Simple nonlinearity evaluation and modeling of low-noise amplifiers with application to radio astronomy receivers

This paper describes a comparative nonlinear analysis of low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) under different stimuli for use in astronomical applications. Wide-band Gaussian-noise input signals, together with the high values of gain required, make that figures of merit, such as the 1 dB compression (1 dBc) point of amplifiers, become crucial in the design process of radiometric receivers in order to guarantee the linearity in their nominal operation. The typical method to obtain the 1 dBc point is by using single-tone excitation signals to get the nonlinear amplitude to amplitude (AM-AM) characteristic but, as will be shown in the paper, in radiometers, the nature of the wide-band Gaussian-noise excitation signals makes the amplifiers present higher nonlinearity than when using single tone excitation signals. Therefore, in order to analyze the suitability of the LNA’s nominal operation, the 1 dBc point has to be obtained, but using realistic excitation signals. In this work, an analytical study of compression effects in amplifiers due to excitation signals composed of several tones is reported. Moreover, LNA nonlinear characteristics, as AM-AM, total distortion, and power to distortion ratio, have been obtained by simulation and measurement with wide-band Gaussian-noise excitation signals. This kind of signal can be considered as a limit case of a multitone signal, when the number of tones is very high. The work is illustrated by means of the extraction of realistic nonlinear characteristics, through simulation and measurement, of a 31 GHz back-end module LNA used in the radiometer of the QUIJOTE (Q U I JOint TEnerife) CMB experimen

Buffer-aided relaying improves both throughput and end-to-end delay

Buffer-aided relaying has recently attracted a lot of attention due to the improvement in the system throughput. However, a side effect usually deemed is that buffering at relay nodes results in the increase of packet delays. In this paper, we study the effect of buffering at relays on the end-to-end delay of users’ data, from the time they arrive at the source until delivery to the destination. We use simple discussions to provide an insight on the overall waiting time of the packets in the system, taking into account the queue dynamics both in the source and relay. We analyze the end-to-end delay in the relay networks with Bernoulli data arrivals and channel conditions and prove that the data packets experience lower average end-to-end delay in the buffer-aided relaying system compared with the conventional one. Moreover, using intuitive generalizations, we conclude that the use of buffers at relays improves not only throughput but ironically the average end-to-end packet delay. Through extensive simulations, we validate our analytical results for the system when the data arrival and channel condition processes follow Bernoulli distribution. Furthermore, via the simulations under the settings of practical systems, we confirm our intuition for the general scenarios.Applied Science, Faculty ofNon UBCElectrical and Computer Engineering, Department ofReviewedFacult

Utility-based efficient dynamic distributed resource allocation in buffer-aided relay-assisted OFDMA networks

In this paper, we study resource allocation in buffer-aided relay-assisted OFDMA networks. We consider utility-based stochastic optimization framework where there are constraints to be met either instantaneously or in average sense. Using the well-known Lyapunov drift-plus-penalty policy, we extract the instantaneous problem that needs to be solved in each slot to control the data admission and allocate the time slots, power, and subchannels. We propose the parameters that should be taken into account in utilizing the drift-plus-penalty policy in relay-assisted cellular networks, for providing fair data admission and satisfying the average power constraints. We introduce a low-complexity strategy for power and subchannel allocation and propose distributed and centralized algorithms to utilize it. Specifically, the proposed efficient dynamic distributed resource allocation (EDDRA) scheme is suitable for use in practice as it imposes less overhead on the system and splits the resource allocation tasks among the base station (BS) and the relays. Extensive simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed parameters in meeting the objective and the constraints of the studied problem. We also show that the proposed EDDRA scheme has close performance to the proposed centralized one and outperforms an existing centralized scheme.Applied Science, Faculty ofNon UBCElectrical and Computer Engineering, Department ofReviewedFacult