applied to single-beam, multi-surface vibrometry, allowing simultaneous differential measurements between two vibrating surfaces

A Near-Optimal Linear Crosstalk Canceler for Upstream VDSL

Crosstalk is the major source of performance degradation in VDSL. Several crosstalk cancelers have been proposed to address this. Unfortunately, they suffer from error propagation, high complexity, and long latency. This paper presents a simple, linear zero-forcing (ZF) crosstalk canceler. This design has a low complexity and no latency and does not suffer from error propagation. Furthermore, due to the well-conditioned structure of the VDSL channel matrix, the ZF design causes negligible noise enhancement. A lower bound on the performance of the linear ZF canceler is derived. This allows performance to be predicted without explicit knowledge of the crosstalk channels, which simplifies service provisioning considerably. This bound shows that the linear ZF canceler operates close to the single-user bound. Therefore, the linear ZF canceler is a low-complexity, low-latency design with predictable near-optimal performance. The combination of spectral optimization and crosstalk cancellation is also considered. Spectra optimization in a multiaccess channel generally involves a complex optimization problem. Since the linear ZF canceler decouples transmission on each line, the spectrum on each modem can be optimized independently, leading to a significant reduction in complexity