Differential Modulation and Non-Coherent Detection in Wireless Relay Networks

The technique of cooperative communications is finding its way in the next generations of many wireless communication applications. Due to the distributed nature of cooperative networks, acquiring fading channels information for coherent detection is more challenging than in the traditional point-to-point communications. To bypass the requirement of channel information, differential modulation together with non-coherent detection can be deployed. This thesis is concerned with various issues related to differential modulation and non-coherent detection in cooperative networks. Specifically, the thesis examines the behaviour and robustness of non-coherent detection in mobile environments (i.e., time-varying channels). The amount of channel variation is related to the normalized Doppler shift which is a function of user's mobility. The Doppler shift is used to distinguish between slow time-varying (slow-fading) and rapid time-varying (fast-fading) channels. The performance of several important relay topologies, including single-branch and multi-branch dual-hop relaying with/without a direct link that employ amplify-and-forward relaying and two-symbol non-coherent detection, is analyzed. For this purpose, a time-series model is developed for characterizing the time-varying nature of the cascaded channel encountered in amplify-and-forward relaying.Comment: PhD Dissertatio

Esquemas distribuídos para seleção de múltiplas antenas em redes com retransmissores do tipo amplifica-e-encaminha

Orientador: José Cândido Silveira Santos FilhoTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Elétrica e de ComputaçãoResumo: A seleção de antena na transmissão tem sido apresentada como uma estratégia promissora para explorar os benefícios do uso de múltiplas antenas em sistemas de comunicações com retransmissores. No entanto, essa abordagem pode exigir um montante considerável de estimações de canal, transmissões de realimentação e atraso, dado que a sua implementação ótima e centralizada requer o monitoramento do estado do canal de todos os enlaces. Para aliviar essas deficiências, este trabalho propõe e analisa um conjunto de esquemas subótimos de seleção de antena na transmissão para sistemas com retransmissores do tipo amplifica-e-encaminha, os quais podem ser implementados de uma forma distribuída. Nos esquemas propostos, a antena é selecionada com base na informação local do estado de canal que está disponível na fonte, requerendo, portanto, um atraso e uma carga de realimentação pequenos e constantes. Tal abordagem é considerada em uso conjunto com diferentes técnicas, incluindo métodos de combinação de diversidade (combinação por máxima razão e combinação por seleção) no destino, protocolos de ganho fixo ou variável no relay, e transceptores com múltiplas antenas no relay. Além disso, para o caso particular em que o retransmissor tem ganho fixo e uma única antena, considera-se também o uso de um mecanismo de seleção de enlace na fonte. Para cada caso, o desempenho do sistema é avaliado em termos de probabilidade de outage, eficiência espectral e/ou vazão. O foco principal é direcionado à probabilidade de outage, para a qual são deduzidas expressões exatas e limitantes de desempenho. Uma análise assintótica é também efetuada para enriquecer a compreensão do comportamento do sistema quando operando sob alta relação sinal-ruído. Finalmente, como contribuição isolada, uma estratégia subótima e simples de alocação de potência é elaborada para um sistema com múltiplos retransmissores do tipo decodifica-e-encaminha, considerando-se enlaces com erros e codificação de fonte distribuídaAbstract: Transmit-antenna selection has been presented as a promising strategy for exploiting the benefits of multiple antennas in relaying communication systems. However, this approach may demand a considerable amount of channel estimations, feedback transmissions, and delay, since its optimal centralized implementation requires monitoring the channel state of all links. To alleviate those impairments, this work proposes and analyzes a set of suboptimal transmit-antenna selection schemes for amplify-and-forward relaying systems, which can be implemented in a distributed manner. In the proposed schemes, the antenna is selected based on the local channel-state information that is available at the source, thus requiring a low and constant delay/feedback overhead. Such an approach is considered along with different techniques, including diversity combining methods (maximal-ratio combining and selection combining) at the destination, fixed- and variable-gain protocols at the relay, and multi-antenna transceivers at the relay. A link-selection mechanism at the source is also considered for the special case of a single-antenna fixed-gain relay. For each case, the system performance is assessed in terms of outage probability, spectral efficiency, and/or throughput. The main focus is placed on the outage probability, for which exact or bound expressions are derived. An asymptotic analysis is also performed to provide further insights into the system behavior at high signal-to-noise ratio. Finally, as an isolated contribution, a simple suboptimal power allocation strategy is designed for a decode-and-forward multi-relay system with lossy intra-links and distributed source codingDoutoradoTelecomunicações e TelemáticaDoutora em Engenharia ElétricaCAPE

Performance Evaluation and Improvement of Wireless Amplify-and-Forward Cooperative-Based Systems under Nodes Mobility and Imperfect CSI Estimation Impacts

Cooperative communication techniques have been introduced in wireless networks to achieve spacial diversity-gain via the readiness of multiple users (via relays) to assist a source forwarding its data to a final destination. Cooperative communication techniques have shown their capability in improving system reliability and extending coverage area, and hence, it is believable that they will act as a promising technology for the coming fifth-generation (5G). Nevertheless, most existing work reported in literature on performance studies of wireless cooperative-based systems are based on the assumptions that the multipath fading channels among systems cooperating nodes are quasi-static (i.e., fading channels coefficients are constant over a number of consecutive signaling periods) and channel-state-information (CSI) estimation processes at systems receivers are perfect. Nowadays, however, there is an increased number of users riding high-speed public transportation vehicles and demanding wireless data services through their own terminals. As a result of such high mobility wireless terminals, the assumption of time-selective (i.e., non quasi-static) fading is more realistic. This time-selective fading environment would severely deteriorate the performance of existing wireless cooperative systems that have been already designed based on the assumption of quasi-static fading (low users speeds). Further, due to impairments associated with practical receiver tracking-loops implementation issues, it is more general to assume that CSI estimations at systems receiving sides are imperfect. The scope of this dissertation is to provide comprehensive performance evaluation study for several emerging models of wireless amplify-and-forward (AF) cooperative-based communication systems that operate under the effects of the more general scenarios of high nodes mobility (time-selective fading) and imperfect channel estimations. This performance evaluation study is conducted by deriving closed-form expressions for different performance metrics; including error probability, outage probability and channel capacity. Monte Carlo simulations are also provided to complement and validate the analytical analyses. All of the obtained results in this dissertation are novel and general for mobile as well as non-moving nodes and for imperfect as well as perfect CSI estimations. Moreover, in this dissertation we develop innovative and applicable solutions and receiver designs that are capable of mitigating the detrimental impacts of the high nodes mobility on the performance of the cooperative system models under study

Adaptive relay techniques for OFDM-based cooperative communication systems

Cooperative communication has been considered as a cost-effective manner to exploit the spatial diversity, improve the quality-of-service and extend transmission coverage. However, there are many challenges faced by cooperative systems which use relays to forward signals to the destination, such as the accumulation of multipath channels, complex resource allocation with the bidirectional asymmetric traffic and reduction of transmission efficiency caused by additional relay overhead. In this thesis, we aim to address the above challenges of cooperative communications, and design the efficient relay systems. Starting with the channel accumulation problem in the amplify-and-forward relay system, we proposed two adaptive schemes for single/multiple-relay networks respectively. These schemes exploit an adaptive guard interval (GI) technique to cover the accumulated delay spread and enhance the transmission efficiency by limiting the overhead. The proposed GI scheme can be implemented without any extra control signal. Extending the adaptive GI scheme to multiple-relay systems, we propose a relay selection strategy which achieves the trade-off between the transmission reliability and overhead by considering both the channel gain and the accumulated delay spread. We then consider resource allocation problem in the two-way decode-and-forward relay system with asymmetric traffic loads. Two allocation algorithms are respectively investigated for time-division and frequency-division relay systems to maximize the end-to-end capacity of the two-way system under a capacity ratio constraint. For the frequency-division systems, a balanced end-to-end capacity is defined as the objective function which combines the requirements of maximizing the end-to-end capacity and achieving the capacity ratio. A suboptimal algorithm is proposed for the frequency-division systems which separates subcarrier allocation and time/power allocation. It can achieve the similar performance with the optimal one with reduced complexity. In order to further enhance the transmission reliability and maintaining low processing delay, we propose an equalize-and-forward (EF) relay scheme. The EF relay equalizes the channel between source and relay to eliminate the channel accumulation without signal regeneration. To reduce the processing time, an efficient parallel structure is applied in the EF relay. Numerical results show that the EF relay exhibits low outage probability at the same data rate as compared to AF and DF schemes

Multiple Symbol Double Differential Transmission for Amplify-and-Forward Cooperative Diversity Networks in Time-Varying Channel

In the cooperative diversity wireless networks, the task to perform cooperation communication amongst neighbouring nodes is very challenging. Subjected to rapidly increasing mobility of the nodes i.e. wireless devices in fast moving vehicles and trains, at the destination end the receiver may not ideally estimate the channel characteristics and frequency offsets. Due to these circumstances which results in time-varying channels, the performance network degrades drastically. In order to enhance the performance in such environment, Double Differential (DD) modulation employing multiple symbol based detection is proposed which takes mobility environment of different nodes into consideration. By utilizing the DD transmission approach, the channel properties and frequency offset estimation is omitted in the amplify-andforward cooperative networks. The MATLAB simulation and numerical analysis on Bit Error Rate (BER) are carried out with consideration on considering flat-fading (i.e. the frequency non-selective) Rayleigh channels and when frequency offsets. The results depict that the proposed method over fading channels without channel estimation requirements and in the presence of frequency offsets performs better as compared to the conventional DD transmission. Optimized power allocation is also carried out to enhance the network performance by minimizing the BER analytical expression. It is demonstrated that the proposed power allocation scheme offers enhancement over the equally distributed power allocation approach

Performance analysis of diversity techniques in wireless communication systems: Cooperative systems with CCI and MIMO-OFDM systems

This Dissertation analyzes the performance of ecient digital commu- nication systems, the performance analysis includes the bit error rate (BER) of dier- ent binary and M-ary modulation schemes, and the average channel capacity (ACC) under dierent adaptive transmission protocols, namely, the simultaneous power and rate adaptation protocol (OPRA), the optimal rate with xed power protocol (ORA), the channel inversion with xed rate protocol (CIFR), and the truncated channel in- version with xed transmit power protocol (CTIFR). In this dissertation, BER and ACC performance of interference-limited dual-hop decode-and-forward (DF) relay- ing cooperative systems with co-channel interference (CCI) at both the relay and destination nodes is analyzed in small-scale multipath Nakagami-m fading channels with arbitrary (integer as well as non-integer) values of m. This channel condition is assumed for both the desired signal as well as co-channel interfering signals. In addition, the practical case of unequal average fading powers between the two hops is assumed in the analysis. The analysis assumes an arbitrary number of indepen- dent and non-identically distributed (i.n.i.d.) interfering signals at both relay (R) and destination (D) nodes. Also, the work extended to the case when the receiver employs the maximum ratio combining (MRC) and the equal gain combining (EGC) schemes to exploit the diversity gain

Communications over fading channels with partial channel information : performance and design criteria

The effects of system parameters upon the performance are quantified under the assumption that some statistical information of the wireless fading channels is available. These results are useful in determining the optimal design of system parameters. Suboptimal receivers are designed for systems that are constrained in terms of implementation complexity. The achievable rates are investigated for a wireless communication system when neither the transmitter nor the receiver has prior knowledge of the channel state information (CSI). Quantitative results are provided for independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) Gaussian signals. A simple, low-duty-cycle signaling scheme is proposed to improve the information rates for low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and the optimal duty cycle is expressed as a function of the fading rate and SNR. It is demonstrated that the resource allocations and duty cycles developed for Gaussian signals can also be applied to systems using other signaling formats. The average SNR and outage probabilities are examined for amplify-and-forward cooperative relaying schemes in Rayleigh fading channels. Simple power allocation strategies are determined by using knowledge of the mean strengths of the channels. Suboptimal algorithms are proposed for cases that optimal receivers are difficult to implement. For systems with multiple transmit antennas, an iterative method is used to avoid the inversion of a data-dependent matrix in decision-directed channel estimation. When CSI is not available, two noncoherent detection algorithms are formulated based on the generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT). Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the use of GLRT-based detectors in systems with cooperative diversity