Frame synchronization for PSAM in AWGN and Rayleigh fading channels

Pilot Symbol Assisted Modulation (PSAM) is a good method to compensate for the channel fading effect in wireless mobile communications. In PSAM, known pilot symbols are periodically inserted into the transmitted data symbol stream and the receiver uses these symbols to derive amplitude and phase reference. One aspect of this procedure, which has not received much attention yet, is the frame synchronization, i.e. the method used by the receiver to locate the time position of the pilot symbols. In this study, two novel non-coherent frame synchronization methods are introduced in which only the magnitude of received signal is used to obtain the timing of the pilot symbol. The methods are evaluated for both AWGN and frequency non-selective slow Rayleigh fading channels. One synchronization technique is derived by standard maximum likelihood (ML) estimation formulation, and the other is obtained by using maximum a Posteriori probability (MAP) with a threshold test. Signal processing in the receiver uses simplifying approximations that rely on relatively high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as consistent with the reception of 16-QAM. Computer simulation has been used to test the acquisition time performance and the probability of false acquisition. Several lengths and patterns of pilot symbol sequences were tested where every 10th symbol was a pilot symbol and all other symbols were randomly selected data symbols. When compared with the other published synchronizers, results from this study show better performance in both AWGN and fading channels. Significantly better performance is observed in the presence of receiver frequency offsets

Communication Systems Design for Downhole Acoustic Telemetry

The goal of this dissertation is to design a reliable and efficient communication system for downhole acoustic communication. This system is expected to operate in two different modes. A broadband high data rate mode in case of transmission of an image or a video file and a narrowband low data rate mode in case of transmission of sensor readings. This communication system functions by acoustic vibration of the pipes and uses them as the channel instead of installing long cables in areas that are hard to reach. However, this channel has unique characteristics where it exhibits several passbands and stopbands across the frequency spectrum. The communication system is expected to get around those challenges in both modes of operation. In the broadband case, the system uses Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing to transmit data across multiple orthogonal frequencies spanning multiple passbands combined with an error-correction code to recover some of the losses caused by the channel. In the narrowband case, a short packet is transmitted at a low data rate where the signal spectrum can fit inside one passband. However, transmitting short packets induces a new synchronization problem. This dissertation investigates and explores in detail the problem of synchronization on short packets where each synchronization stage is examined. A simple algorithm that exploits the presence of error-correction codes is proposed for the frame synchronization stage and demonstrated to approach the optimal solution. Then, all synchronization stages are combined in order to study the effect of propagated errors caused by imperfect synchronization from one stage to the next and what can be done in the design of the packet and the receiver structure to mitigate those losses. The resulting synchronization procedure is applied to the pipe strings and demonstrated to achieve desirable levels of performance with the assistance of equalization at the receiver

A theoretical framework for soft-information-based synchronization in iterative (Turbo) receivers

This contribution considers turbo synchronization, that is to say, the use of soft data information to estimate parameters like carrier phase, frequency, or timing offsets of a modulated signal within an iterative data demodulator. In turbo synchronization, the receiver exploits the soft decisions computed at each turbo decoding iteration to provide a reliable estimate of some signal parameters. The aim of our paper is to show that such “turbo-estimation” approach can be regarded as a special case of the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. This leads to a general theoretical framework for turbo synchronization that allows to derive parameter estimation procedures for carrier phase and frequency offset, as well as for timing offset and signal amplitude. The proposed mathematical framework is illustrated by simulation results reported for the particular case of carrier phase and frequency offsets estimation of a turbo-coded 16-QAM signal

Feasibility study of 5G low-latency packet radio communications without preambles

This thesis deals with the feasibility of having lower latency for radio communication of short packets, which is the major traffic in the fifth generation (5G) of cellular systems. We will examine the possibility of using turbo synchronization instead of using a long preamble, which is needed for Data-Aided (DA) synchronization. The idea behind this is that short packets are required in low-latency applications. The overhead of preambles is very significant in case of short packets. Turbo synchronization allows to work with short or null preambles. The simulations will be run for a turbo synchronizer which has been implemented according to the Expectation Maximization (EM) formulation of the problem. The simulation results show that the implemented turbo synchronizer outperforms or attains the DA synchronizer in terms of reliability, accuracy and acquisition range for carrier phase synchronization. It means that the idea of eliminating the preamble from the short packet seems practical. The only downward is that there is a packet size limitation for the effective functionality of turbo synchronizer. Simulations indicate that the number of transmitted symbols should be higher than 128 coded symbols

New advances in synchronization of digital communication receivers

Synchronization is a challenging but very important task in communications. In digital communication systems, a hierarchy of synchronization problems has to be considered: carrier synchronization, symbol timing synchronization and frame synchronization. For bandwidth efficiency and burst transmission reasons, the former two synchronization steps tend to favor non-data aided (NDA or blind) techniques, while in general, the last one is usually solved by inserting repetitively known bits or words into the data sequence, and is referred to as a data-aided (DA) approach. Over the last two decades, extensive research work has been carried out to design nondata-aided timing recovery and carrier synchronization algorithms. Despite their importance and spread use, most of the existing blind synchronization algorithms are derived in an ad-hoc manner without exploiting optimally the entire available statistical information. In most cases their performance is evaluated by computer simulations, rigorous and complete performance analysis has not been performed yet. It turns out that a theoretical oriented approach is indispensable for studying the limit or bound of algorithms and comparing different methods. The main goal of this dissertation is to develop several novel signal processing frameworks that enable to analyze and improve the performance of the existing timing recovery and carrier synchronization algorithms. As byproducts of this analysis, unified methods for designing new computationally and statistically efficient (i.e., minimum variance estimators) blind feedforward synchronizers are developed. Our work consists of three tightly coupled research directions. First, a general and unified framework is proposed to develop optimal nonlinear least-squares (NLS) carrier recovery scheme for burst transmissions. A family of blind constellation-dependent optimal "matched" NLS carrier estimators is proposed for synchronization of burst transmissions fully modulated by PSK and QAM-constellations in additive white Gaussian noise channels. Second, a cyclostationary statistics based framework is proposed for designing computationally and statistically efficient robust blind symbol timing recovery for time-selective flat-fading channels. Lastly, dealing with the problem of frame synchronization, a simple and efficient data-aided approach is proposed for jointly estimating the frame boundary, the frequency-selective channel and the carrier frequency offset

Lunar contour mapping system /lucom/ final report, 5 aug. 1964 - 18 mar. 1965

Radar sensor system for acquisition of lunar surface data - Lunar contour mapping syste

Synchronization in digital communication systems: performance bounds and practical algorithms

Communication channels often transfer signals from different transmitters. To avoid interference the available frequency spectrum is divided into non-overlapping frequency bands (bandpass channels) and each transmitter is assigned to a different bandpass channel. The transmission of a signal over a bandpass channel requires a shift of its frequency-content to a frequency range that is compatible with the designated frequency band (modulation). At the receiver, the modulated signal is demodulated (frequency shifted back to the original frequency band) in order to recover the original signal. The modulation/demodulation process requires the presence of a locally generated sinusoidal signal at both the transmitter and the receiver. To enable a reliable information transfer, it is imperative that these two sinusoids are accurately synchronized. Recently, several powerful channel codes have been developed which enable reliable communication at a very low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). A by-product of these developments is that synchronization must now be performed at a SNR that is lower than ever before. Of course, this imposes high requirements on the synchronizer design. This doctoral thesis investigates to what extent (performance bounds) and in what way (practical algorithms) the structure that the channel code enforces upon the transmitted signal can be exploited to improve the synchronization accuracy at low SNR

COGNITIVE RADIO SOLUTION FOR IEEE 802.22

Current wireless systems suffer severe radio spectrum underutilization due to a number of problematic issues, including wasteful static spectrum allocations; fixed radio functionalities and architectures; and limited cooperation between network nodes. A significant number of research efforts aim to find alternative solutions to improve spectrum utilization. Cognitive radio based on software radio technology is one such novel approach, and the impending IEEE 802.22 air interface standard is the first based on such an approach. This standard aims to provide wireless services in wireless regional area network using TV spectrum white spaces. The cognitive radio devices employed feature two fundamental capabilities, namely supporting multiple modulations and data-rates based on wireless channel conditions and sensing a wireless spectrum. Spectrum sensing is a critical functionality with high computational complexity. Although the standard does not specify a spectrum sensing method, the sensing operation has inherent timing and accuracy constraints.This work proposes a framework for developing a cognitive radio system based on a small form factor software radio platform with limited memory resources and processing capabilities. The cognitive radio systems feature adaptive behavior based on wireless channel conditions and are compliant with the IEEE 802.22 sensing constraints. The resource limitations on implementation platforms post a variety of challenges to transceiver configurability and spectrum sensing. Overcoming these fundamental features on small form factors paves the way for portable cognitive radio devices and extends the range of cognitive radio applications.Several techniques are proposed to overcome resource limitation on a small form factor software radio platform based on a hybrid processing architecture comprised of a digital signal processor and a field programmable gate array. Hardware reuse and task partitioning over a number of processing devices are among the techniques used to realize a configurable radio transceiver that supports several communication modes, including modulations and data rates. In particular, these techniques are applied to build configurable modulation architecture and a configurable synchronization. A mode-switching architecture based on circular buffers is proposed to facilitate a reliable transitioning between different communication modes.The feasibility of efficient spectrum sensing based on a compressive sampling technique called "Fast Fourier Sampling" is examined. The configuration parameters are analyzed mathematically, and performance is evaluated using computer simulations for local spectrum sensing applications. The work proposed herein features a cooperative Fast Fourier sampling scheme to extend the narrowband and wideband sensing performance of this compressive sensing technique.The précis of this dissertation establishes the foundation of efficient cognitive radio implementation on small form factor software radio of hybrid processing architecture

Communication Systems Design for Downhole Acoustic Telemetry

The goal of this dissertation is to design a reliable and efficient communication system for downhole acoustic communication. This system is expected to operate in two different modes. A broadband high data rate mode in case of transmission of an image or a video file and a narrowband low data rate mode in case of transmission of sensor readings. This communication system functions by acoustic vibration of the pipes and uses them as the channel instead of installing long cables in areas that are hard to reach. However, this channel has unique characteristics where it exhibits several passbands and stopbands across the frequency spectrum. The communication system is expected to get around those challenges in both modes of operation. In the broadband case, the system uses Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing to transmit data across multiple orthogonal frequencies spanning multiple passbands combined with an error-correction code to recover some of the losses caused by the channel. In the narrowband case, a short packet is transmitted at a low data rate where the signal spectrum can fit inside one passband. However, transmitting short packets induces a new synchronization problem. This dissertation investigates and explores in detail the problem of synchronization on short packets where each synchronization stage is examined. A simple algorithm that exploits the presence of error-correction codes is proposed for the frame synchronization stage and demonstrated to approach the optimal solution. Then, all synchronization stages are combined in order to study the effect of propagated errors caused by imperfect synchronization from one stage to the next and what can be done in the design of the packet and the receiver structure to mitigate those losses. The resulting synchronization procedure is applied to the pipe strings and demonstrated to achieve desirable levels of performance with the assistance of equalization at the receiver