143 research outputs found
Wireless MIMO Switching
In a generic switching problem, a switching pattern consists of a one-to-one
mapping from a set of inputs to a set of outputs (i.e., a permutation). We
propose and investigate a wireless switching framework in which a multi-antenna
relay is responsible for switching traffic among a set of stations. We
refer to such a relay as a MIMO switch. With beamforming and linear detection,
the MIMO switch controls which stations are connected to which stations. Each
beamforming matrix realizes a permutation pattern among the stations. We refer
to the corresponding permutation matrix as a switch matrix. By scheduling a set
of different switch matrices, full connectivity among the stations can be
established. In this paper, we focus on "fair switching" in which equal amounts
of traffic are to be delivered for all ordered pairs of stations. In
particular, we investigate how the system throughput can be maximized. In
general, for large the number of possible switch matrices (i.e.,
permutations) is huge, making the scheduling problem combinatorially
challenging. We show that for N=4 and 5, only a subset of switch matrices
need to be considered in the scheduling problem to achieve good throughput. We
conjecture that this will be the case for large as well. This conjecture,
if valid, implies that for practical purposes, fair-switching scheduling is not
an intractable problem.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communicatio
Joint Phase Tracking and Channel Decoding for OFDM Physical-Layer Network Coding
This paper investigates the problem of joint phase tracking and channel
decoding in OFDM based Physical-layer Network Coding (PNC) systems. OFDM
signaling can obviate the need for tight time synchronization among multiple
simultaneous transmissions in the uplink of PNC systems. However, OFDM PNC
systems are susceptible to phase drifts caused by residual carrier frequency
offsets (CFOs). In the traditional OFDM system in which a receiver receives
from only one transmitter, pilot tones are employed to aid phase tracking. In
OFDM PNC systems, multiple transmitters transmit to a receiver, and these pilot
tones must be shared among the multiple transmitters. This reduces the number
of pilots that can be used by each transmitting node. Phase tracking in OFDM
PNC is more challenging as a result. To overcome the degradation due to the
reduced number of per-node pilots, this work supplements the pilots with the
channel information contained in the data. In particular, we propose to solve
the problems of phase tracking and channel decoding jointly. Our solution
consists of the use of the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for phase
tracking and the use of the belief propagation (BP) algorithm for channel
decoding. The two problems are solved jointly through iterative processing
between the EM and BP algorithms. Simulations and real experiments based on
software-defined radio show that the proposed method can improve phase tracking
as well as channel decoding performance.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure
Frequency-Asynchronous Multiuser Joint Channel-Parameter Estimation, CFO Compensation and Channel Decoding
This paper investigates a channel-coded multiuser system operated with
orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) and interleaved division
multiple-access (IDMA). To realize the potential advantage of OFDM-IDMA, two
challenges must be addressed. The first challenge is the estimation of multiple
channel parameters. An issue is how to contain the estimation errors of the
channel parameters of the multiple users, considering that the overall
estimation errors may increase with the number of users because the estimations
of their channel parameters are intertwined with each other. The second
challenge is that the transmitters of the multiple users may be driven by
different RF oscillators. The associated frequency asynchrony may cause
multiple CFOs at the receiver. Compared with a single-user receiver where the
single CFO can be compensated away, a particular difficulty for a multiuser
receiver is that it is not possible to compensate for all the multiple CFOs
simultaneously. To tackle the two challenges, we put forth a framework to solve
the problems of multiuser channel-parameter estimation, CFO compensation, and
channel decoding jointly and iteratively. The framework employs the space
alternating generalized expectation-maximization (SAGE) algortihm to decompose
the multisuser problem into multiple single-user problems, and the
expectation-conditional maximization (ECM) algorithm to tackle each of the
single-user subproblems. Iterative executions of SAGE and ECM in the framework
allow the two aforementioned challenges to be tackled in an optimal manner.
Simulations and real experiments based on software-defined radio indicate that,
compared with other approaches, our approach can achieve significant
performance gains.Comment: This work is accepted for publication by IEEE TVT at Jan. 201
Complex Linear Physical-Layer Network Coding
This paper presents the results of a comprehensive investigation of complex
linear physical-layer network (PNC) in two-way relay channels (TWRC). A
critical question at relay R is as follows: "Given channel gain ratio , where and are the complex channel gains from nodes A and
B to relay R, respectively, what is the optimal coefficients
that minimizes the symbol error rate (SER) of when
we attempt to detect in the presence of noise?" Our contributions with
respect to this question are as follows: (1) We put forth a general
Gaussian-integer formulation for complex linear PNC in which , and are elements of a finite field of Gaussian integers, that is,
the field of where is a Gaussian prime. Previous vector
formulation, in which , , and were represented by
-dimensional vectors and and were represented by matrices, corresponds to a subcase of our Gaussian-integer formulation where
is real prime only. Extension to Gaussian prime , where can be
complex, gives us a larger set of signal constellations to achieve different
rates at different SNR. (2) We show how to divide the complex plane of
into different Voronoi regions such that the within each Voronoi region
share the same optimal PNC mapping . We uncover the
structure of the Voronoi regions that allows us to compute a minimum-distance
metric that characterizes the SER of under optimal PNC mapping
. Overall, the contributions in (1) and (2) yield a
toolset for a comprehensive understanding of complex linear PNC in
. We believe investigation of linear PNC beyond
can follow the same approach.Comment: submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theor
Building Blocks of Physical-layer Network Coding
This paper investigates the fundamental building blocks of physical-layer
network coding (PNC). Most prior work on PNC focused on its application in a
simple two-way-relay channel (TWRC) consisting of three nodes only. Studies of
the application of PNC in general networks are relatively few. This paper is an
attempt to fill this gap. We put forth two ideas: 1) A general network can be
decomposed into small building blocks of PNC, referred to as the PNC atoms, for
scheduling of PNC transmissions. 2) We identify nine PNC atoms, with TWRC being
one of them. Three major results are as follows. First, using the decomposition
framework, the throughput performance of PNC is shown to be significantly
better than those of the traditional multi-hop scheme and the conventional
network coding scheme. For example, under heavy traffic volume, PNC can achieve
100% throughput gain relative to the traditional multi-hop scheme. Second, PNC
decomposition based on a variety of different PNC atoms can yield much better
performance than PNC decomposition based on the TWRC atom alone. Third, three
out of the nine atoms are most important to good performance. Specifically, the
decomposition based on these three atoms is good enough most of the time, and
it is not necessary to use the other six atoms.Comment: 38 pages, 7 figures, 10 tables, accepted by IEEE SECON 201
Wireless MIMO Switching with Network Coding
In a generic switching problem, a switching pattern consists of a one-to-one
mapping from a set of inputs to a set of outputs (i.e., a permutation). We
propose and investigate a wireless switching framework in which a multi-antenna
relay is responsible for switching traffic among a set of stations. We
refer to such a relay as a MIMO switch. With beamforming and linear detection,
the MIMO switch controls which stations are connected to which other stations.
Each beamforming matrix realizes a permutation pattern among the stations. We
refer to the corresponding permutation matrix as a switch matrix. By scheduling
a set of different switch matrices, full connectivity among the stations can be
established. In this paper, we focus on "fair switching" in which equal amounts
of traffic are to be delivered for all ordered pairs of stations. In
particular, we investigate how the system throughput can be maximized. In
general, for large the number of possible switch matrices (i.e.,
permutations) is huge, making the scheduling problem combinatorially
challenging. We show that for the cases of N=4 and 5, only a subset of
switch matrices need to be considered in the scheduling problem to achieve good
throughput. We conjecture that this will be the case for large as well.
This conjecture, if valid, implies that for practical purposes, fair-switching
scheduling is not an intractable problem. We also investigate MIMO switching
with physical-layer network coding in this paper. We find that it can improve
throughput appreciably.Comment: This manuscript is an extention work of our previous paper "Wireless
MIMO Switching" and also with some results of a talk given in CUHK. The major
extention is that physical-layer network coding is used and significantly
improves the throughput performanc
Asynchronous Convolutional-Coded Physical-Layer Network Coding
This paper investigates the decoding process of asynchronous
convolutional-coded physical-layer network coding (PNC) systems. Specifically,
we put forth a layered decoding framework for convolutional-coded PNC
consisting of three layers: symbol realignment layer, codeword realignment
layer, and joint channel-decoding network coding (Jt-CNC) decoding layer. Our
framework can deal with phase asynchrony and symbol arrival-time asynchrony
between the signals simultaneously transmitted by multiple sources. A salient
feature of this framework is that it can handle both fractional and integral
symbol offsets; previously proposed PNC decoding algorithms (e.g., XOR-CD and
reduced-state Viterbi algorithms) can only deal with fractional symbol offset.
Moreover, the Jt-CNC algorithm, based on belief propagation (BP), is
BER-optimal for synchronous PNC and near optimal for asynchronous PNC.
Extending beyond convolutional codes, we further generalize the Jt-CNC decoding
algorithm for all cyclic codes. Our simulation shows that Jt-CNC outperforms
the previously proposed XOR-CD algorithm and reduced-state Viterbi algorithm by
2dB for synchronous PNC. For phase-asynchronous PNC, Jt-CNC is 4dB better than
the other two algorithms. Importantly, for real wireless environment testing,
we have also implemented our decoding algorithm in a PNC system built on the
USRP software radio platform. Our experiment shows that the proposed Jt-CNC
decoder works well in practice.Comment: 28 pages, journal versio
Proportional Fairness in Multi-channel Multi-rate Wireless Networks-Part I: The Case of Deterministic Channels
This is Part I of a two-part paper series that studies the use of the
proportional fairness (PF) utility function as the basis for capacity
allocation and scheduling in multi-channel multi-rate wireless networks. The
contributions of Part I are threefold. (i) First, we lay down the theoretical
foundation for PF. Specifically, we present the fundamental properties and
physical/economic interpretation of PF. We show by general mathematical
arguments that PF leads to equal airtime allocation to users for the
single-channel case; and equal equivalent airtime allocation to users for the
multi-channel case, where the equivalent airtime enjoyed by a user is a
weighted sum of the airtimes enjoyed by the user on all channels, with the
weight of a channel being the price or value of that channel. We also establish
the Pareto efficiency of PF solutions. (ii) Second, we derive characteristics
of PF solutions that are useful for the construction of PF-optimization
algorithms. We present several PF-optimization algorithms, including a fast
algorithm that is amenable to parallel implementation. (iii) Third, we study
the use of PF utility for capacity allocation in large-scale WiFi networks
consisting of many adjacent wireless LANs. We find that the PF solution
simultaneously achieves higher system throughput, better fairness, and lower
outage probability with respect to the default solution given by today's 802.11
commercial products. Part II of this paper series extends our investigation to
the time-varying-channel case in which the data rates enjoyed by users over the
channels vary dynamically over tim
An Optimal Decoding Strategy for Physical-layer Network Coding over Multipath Fading Channels
We present an optimal decoder for physical-layer network coding (PNC) in a
multipath fading channels. Previous studies on PNC have largely focused on the
single path case. For PNC, multipath not only introduces inter-symbol
interference (ISI), but also cross-symbol interference (Cross-SI) between
signals simultaneously transmitted by multiple users. In this paper, we assume
the transmitters do not have channel state information (CSI). The relay in the
PNC system, however, has CSI. The relay makes use of a belief propagation (BP)
algorithm to decode the multipath-distorted signals received from multiple
users into a network-coded packet. We refer to our multipath decoding algorithm
as MP-PNC. Our simulation results show that, benchmarked against synchronous
PNC over a one-path channel, the bit error rate (BER) performance penalty of
MP-PNC under a two-tap ITU channel model can be kept within 0.5dB. Moreover, it
outperforms a MUD-XOR algorithm by 3dB -- MUD-XOR decodes the individual
information from both users explicitly before performing the XOR network-coding
mapping. Although the framework of fading-channel PNC presented in this paper
is demonstrated based on two-path and three-path channel models, our algorithm
can be easily extended to cases with more than three paths.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technolog
AlphaSeq: Sequence Discovery with Deep Reinforcement Learning
Sequences play an important role in many applications and systems.
Discovering sequences with desired properties has long been an interesting
intellectual pursuit. This paper puts forth a new paradigm, AlphaSeq, to
discover desired sequences algorithmically using deep reinforcement learning
(DRL) techniques. AlphaSeq treats the sequence discovery problem as an episodic
symbol-filling game, in which a player fills symbols in the vacant positions of
a sequence set sequentially during an episode of the game. Each episode ends
with a completely-filled sequence set, upon which a reward is given based on
the desirability of the sequence set. AlphaSeq models the game as a Markov
Decision Process (MDP), and adapts the DRL framework of AlphaGo to solve the
MDP. Sequences discovered improve progressively as AlphaSeq, starting as a
novice, learns to become an expert game player through many episodes of game
playing. Compared with traditional sequence construction by mathematical tools,
AlphaSeq is particularly suitable for problems with complex objectives
intractable to mathematical analysis. We demonstrate the searching capabilities
of AlphaSeq in two applications: 1) AlphaSeq successfully rediscovers a set of
ideal complementary codes that can zero-force all potential interferences in
multi-carrier CDMA systems. 2) AlphaSeq discovers new sequences that triple the
signal-to-interference ratio -- benchmarked against the well-known Legendre
sequence -- of a mismatched filter estimator in pulse compression radar
systems.Comment: 48 pages, 13 figure
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