Erdal Panayirci

H Vincent Poor

P Takis Mathiopoulos

Pingzhi Fan

Springer - Publisher Connector

Special issue on broadband mobile communications at very high speeds

Fan et al. EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking 2012, 2012:279
http://jis.eurasipjournals.com/content/2012/1/279EDITORIAL Open AccessSpecial issue on broadband mobile
communications at very high speeds
Pingzhi Fan1*, Erdal Panayirci2, H Vincent Poor3 and P Takis Mathiopoulos4,5Future mobile communication systems aim at providing
very high-speed data transmission, even under very high
mobility scenarios such as high speed wheel-track trains
(up to 574.8 km/h test speed or 380 km/h commercial
speed), maglev trains (up to 581 km/h test speed or
431 km/h commercial speed), airplanes (about 400-
1000 km/h commercial speed), guided missiles (about
980–20,000 km/h) or spacecraft (at least 28,440 km/h to
remain on an earth orbit, at least 40,320 km/h to leave
earth). A related and particularly important commercial
application is the strong worldwide increasing demand
for broadband wireless communications in high speed
railways to provide information and onboard entertain-
ment services to passengers, train control, train dispatch,
train sensor status transmission, video surveillance, etc.
Consequently, increasing demand on data rates to sup-
port broadband high speed communication systems in the
presence of frequency selective fading channels with very
high mobilities has resulted in research on designing com-
putationally efficient yet faster new algorithms for channel
estimation, equalization and detection, as well as fast hand-
over, location update, modeling of rapidly time-varying
channels, fast power control and dedicated network archi-
tectures, etc. Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing
(OFDM) is becoming a backbone structure of such systems,
being standardized as the IEEE's 802.16 family - better
known as Mobile Worldwide Interoperability Microwave
Systems for Next-Generation Wireless Communication
Systems (WiMAX) - and by the Third-Generation Partner-
ship Project (3GPP) in the form of its Long-Term Evolution
(LTE) project. Both systems employ orthogonal frequency
division multiplexing/multiple access (OFDMA) as well as
a new single-carrier frequency-division multiple access
(SC-FDMA) format. To promote the IEEE 802.16 stan-
dards, recently, a high mobility feature has been intro-
duced (IEEE 802.16 m) to enable mobile broadband* Correspondence: pzfan@swjtu.edu.cn
1Institute of Mobile Communications, Southwest Jiaotong University,
Chengdu, Sichuan 610031, China
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
© 2012 Fan et al.; licensee Springer. This is an O
Attribution License (http://creativecommons.or
in any medium, provided the original work is pservices at vehicular speeds beyond 120 km/h. Since the
signal transmission under very high speed scenarios will in-
evitably experience serious deterioration, it is imperative to
develop key broadband mobile communication techniques
for such very high speed vehicles.
This special issue aims at putting together the major
achievements and developments in this field. There are 18
papers in this special issue, which have been organized into
three thematic groups. The first group of five papers deal
with the rapidly time-varying channel modeling and esti-
mation, the next group of seven papers address data trans-
mission under high mobility scenarios, and the last group
of six papers are related to fast handover schemes, loca-
tion prediction, etc.
Among the five papers dealing with channel modeling
and estimation, two papers are concerned with channel
estimation methods, namely, "Doubly Selective Channel
Estimation for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
(OFDM) Modulated Amplify-and-Forward Relay Networks
Using Superimposed Training” (Zhang Han), and "Channel
Estimation in OFDM Systems Operating under High
Mobility Using a Wiener Filter Combined with a Basis
Expansion Model” (Ke Zhong, et al.). The former proposes
a novel superimposed training (ST) strategy that allows the
destination node to separately obtain the channel informa-
tion of the source-relay link and the relay-destination link,
from which the optimal ST signals are derived by minimi-
zing the channel mean-square-error; and the latter pro-
poses to combine the Wiener filter (WF) with a basis
expansion model (BEM) to deal with channel estimation in
various mobile environments, especially in high speed cases.
The third paper, "A Highly Efficient Channel Sounding
Method Based on Cellular Communications for High-
Speed Railway Scenarios” (Liu Liu, et al.), proposes an effi-
cient channel sounding method based on a channel data re-
corder, by making use of the real time-dispersive channel
measurements conducted along Zhengzhou-Xi'an (ZX) and
Beijing-Tianjin (BT) high speed railways. The fourth paper,
"Iterative Equalization for OFDM Systems over Wideband
MSML Channels” (Tao Xu et al.), seeks to quantify thepen Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
g/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction
roperly cited.
Fan et al. EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking 2012, 2012:279 Page 2 of 3
http://jis.eurasipjournals.com/content/2012/1/279amount of interference resulting from wideband OFDM
channels, which are assumed to follow the multi-scale
multi-lag (MSML) model, then a conjugate gradient (CG)
algorithm is used to equalize the channel iteratively. In the
last paper of this group,"Frequency Tracking by the Method
of Least Squares Combined with Channel Estimation for
OFDM over Mobile Wireless Channels” (Rainfield Y Yen,
et al.), rather than a common maximum-likelihood (ML)
frequency tracking algorithm, least squares (LS) using
repeated OFDM training blocks is employed which requires
no channel knowledge, and can not only circumvent com-
plications of ML estimation, but also obviates the need for
the lengthy adaptive iteration process of joint estimation.
Concerning the seven papers related to the topic of
data transmission under high mobility scenarios, the first
paper, "Effect of Power and Rate Adaptation on the
Spectral Efficiency of an MQAM/OFDM System under
Very Fast Fading Channels” (Zhicheng Dong, et al.), pro-
poses an adaptive MQAM/OFDM system under fast fad-
ing channels, resulting in substantial gains in spectral
efficiency over the non-adaptive counterparts with per-
fect channel state information (CSI) or moderately im-
perfect CSI, and derives lower bounds on the maximum
spectral efficiency and a closed-form expression for the
average spectral efficiency of the proposed adaptive
OFDM system. In the paper "Optimal Pilot Symbol Power
Allocation under Time-variant Channels” (Michal Simko,
et al.), the issue of how to distribute available power
between data symbols and pilot symbols over time-varying
channels is considered in order to maximize the overall
throughput by choosing the post-equalization signal-
to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) as the cost function.
As a non-coherent transmission scheme that does not re-
quire CSI at either transmitters or receivers, unitary space-
time modulation is a promising technique that can be
applied in high mobility scenarios where the fading channel
parameters are changing too rapidly to be tracked and esti-
mated, which is the emphasis of the paper "Multi-cell
Cooperative Transmission Based on Unitary Space-time
Modulation” (Heng Liu, et al.). The next paper, "Successive
Interference Cancellation and MAP Decoding for Mobile
MIMO OFDM Systems and Their Convergence Behavior”
(Vamadevan Namboodiri, et al.). presents a suboptimal,
successive interference cancellation (SIC) method based on
maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) decoding over
doubly dispersive channels for OFDM MIMO systems.
With the appropriate use of the network topology, predict-
able location and speed information, Opportunistic beam-
forming (OBF) with dumb antennas, which does not
require channel feedback, is useful for high speed railway
applications. In the paper "Location Information-assisted
Opportunistic Beamforming in LTE Systems for High-speed
Railway” (Meng Cheng, et al.), two algorithms that can im-
prove OBF system performance significantly are presented.The sixth paper, "On the Applicability of Steerable Beams
in LTE-Advanced Networks with High User Mobility”
(Christos Papathanasiou, et al.), deals with the problem
of applying scanning narrow beams to LTE-Advanced
networks with fast moving mobiles, aiming at providing
low complexity hardware implementation and low power
consumption. The last paper in this group, "Realizing
Broadband Wireless Communication for High Speed
Trains” (Qinglin Luo, et al.), proposes a novel cloud-based
high speed train communication (C-HSTC) system frame-
work, featuring a new virtualized single cell design that
mitigates the impact of conventional handover failure
and guarantees continuous services. In conjunction with
this design it also proposes a highly efficient joint trans-
mit beamforming algorithm targeted at compensating
the inter-carrier interference (ICI) caused by Doppler
frequency shift due to mobility.
The six remaining papers deal with several fast hand-
over schemes and other topics. The paper "A CoMP
Soft Handover Scheme for LTE Systems in High Speed
Railway” (Wantuan Luo, et al.), proposes an optimized
handover scheme, in which the coordinated multiple
point transmission technology and dual vehicle station
coordination mechanism are applied to improve the
traditional hard handover performance of LTE. In net-
works with highly mobile users, the inter-relay handoffs
can occur very frequently, thus the paper "Inter-relay
Handoff in Two-hop Relaying Networks with Highly
Mobile Vehicles” (Di Wu, et al.), studies the inter-relay
handoff decision problem in a two-hop cellular network
with highly mobile vehicles using a semi-Markov deci-
sion process (SMDP) and taking into consideration
speed and other factors. The next paper, "The Cross
Layer RMPA Handover: A Reliable Mobility Pattern
Aware Handover Strategy for Broadband Wireless Com-
munications in the High Speed Railway Domain” (Marina
Aguado, et al.), proposes an improved handover strategy
for railway applications, the RMPA handover, an IEEE
802.16 handover strategy but specially “customized” and
enhanced for high speed mobility scenarios. As transport
layer (L4 in ISO layers) protocols such as stream control
transmission protocols can support seamless handover in
high-speed mobility scenarios, the paper "Adaptive Trans-
port Layer Protocol for Highly Dynamic Environments”
(Hala Eldaw Idris Jubara, et al.), discusses an adaptive trans-
port layer protocol in mobile WiMAX networks supporting
seamless handover and guaranteeing quality-of-service
(QoS) for rapid handover rates. The last two papers deal
with location prediction and connectivity analysis in high
speed vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs). In particular,
the paper "A Novel Vehicular Location Prediction Based
on Mobility Patterns for Routing in Urban VANETs”
(Guangtao Xue, et al.), proposes a novel approach by adopt-
ing a variable-order Markov model to abstract vehicular
Fan et al. EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking 2012, 2012:279 Page 3 of 3
http://jis.eurasipjournals.com/content/2012/1/279mobility pattern (VMP) from real trace data in Shanghai
for predicting the possible trajectories of moving vehicles.
To handle the rapidly moving inter-vehicle information ex-
change within limited radio ranges and self-organize
VANETs, the last paper, "Available Connectivity Analysis
under Free Flow State in VANETs” (Chen Chen, et al.), is
concerned with the connectivity issue, both one-hop direct
connectivity and multi-hop indirect connectivity by defining
a new metric termed “available connectivity".
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Authors’ information
Guest Editors: Pingzhi Fan, Erdal Panayirci, H. Vincent Poor, P. Takis
Mathiopoulos
Prof. Pingzhi Fan received his M.S. degree in Computer Engineering from
the Southwest Jiaotong University, PRC, in 1987, and Ph.D. degree in
Electronic Engineering from the Hull University, U.K., in 1994. He is currently
a professor and director of the institute of mobile communications,
Southwest Jiaotong University, China, and a guest professor of Leeds
University, UK (1997-), a guest professor Shanghai Jiaotong University (1999-).
He was a recipient of the UK ORS Award (1992), and the Outstanding Young
Scientist Award (NSFC, 1998). He served as a general chair or TPC chair of a
number of international conferences, and guest editor or editorial member
of 5 international journals. He is the founding chair of IEEE VTS BJ Chapter
and IEEE Chengdu Section. He also served as a board member of IEEE
Region 10 and IET Asia-Pacific Region. He is the inventor of 20 patents, the
author of over 380 research papers, and 8 books or edited books published
by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, RSP, IEEE Press, Springer, Nova Science, etc. His
research interests include high mobility wireless communications, spread-
spectrum and CDMA techniques, information theory & coding, etc. Prof. Fan
is a fellow of IET, CIE and CIC.
Prof. Erdal Panayirci received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering and
System Science from Michigan State University, USA. He is currently Professor
of Electrical Engineering and Head of the Electronics Engineering
Department at Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey. He published
extensively in leading scientific journals and international conferences. He
has co-authored the book Principles of Integrated Maritime Surveillance
Systems (Boston, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000). Dr. Panayırcı spent the
academic year 2008–2009, in the Department of Electrical Engineering,
Princeton University, New Jersey, USA. He has been the principal coordinator
of a 6th and 7th Frame European project called NEWCOM (Network of
Excellent on Wireless Communications) and WIMAGIC Strep project
representing Kadir Has University. Dr. Panayırcı was an Editor for IEEE Trans
on Communications in the areas of Synchronization and Equalizations in
1995–1999. He served as a Member of IEEE Fellow Committee in 2005–2008.
He was the Technical Program Chair of ICC'2006 and PIMRC'2010. Presently
he is head of the Turkish Scientific Commission on Signals and Systems of
URSI (International Union of Radio Science). Dr. Panayırcı’s recent research
interests include communication theory, synchronization, advanced signal
processing techniques and their applications to wireless communications,
etc. He is an IEEE life fellow.
Prof. H. Vincent Poor received his Ph.D. in EECS in 1977 from Princeton
University, where he is currently the Michael Henry Strater University
Professor of Electrical Engineering, and Dean of the School of Engineering
and Applied Science. He has also held visiting appointments at a number of
universities and research institutions in the U.S. and abroad, including
Imperial College (London), Stanford and Harvard. Dr. Poor is a member of
the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and the U.S. National Academy of
Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and an
International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering of the U.K. He is
also a Fellow of the IEEE, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the Optical
Society of America, and other scientific and technical organizations. He has
served as President of the IEEE Information Theory Society, and as Editor-in-
Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. He received a
Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002 and the IEEE Education Medal in 2005.
Recent recognition of his work includes the 2010 IET Ambrose Fleming
Medal for Achievement in Communications, the 2011 IEEE Eric E. SumnerAward, the 2011 Society Award of the IEEE Signal Processing Society, and
honorary doctorates from Aalborg University, the Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology, and the University of Edinburgh. His interests lie in
the areas of stochastic analysis, statistical signal processing and information
theory, and their applications in wireless networks and related fields.
Prof. P. Takis Mathiopoulos received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical
Engineering from the University of Ottawa, Canada, in 1989. He is currently
Director of Research at the Institute for Space Applications and Remote
Sensing (ISARS) of the National Observatory of Athens (NOA), where he has
established the Wireless Communications Research Group. He was a faculty
member (1989–2003) at the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering (ECE) of the University of British Columbia (UBC), where he was
promoted to Professor in 2000. He is also an elected Professor of Digital
Communications at the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications,
University of Athens. He has been the PI for more than 40 R&D projects
supported by Canadian, European and Greek funding agencies. He has
published more than 200 papers in journals and international conference
proceedings and is or has been on the Editorial board of many scientific
journals, including the IEEE Transactions on Communications (1993 – 2005).
His research interests are mainly dealing with the physical layer of digital
communications for terrestrial and satellite based systems. Secondary
research interests include remote sensing and GIS systems. He is an ASI
Fellow, a Killam Research Fellow and a co-recipient of 2 best conference
paper awards.
Acknowledgments
The guest editors would like to thank the authors of all submitted papers for
considering our special issue to disseminate their work, and to all the
reviewers for their conscientious work. Our special thank also goes to
Bernardino McCartney of JWCN for excellent assistance in making this special
issue possible. This work was partially supported by the National Basic
Research Program (973 Program, No.2012CB316100), the National Science
Foundation of China (NSFC No.61032002) and the Innovative Intelligence
Base Project (111 project No.111-2-14).
Author details
1Institute of Mobile Communications, Southwest Jiaotong University,
Chengdu, Sichuan 610031, China. 2Dept of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering, Kadir Has University, Cibali Merkez Kampusu, Cibali, Istanbul
34083, Turkey. 3School of Engineering and Applied Science, Princeton
University, C-230 Engineering Quadrangle, Olden Street Princeton, NJ 08544,
USA. 4Institute for Space Applications and Remote Sensing, National
Observatory of Athens, I. Metaxa & Vas. Pavlou, Palaia Penteli, Athens, GR
15236, Greece. 5Department of Informatics and Telecommunications,
University of Athens, Athens 15784, Greece.
Received: 19 August 2012 Accepted: 19 August 2012
Published: 31 August 2012
doi:10.1186/1687-1499-2012-279
Cite this article as: Fan et al.: Special issue on broadband mobile
communications at very high speeds. EURASIP Journal on Wireless
Communications and Networking 2012 2012:279.
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Special issue on broadband mobile communications at very high speeds

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