Búsqueda de la calidad en acción humanitaria. El papel de la tecnología.

El sector humanitario, sobre todo en la vertiente de emergencias, se mueve entre la apariencia de ser el que más ha incorporado el uso de tecnologías en el ámbito de la cooperación, y la realidad más habitual de moverse en la escasez, con unos medios precarios y no precisamente de última generación. El uso eficaz y eficiente de recursos es, pues, fundamental para asegurar la cobertura de las necesidades más básicas. Las tremendas disparidades en la asignación de recursos han dado lugar a muchas de las iniciativas de calidad de la acción humanitaria emprendidas en los últimos años, como el Proyecto Esfera o Qualité, entre otras. Este artículo pretende dar una panorámica global de estas cuestiones, analizando y poniendo en contexto el reto de conseguir una utilización adecuada de las tecnologías en la respuesta a las crisis.Peer Reviewe

Blind equalization of DS-CDMA and MC-CDMA modulations in time-variant frequency selective channels

The paper addresses the blind equalization problem of spread spectrum modulations in the presence of fast time-variant frequency-selective channels. The basic assumption of the paper is that the channel response exhibits fast changes. A second goal of the paper is to force the definition of a universal CDMA blind equalization scheme that is capable of performing for DS-CDMA or multi-carrier CDMA signal modulations without any modification in the equalizer. The formulation of the equalization scheme allows the consideration of temporal and/or spatial diversity front-end receivers. The result is a high-performance system that uses a deterministic blind criterion to equalize the channel, avoiding the use of stochastic methods. The proposed technique performs direct channel equalization without previous channel estimation. Although the proposed equalizer in this work performs equalization at chip rate, this paper suggests a solution to achieve equalization at lower rates.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Near-far resistant CML propagation delay estimation and multi-user detection for asynchronous DS-CDMA systems

Multi-user receivers in asynchronous direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) systems require the knowledge of several parameters such as timing delay between users. The goal of this work is to present a near-far resistant joint multi-user synchronization and detection algorithm for DS-CDMA systems. The solution is based on the conditional maximum likelihood (CML) estimation method (classically used in the context of sensor array processing) that leads to a fast convergence algorithm to estimate the time delays among users. At the same time the estimator implements the decorrelating detector, identifying the transmitted symbols for the different users.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Blind equalization based on spatial and temporal diversity in block coded modulations

Linear block codes can be applied in spatial and/or temporal diversity receivers in order to develop high performance schemes for blind equalization in mobile communications. The proposed technique uses the structure of the encoded transmitted information (with redundancy) to achieve equalization schemes based on a deterministic criterion. Simulations show that the proposed technique is more efficient than other schemes that follow similar equalizer structures. The result is an algorithm that provides the design of blind channel equalizers in low EbNo scenarios.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Redundancy in block coded modulations for channel equalization based on spatial and temporal diversity

Linear block codes in the complex field can be applied in spatial and/or temporal diversity receivers in order to develop high performance schemes for (almost-) blind equalization in mobile communications. The proposed technique uses the structure of the encoded transmitted information (with redundancy) to achieve equalization schemes based on a deterministic criterion. Simulations show that the proposed technique is more efficient than other schemes that follow similar equalizer structures. The result is an algorithm that provides the design of channel equalizers in low EbNo scenarios.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Diversity in mobile communications for blind detection of block-coded modulations

Spatial, temporal, and frequency diversity structures are analyzed to address the blind equalization problem in the presence of time-variant frequency selective channels. The aim of the paper is to present equalization schemes useful in front of fast changing channel responses. The best solution is a deterministic blind criterion that allows direct channel equalization and symbol detection. The main contribution of this paper is to present deterministic blind equalization schemes in CDMA systems (frequency diversity) to reduce the impact of the time-variant frequency selective channel.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

SINR profile for spectral efficiency optimization of SIC receivers in the many-user regime

© 2015 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.In dense wireless scenarios, and particularly under high traffic loads, the design of efficient random access protocols is necessary. Some candidate solutions are based on Direct- Sequence Spread Spectrum (DS-SS) combined with a Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC) demodulator, but the perfor- mance of these techniques is highly related to the distribution of the users received power. In that context, this paper presents a theoretical analysis to calculate the optimum user SINR profile at the decoder maximizing the spectral efficiency in bps/Hz for a specific modulation and practical Forward Error Correction (FEC) code. This solution is achieved by means of Variational Calculus operating in the asymptotic large-user case. Although a constant SINR function has been typically assumed in the literature (the one maximizing capacity), the theoretical results evidence that the optimum SINR profile must be an increasing function of the users received power. Its performance is compared with that of the uniform profile for two representative scenarios with different channel codes in a slightly overloaded system. The numerical results show that the optimum solution regulates the network load preventing the aggregate throughput from collapsing when the system is overloaded. In scenarios with a large number of transmitters, this optimum solution can be implemented in an uncoordinated manner with the knowledge of a few public system parameters.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Optimal power control law for equal-rate DS-CDMA networks governed by a successive soft interference cancellation scheme

©2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.This paper studies the throughput maximization of a dense multiple access network of low-rate subscribers that share the same practical Forward Error Correction (FEC) code and modulation scheme, and transmit to a central node that implements a Successive Soft Interference Cancellation (soft SIC) strategy in order to mitigate Multiple Access Interference (MAI). In the user-asymptotic case, we make use of Variational Calculus (VC) tools to derive, in terms of the Packet Error Rate (PER) of the shared encoder and the Residual Energy (RE) from imperfect cancellation, the optimum energy profile that maximizes the network spectral efficiency, when a sum power constraint at the SIC input is enforced. Comparative performance analyses using a representative encoder are carried out. Simulation results show the benefit of the adopted soft SIC scheme in front of other SIC strategies, obtaining relevant throughput gains under high traffic loads.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Channel-aware energy allocation for throughput maximization in massive low-rate multiple access

© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.A multiple access (MA) optimization technique for massive low-rate direct-sequence spread spectrum communications is analyzed in this work. A dense network of users transmitting at the same rate to a common central node under channelaware energy allocation is evaluated. At reception, successive interference cancellation (SIC) aided by channel decoding is adopted. Our contribution focuses on wireless scenarios involving a vast number of users for which the provided user-asymptotic model holds. Variational calculus (VC) is employed to derive the energy allocation function that, via user-power imbalance, maximizes the network spectral efficiency (SE) when perfect channel state information at transmission (CSIT) is available and both average and maximum per-user energy constraints are set. Monte Carlo simulations at chip-level of a SIC receiver using a real decoder assess the proposed optimization method.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Joint energy and rate allocation for successive interference cancellation in the finite blocklength regime

© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.This work addresses the optimization of the network spectral efficiency (SE) under successive interference cancellation (SIC) at a given blocklength n. We adopt a proof-of-concept satellite scenario where network users can vary their transmission power and select their transmission rate from a set of encoders, for which decoding is characterized by a known packet error rate (PER) function. In the large-system limit, we apply variational calculus (VC) to obtain the user-energy distribution, the assigned per-user rate and the SIC decoding order maximizing the network SE under a sum-power constraint at the SIC input. We analyze two encoder sets: (i) an infinite set of encoders achieving information-theoretic finite blocklength PER results over a continuum of code rates, where the large-n second order expansion of the maximal channel coding rate is used; (ii) a feasible finite set of encoders. Simulations quantify the performance gap between the two schemes.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft