Application of Optimization Techniques to Spectrally Modulated, Spectrally Encoded Waveform Design

A design process is demonstrated for a coexistent scenario containing Spectrally Modulated, Spectrally Encoded (SMSE) and Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) signals. Coexistent SMSE-DSSS designs are addressed under both perfect and imperfect DSSS code tracking conditions using a non-coherent delay-lock loop (DLL). Under both conditions, the number of SMSE subcarriers and subcarrier spacing are the optimization variables of interest. For perfect DLL code tracking conditions, the GA and RSM optimization processes are considered independently with the objective function being end-to-end DSSS bit error rate. A hybrid GA-RSM optimization process is used under more realistic imperfect DLL code tracking conditions. In this case, optimization is accomplished using a correlation degradation metric with the GA process being first applied to generate a “coarse” solution followed by RSM processing which provides the final optimized solution. This work has successfully expanded the practical utility of a previously developed tool, the original SMSE framework, by demonstrating a more efficient, structured means for coexistent waveform design that replaces previous trial and error methods

Channel Sounding for the Masses: Low Complexity GNU 802.11b Channel Impulse Response Estimation

New techniques in cross-layer wireless networks are building demand for ubiquitous channel sounding, that is, the capability to measure channel impulse response (CIR) with any standard wireless network and node. Towards that goal, we present a software-defined IEEE 802.11b receiver and CIR estimation system with little additional computational complexity compared to 802.11b reception alone. The system implementation, using the universal software radio peripheral (USRP) and GNU Radio, is described and compared to previous work. By overcoming computational limitations and performing direct-sequence spread-spectrum (DS-SS) matched filtering on the USRP, we enable high-quality yet inexpensive CIR estimation. We validate the channel sounder and present a drive test campaign which measures hundreds of channels between WiFi access points and an in-vehicle receiver in urban and suburban areas

Passive radar based on WiFi transmissions: signal processing schemes and experimental results

Aim of this work is to study innovative techniques and processing strategies for a new passive sensor for short range surveillance. The principle of work of the sensor will be based on the passive radar principle, and WiFi transmissions - which usually provide Internet access within local areas - will be exploited by the passive sensor to detect, localize and classify targets

Passive radar based on WiFi transmissions: signal processing schemes and experimental results

Aim of this work is to study innovative techniques and processing strategies for a new passive sensor for short range surveillance. The principle of work of the sensor will be based on the passive radar principle, and WiFi transmissions - which usually provide Internet access within local areas - will be exploited by the passive sensor to detect, localize and classify targets

Strategies for Devising Automatic Signal Recognition Algorithms in a Shared Radio Environment

In an increasingly congested and complex radio environment interference is to be expected, which poses problems for Automatic Signal Recognition (ASR) systems. This thesis explores strategies for improving ASR performance in the presence of interference. The thesis breaks the overall research question down into a number of subquestions and explores each of these in turn. A Phase-symmetric Cross Recurrence Plot is developed and used to show how a radio signal can be manipulated to separate information about the modulation from the information being carried. The Logarithmic Cyclic frequency Domain Profile is introduced to illustrate how a logarithmic representation can be used for analysing mixtures of signals with very different cyclic frequencies. After defining a canonical ASR system architecture, the concepts of an Ideal Feature and Interference Selectivity are introduced and applied to typical features used in ASR processing. Finally it is shown how these algorithmic developments can be combined in a Bayesian chain implementation that can accommodate a wide variety of feature extraction algorithms. It is concluded that future ASR systems will require features that can handle a wide range of signal types with much higher levels of interference selectivity if they are to achieve acceptable performance in shared spectrum bands. Intelligent segmentation is shown to be a requirement for future ASR systems unless features can be developed that have near ideal performance

Automatic transmit power control for power efficient communications in UAS

Nowadays, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have become one of the most popular tools that can be used in commercial, scientific, agricultural and military applications. As drones become faster, smaller and cheaper, with the ability to add payloads, the usage of the drone can be versatile. In most of the cases, unmanned aerials systems (UAS) are equipped with a wireless communication system to establish a link with the ground control station to transfer the control commands, video stream, and payload data. However, with the limited onboard calculation resources in the UAS, and the growing size and volume of the payload data, computational complex signal processing such as deep learning cannot be easily done on the drone. Hence, in many drone applications, the UAS is just a tool for capturing and storing data, and then the data is post-processed off-line in a more powerful computing device. The other solution is to stream payload data to the ground control station (GCS) and let the powerful computer on the ground station to handle these data in real-time. With the development of communication techniques such as orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmissions, it is possible to increase the spectral efficiency over large bandwidths and consequently achieve high transmission rates. However, the drone and the communication system are usually being designed separately, which means that regardless of the situation of the drone, the communication system is working independently to provide the data link. Consequently, by taking into account the position of the drone, the communication system has some room to optimize the link budget efficiency. In this master thesis, a power-efficient wireless communication downlink for UAS has been designed. It is achieved by developing an automatic transmit power control system and a custom OFDM communication system. The work has been divided into three parts: research of the drone communication system, an optimized communication system design and finally, FPGA implementation. In the first part, an overview on commercial drone communication schemes is presented and discussed. The advantages and disadvantages shown are the source of inspiration for improvement. With these ideas, an optimized scheme is presented. In the second part, an automatic transmit power control system for UAV wireless communication and a power-efficient OFDM downlink scheme are proposed. The automatic transmit power control system can estimate the required power level by the relative position between the drone and the GCS and then inform the system to adjust the power amplifier (PA) gain and power supply settings. To obtain high power efficiency for different output power levels, a searching strategy has been applied to the PA testbed to find out the best voltage supply and gain configurations. Besides, the OFDM signal generation developed in Python can encode data bytes to the baseband signal for testing purpose. Digital predistortion (DPD) linearization has been included in the transmitter’s design to guarantee the signal linearity. In the third part, two core algorithms: IFFT and LUT-based DPD, have been implemented in the FPGA platform to meet the real-time and high-speed I/O requirements. By using the high-level synthesis design process provided by Xilinx Corp, the algorithms are implemented as reusable IP blocks. The conclusion of the project is given in the end, including the summary of the proposed drone communication system and envisioning possible future lines of research

Simulación de una cadena de comunicaciones DS-CDMA - Simulació d’una cadena de comunicacions DS-CDMA

Català: En aquest projecte s'ha analitzat e implementat un sistema basat amb DSSS-CDMA amb un receptor comú y diversos transmissors sobre una plataforma modular en Matlab, essent aquesta una eina de validació teòrica. S'ha primat aquesta per sobre d'una implementació en DSP principalment pel cost ecònomic de les plaques DSP. Així, s'ha decidit fer una implementació en Matlab amb les restriccions pròpies d'una placa DSP. El principal objectiu del projecte es la validació del sistema mitjançant la simulació a nivell de mostra sense restriccions de memòria. El proper pas seria la implementació en plaques DSP, peró això s'escapa del objectiu d'aquest projecte. És per això que s'ha dissenyat un sistema que pugi processar les dades amb pocs recursos mitjançant Matlab, tots marcats per una serie de variables. El transmissor es composa de diversos mòduls invariants que son el codificador, modulador, spreader, zero padder, pols conformador i el up converter que estan encadenats per generar la senyal a transmetre per cada un dels diversos usuaris. Totes aquestes senyals passen per un canal d'esvaniment lent amb soroll Gaussià blanc que modelitza un medi de comunicacions mòbil. Finalment el receptor rep totes les senyals y les processa en una serie de mòduls independents formats per un filtre pas baix, downconverter, filtre adaptat, sincronitzador, downsampler, equalitzador, despreader, demodulador y decodificador. En aquest treball es pot observar en la secció de Resultats les captures de la senyal a cada una de les diverses fases seguides d'una breu explicació. Finalment es tracten les conclusions i les properes vies d'investigació.Castellano: En este proyecto se ha analizado e implementado un sistema basado en DSSS-CDMA con un receptor común y varios transmisores sobre una plataforma modular en Matlab, siendo ésta una herramienta de validación teórica. Se ha primado esta sobre una implementación en DSP por el coste económico de las placas DSP. Así que se ha decidido hacer una implementación en Matlab con las constricciones propias de una placa DSP. El objetivo principal del proyecto es la validación del sistema mediante la simulación a nivel de muestra sin restricciones de memoria. El siguiente paso sería la implementación en placas DSP pero esto se escapa del objetivo de este proyecto. Para ello se ha diseñado un sistema que pueda procesar los datos con pocos recursos en Matlab, marcados por una serie de variables. El transmisor se compone de varios módulos invariantes que son el codificador, modulador, spreader, zero padder, pulse shaper y el up converter que encadenados generan la señal a transmitir de cada uno de los distintos usuarios. Todas estas señales pasan por un canal con desvanecimientos lentos y ruido aditivo gaussiano que modeliza un medio de comunicaciones móvil. Finalmente el receptor recibe todas las señales y las procesa en una serie de módulos independientes formados por un filtro paso bajo, downconverter, filtro adaptado, sincronizador, downsampler, equalizador, despreader, demodulador y decodificador. En este trabajo se puede observar en la sección Resultados las capturas de la señal en cada una de las distintas fases seguida de una breve explicación. Para finalmente llegar a la sección de Conclusiones y Futuras líneas de investigación.English: This project has analyzed and implemented a system based on DS-CDMA with a common receiver and multiple transmitters on a modular platform in Matlab, which is used for theoretical validation tool. This platform has been chosen over a DSP implementation due to the economic cost of DSP boards. So, it was decided to implement it using Matlab considering the inherent constraints in a DSP board. Project's main objective is to validate this system by having a simulation at a sample level which has no memory constraints. The next step would be to implement this in DSP boards; however this is beyond the scope of this project. A system has been designed that can process data with few resources in Matlab environment. The system developed is highly configurable using some input parameters. The transmitter consists of several modules that are invariant which are encoder, modulator, spreader, zero padder, pulse shaper and converter. These chained modules generate each user transmitted signal. Once these transmittersâ signals have been generated, they pass through a slowly fading channel with additive Gaussian noise which models a means of mobile communications. Ultimately the receiver gets all signals and processes them in a series of independent modules consisting of a low pass filter, downconverter, matched filter, synchronizer, downsampler, equalizer, despreader, demodulator and decoder. This work can be seen in the â Resultsâ section where there are screens of the signal in each of the phases followed by a brief justification