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Recently, with the advances in self-interference cancellation, full-duplex (FD) techniques have become a feasible approach to improve the spectrum usage in new generation wireless systems. In particular, in cognitive radio networks, FD allows a secondary user to simultaneously sense the spectrum and transmit, improving the network efficiency. However, the residual self interference (RSI) arising from an imperfect cancellation, represents a bottleneck for the spectrum sensing performance. This paper analytically demonstrates that RSI represents a colored noise which leads to the SNR Wall phenomenon making the typical OFDM signal detectors no longer robust. To overcome this drawback, we propose a generalized likelihood ratio test detector exploiting the multipath correlation due to the primary user’s (PU) channel. It is proven that the proposed method is not affected by the SNR Wall, hence it is robust w.r.t an imperfect self-interference cancellation. Specifically, best detection performance is achieved when an approximated knowledge of the maximum delay spread of the PU channel is available, otherwise it is shown that a limited performance degradation occurs. Moreover, provided results highlight that our approach outperforms the classical alternatives in different scenarios, including when PU employs a mixed numerology OFDM signal, which characterizes the 5G New Radio waveform.

Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) wireless communications have many envisioned applications for ensuring traffic safety and for addressing traffic congestion. However, developing suitable communication systems and standards for this purpose requires developers to have accurate models for the V2V propagation channel. Likewise, the dynamic evolution of multipath components (MPCs) in V2V channels has not been well modeled in existing models. In this paper, we propose a geometry-based stochastic channel model for a lightly built-up urban environment and then parametrize the model from measurements. The MPCs are extracted based on a high-resolution parameter estimation; they are tracked and clustered through a joint algorithm. The identified clusters are classified as line-of-sight, reflections from static scatterers, reflections from mobile scatterers, multiple-bounce reflections, and diffuse scattering. Specifically, the multiple-bounce reflections are modeled as twin clusters that follow the COST 273/COST2100 approach. The paper gives a full parameterization of the channel model and supplies a step-by-step implementation recipe. We verify the model by comparing two second-order statistics, i.e., the root-mean-square (RMS) delay spread and the angular spreads of arrival/departure derived from the channel model, to the results obtained directly from the measurements. Furthermore, we also identify several key factors that strongly impact the synthetic channel performance.

We present two modulation and detection techniques that are designed to allow for efficient equalization for channels that exhibit an arbitrary Doppler spread but no delay spread. These techniques are based on principles similar to techniques designed for time-invariant delay spread channels (e.g., Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing or OFDM) and have the same computational complexity. Through numerical simulations, we show that effective equalization is possible for channels that exhibit a high Doppler spread and even a modest delay spread, whereas equalized OFDM exhibits a strictly worse performance in these environments. Our results indicate that, in rapidly time-varying channels, such as those found in high-mobility or mmWave deployments, new modulation coupled with appropriate channel estimation and equalization techniques may significantly outperform modulation and detection schemes that are designed for static or slowly time varying multipath channels., Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications

In this study, radio channel measurements were conducted in an urban inland river environment at 5.9GHz. The measurements consisted of both the line of sight (LOS) and non-line of sight (NLOS) cases. We estimate and model channel characteristics based on the measured data. For small-scale fading properties, best fit small-scale fading distribution is determined. Statistical models of the Ricean K-factors and Weibull shape parameters are provided. In addition, a distance-dependent Ricean K-factor model for the urban inland river environment is proposed. For the power delay profile (PDP), we perform cluster identification and obtain the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the inter-cluster interval. A statistical model of the intracluster decay time constant is also presented, and an exponential decay model is applied for modeling the inter-cluster decay of the PDP. For delay spread and Doppler spread, the root mean square (RMS) delay spreads in the LOS case are compared with those in the NLOS case. Moreover, we estimate and analyze RMS Doppler spreads in both the LOS and NLOS cases. Finally, a bimodal Gaussian mixture distribution (BGMD) is employed to characterize the RMS delay spreads and RMS Doppler spreads. The BGMDs exhibit good matching levels.

Frequency offset transmit reference (FoTR)—a noncoherent spread spectrum technique—is considered in dense multipath fading environments, in the context of wideband communication. The interplay between system parameters and propagation effects is investigated. Analytical relations between key design parameters and the channel delay spread are derived, which provide a framework for determining reasonable system parameters that optimize the performance. An approximated closed-form expression for the outage probability is also obtained, which is shown to be fairly accurate for low outage probabilities. It is shown that FoTR suffers significantly from noise-enhancement, but, is nonetheless, robust against frequency-selective fading. A large value of frequency offset can significantly deteriorate the performance, particularly in environments with large channel delay spreads. This restricts the maximum data rate as well as the multiple-access capability of the scheme. Despite the limitations, FoTR can be a useful communication scheme for low data rate sensor networks deployed in dense multipath environments, particularly where the design demands a simple receiver and a low outage probability.

We executed an indoor measurement campaign to statistically characterize the bias in time of arrival (ToA) estimates incurred by multipath in the 5.5 GHz industrial, scientific and medical band by transmitting 10 and 100 MHz bandwidth waveforms. Measurements in three buildings with different propagation conditions are performed to analyze ToA statistics in a wide range of indoor environments, from partitioned offices to an open cafeteria area. We demonstrate that WINNER II and similar channel models designed for communications are not suitable for localization applications as they do not provide absolute delays. Furthermore, such models assume constant root mean square delay spread over distance, which is a significant contributor to the ToA errors for lower signal bandwidths. Other physical aspects such as specular components in line-of-sight (LOS) and random bias in non-LOS scenario are also not considered in those channel models. An extension of the WINNER II model that overcomes those flaws and provides more realistic ranging performance is proposed. We validate the extended model by demonstrating a good match between the statistics of its simulated output and our measurements.

Characterization and modeling of massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel has been one of the research hotspots in the field of wireless communications. One important feature of the massive MIMO channel is the spatial non-stationarity. To statistically model the spatial non-stationary massive MIMO channels, a cluster-based channel model is proposed in this paper. The model incorporates both inter- and intra-cluster properties and the cluster evolution over the large-scale array. A hybrid data processing scheme is applied to extract the multipath components (MPCs) and clustering the MPCs over a large-scale antenna array. The global angular spread, cluster angular spread, and cluster delay spread are modeled with log-normal distributions. Observed cluster length and MPC length within clusters, which are introduced to describe the cluster existence over the array and MPCs existence within the cluster, respectively, are statistically modeled with the exponential distributions. Moreover, both the cluster and MPC arrival intervals, which are used, respectively, to describe the cluster occurrence position on the array and MPC occurrence position within the cluster, can be statistically modeled with the uniform distributions. Finally, the model implementation is validated by comparing with the different channel performance metrics between measurements and simulations.

Outdoor to indoor penetration loss is one of the crucial challenges faced at millimeter-wave frequencies. This paper presents the results from 28-GHz channel sounding campaigns performed to investigate the impact of this phenomenon on the wireless propagation channel characteristics in small cell and fixed wireless access scenarios. The measurements are performed with a real-time channel sounder equipped with phased array antennas that allow beam-forming and electronic beam steering for directionally resolved measurements. Thanks to the short measurement time and the excellent phase stability of the system, we obtain both directional and omnidirectional channel power delay profiles without any delay uncertainty. We compare the measured path loss, delay spread, and angular spread for indoor and outdoor receiver locations for two different types of buildings. We find that the penetration loss strongly depends on the angle of incidence, and the scatterers on the outside of the building strongly impact how much power is coupled into the building. Based on the results, we provide statistical models for path loss, delay spread, and angular spread.

In this paper, a new non-stationary regular-shaped geometry-based stochastic model (RS-GBSM) is proposed for vehicular visible light communications (VVLC) channels. The proposed model utilizes a combined two-ring model and a confocal ellipse model, in which the received optical power is constructed as a sum of single-bounced (SB) and double-bounced (DB) components, in addition to the line-of-sight (LoS) component. Using the proposed RS-GBSM, the channel impulse response is generated and utilized to investigate VVLC channel characteristics, such as channel gain and root-mean-square (RMS) delay spread. The received optical power is computed considering the distance between the optical transmitter (Tx) and the optical receiver (Rx). Moreover, the impact of the Rx height on the received power is considered for the LoS scenario. The results show that the LoS power highly depends on the distance, Rx height, and the optical source pattern. For the SB components, it is confirmed that the channel gain in dB and the RMS delay spread follow Gaussian distributions. Finally, the results indicate that the detected optical power from the DB components is low enough to be overlooked.

Wireless body area networks (BANs) have many important applications such as wearable communication devices and Internet of Things. Wireless propagation in on-body channels has been measured and modeled in the past. However, a crucial element that is usually ignored is the impact of the body size of the user—a 50-kg person obviously creates a different on-body channel than a 150-kg person. The status-quo “one-size-fits-all” approach to channel characterization in BAN is thus incomplete. In this paper, we provide a detailed description of a propagation measurement campaign that employs a self-developed $4 \times 4$ ultrawideband multiple-input-multiple-output array channel sounding system to perform BAN channel sounding both in an anechoic chamber and indoor laboratory environments. A total of 60 human subjects were investigated in our work. These human subjects had widely varying body mass index (BMI) values, which were grouped into three different categories, i.e., 20 per BMI category. Various propagation properties such as path gain, frequency-decay factor, shadowing gain, rms delay spread, amplitude fading, and spatial correlation are extracted for each on-body channel under consideration. A comparison of statistics among the BMI categories reveals considerable differences, emphasizing the fact that the aforementioned propagation properties are BMI dependent. Parameters such as path gain showed a monotonic decrease across the BMI categories with values ranging from 1–2 to almost 13 dB in some channels. This paper proposes a propagation channel model for the BMI-dependent parameters and validates that it can reproduce the measured channel capacities.

In this paper, the performance of optical spatial modulation (OSM) in the indoor multipath optical wireless channel is investigated. Multipath propagation of the transmitted signal results in the temporal dispersion which causes intersymbol interference (ISI) especially in high-speed communications. OSM schemes have been investigated in line-of-sight (LOS) channels. However, given the recent trend in Gigabits per second communication, there is need to investigate the impact of the neglected higher-order reflections. Two variants of OSM are explored as case studies: optical space shift keying (OSSK) and spatial pulse position modulation (SPPM). The multipath-induced ISI is modelled to account for the spreading of the transmitted signal, and the analytical upper bound on the symbol error rate of both OSM schemes in multipath channel is derived. The derived analytical bounds are validated by closely matching simulation results. Furthermore, using the spatial distributions of the multipath-induced power penalty, the LOS channel response and the delay spread across the room, we demonstrate how the interaction between these parameters impacts error performance. Multipath-induced ISI has a significant adverse impact on the performance of OSM schemes, particularly on the detection of the activated transmitter as the incurred ISI can alter the channel gain of the received symbol.

Fifth generation cellular systems will operate in a wide range of frequencies, covering both the traditional cellular bands, and mm-wave frequency bands, either selecting a specific band or operating in multiple bands simultaneously. For the design of such systems, a detailed understanding of the frequency dependence of the propagation channel is essential. While many channel measurements exist in either microwave bands ( 20 GHz), the results are not easily comparable, and furthermore the transition between these bands is not well studied. This paper aims to bridge the gap by providing the results from a channel measurement campaign conducted in urban macro and micro-cellular environments, over the continuous frequency band of 3–18 GHz. We characterize the pathloss, shadow fading, root-mean-square (RMS) delay spreads, Ricean factor and coherence bandwidth in urban macro-cellular and urban micro-cellular environments. Measurements were taken in both line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) environments. The pathloss exponents and the RMS delay spreads increase with the base station height in NLOS environment; but not much dependency is observed in the LOS environment. By dividing the wideband channel transfer function into subbands of 1 GHz each, we study the frequency dependence of pathloss, shadow fading, Ricean factor, delay spread, and coherence bandwidth in the 3–18 GHz band. The pathloss exponents vary significantly with frequency, but not-monotonically. The shadow fading and the Ricean factor increase with frequency. The RMS delay spreads decrease with frequency in the LOS environments, but they do not change significantly in the NLOS environments. The coherence bandwidth values do not change significantly with frequency in either environment.

This paper focuses on the effect that various co-transmission schemes have on a single receiver’s SNR, under a stochastic-geometry setting for the emitters’ location. The model includes all standard effects of ground propagation: power law to account for the distance, fast fading, shadowing, plus delay spread (resolvable multipath). The schemes addressed include: the dimension-expanding fully orthogonal case (namely channel-blind transmission on completely orthogonal dimensions); the two extreme co-transmission schemes of fully coherent (perfectly known channel) as well as fully incoherent (purely channel-blind) cases; randomly orthogonalized co-transmission; plus selected transmission schemes such as the strongest signal or the nearest node to the receiver. The emphasis is on outage statistics, but capacity and bit-error-rate are also computed in selective cases. The analysis highlights the role of the various parameters involved, in particular demonstrating the importance of resolvable multipath on the relative performance of the schemes addressed.

This paper proposes a new geometry-based channel model for shallow-water ocean environments, in which the ocean bottom can slope gently down/up. The need for developing such an underwater acoustic (UWA) channel model is driven by the fact that the standard assumption of a flat ocean bottom does not hold in many realistic scenarios. Starting from a geometrical model, we develop a stochastic channel model for wideband single-input single-output vehicle-to-vehicle UWA channels using the ray theory assuming smooth ocean surface and bottom. We investigate the effect of the ocean-bottom slope angle on the distribution of the channel envelope, instantaneous channel capacity, temporal autocorrelation function, frequency correlation function, Doppler power spectral density, and the power delay profile. Theoretical and simulation results show that even a relatively small slope angle influences considerably the statistical properties of UWA channels. The validation of the proposed UWA channel model has been performed by fitting its main characteristic quantities (average delay, delay spread, and coherence bandwidth) to measurement data. In comparison with the conventional UWA channel model, which has been developed on the assumption of a flat ocean bottom, it is shown that the proposed UWA channel model enables the modeling of measured channels with higher precision.

Real-world wireless communication channels are typically highly underspread: their coherence time is much greater than their delay spread. In such situations, it is common to assume that, with sufficiently high bandwidth, the capacity without channel state information (CSI) at the receiver (termed the noncoherent channel capacity) is approximately equal to the capacity with perfect CSI at the receiver (termed the coherent channel capacity). In this paper, we propose a lower bound on the noncoherent capacity of highly underspread fading channels, which assumes only that the delay spread and coherence time are known. Furthermore, our lower bound can be calculated recursively, with each increment corresponding to a step increase in bandwidth. These properties, we contend, make our lower bound an excellent candidate as a simple method to verify that the noncoherent capacity is indeed approximately equal to the coherent capacity for typical wireless communication applications. We precede the derivation of the aforementioned lower bound on the information capacity with a rigorous justification of the mathematical representation of the channel. Furthermore, we also provide a numerical example for an actual wireless communication channel and demonstrate that our lower bound does indeed approximately equal the coherent channel capacity.

Applications of the unlicensed 60 GHz band include indoor wireless local area networks, outdoor short range communications and on body networks. To characterize the radio channel for such applications, a novel digital chirp sounder with programmable bandwidths up to 6 GHz with switched two transmit channels and two parallel receive channels for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) measurements was realized. For waveform durations of $\text{819.2 } \upmu \text{s}$ , Doppler measurements can be performed up to 610 Hz for the single transmit and two receive configuration or 305 Hz for MIMO measurements. In this paper, we present the architecture of the sounder and demonstrate its performance from back to back tests and from measurements of rms delay spread, path loss and MIMO capacity in an indoor and an outdoor environment. For 20 dB threshold, the rms delay spread for 90% of the measured locations is estimated at 1.4 ns and 1 ns for the indoor and outdoor environments, respectively. MIMO capacity close to the iid channel capacity for 2 by 2 configuration is achieved in both environments.

Generalized frequency division multiplexing (GFDM) as a nonorthogonal waveform aims at diverse applications in future mobile networks. To evaluate its performance, its capacity limits are of particular importance. Therefore, this paper analyzes its constellation-constrained capacities for cases where the channel state information (CSI) is unknown at the transmitter and perfectly known at the receiver. In frequency selective channels, GFDM may provide advantage over the conventional orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) scheme. In order to achieve near-capacity performance, the interaction of data symbols in time and frequency combined with multiple antennas (MIMO) challenges the design of GFDM receivers. This paper, therefore, applies expectation propagation (EP) for systematic receiver design. It is shown that the resulting iterative MIMO-GFDM receiver with affordable complexity can approach optimum decoding performance and outperform MIMO-OFDM in a rich multipath environment. Simulations are also used to illustrate the impact of channel delay spread on the constellation-constrained capacities and on the performance of the novel receiver algorithm.

Multipath propagation and power arrival profiles in three-dimensional (3-D) space determine the performance of the full-dimensional MIMO (FD-MIMO) systems. Field channel measurements are crucial in characterizing wireless channel properties. Nevertheless, in spatial channel measurements, estimating the direction-of-arrivals (DoAs) of multipath components (MPCs) is a challenging issue, because of the large number of propagation paths and the correlation among the multipath signals. The number of incidence angles and estimation precision in traditional methods is limited by the sensor array size and signal correlation. In this paper, we propose a scheme for measuring and estimating the 2-D DoAs of propagation paths called multipath angular estimation using the array response of PN-sequences (MAPS). By using a receiving planar antenna array (PAA), MAPS first extracts the complex path array response vector (PARV) for each propagation path and then estimates the DoAs of the paths individually and independently. The subspace-decomposition theory for MAPS is proved and extensive simulations are conducted to compare MAPS with other algorithms. Furthermore, a channel sounder using two PAAs and the probing signal of 2.6 GHz carrier modulated by PN-sequences has been developed. The simulation and field tests show that MAPS can estimate arbitrary number of resolved MPCs in a channel snapshot and effectively suppress the multipath interference.

This paper presents the channel measurements performed within a closed metal cabinet at 60 GHz covering the frequency range 57–62 GHz. Two different volumes of an empty metal cupboard are considered to emulate the environment of interest (an industrial machine). Furthermore, we have considered a number of scenarios such as line of sight, non line of sight, and placing absorbers. A statistical channel model is provided to aid short-range wireless link design within such a reflective and confined environment. Based on the measurements, the large- and small-scale parameters are extracted and fitted using the standard log-normal and Saleh–Valenzuela models, respectively. The obtained results are characterized by a very small path loss exponent, a single cluster phenomenon, and a significantly large root-mean-square (RMS) delay spread. The results show that covering a wall with absorber material dramatically reduces the RMS delay spread. Finally, the proposed channel model is validated by comparing the measured channel with a simulated channel, where the simulated channel is generated from the extracted parameters.

We consider design of asynchronous orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based diamond two-way-relay (DTWR) systems in a time-varying frequency-selective (doubly-selective) fading channel. In a DTWR system, two users exchange their messages with the help of two relays. Most of the existing works on asynchronous DTWR systems assume only small relative propagation delays between the received signals at each node that do not exceed the length of the cyclic-prefix (CP). However, in certain practical communication systems, significant differences in delays may take place, and hence existing solutions requiring excessively long CPs may be highly inefficient. In this paper, we propose a delay-independent CP insertion mechanism in which the CP length depends only on the number of subcarriers and the maximum delay spread of the corresponding channels. We also propose a symbol detection algorithm that is able to tolerate very long relative delays, that even exceed the length of the OFDM block itself, without a large increase in complexity. The proposed system is shown to significantly outperform other alternatives in the literature through a number of specific examples. © 2015 IEEE.

In this paper, we use delay-amplify-and-forward relays in the uplink direction of a coordinated multi-point network based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing. The key novelty is that we assume delay from users to different base stations (BSs), in general, may exceed cyclic prefix (CP) length as might be the case in large cells and cannot be completely compensated by traditional timing advance strategies. Consequently, interchannel interference and intersymbol interference may arise under such assumptions. We first optimize the adjustable delays added at users, relays and BS nodes in order to reduce the effective delay spread at the receive sites, then we optimize relays' weights and post-processing matrices at BS nodes to reduce the residual interference. For this purpose, we propose an iterative method that at each step first fixes either the relay weights or the post-processing matrices and then optimizes the signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio (SINR) over the other variable. Furthermore, we investigate the optimization problem of minimizing sum mean square error (SMSE) at the receive side under total relay power constraint. Simulation results show significant improvement in terms of SINR and SMSE in comparison with traditional systems in which no relay is deployed and the limited CP length is not addressed properly.

Terahertz (0.06–10 THz) Band communication is envisioned as a key technology for satisfying the increasing demand for ultra-high-speed wireless links. In this paper, first, a unified multi-ray channel model in the THz Band is developed based on ray tracing techniques, which incorporates the propagation models for the line-of-sight, reflected, scattered, and diffracted paths. The developed theoretical model is validated with the experimental measurements (0.06–1 THz) from the literature. Then, using the developed propagation models, an in-depth analysis on the THz channel characteristics is carried out. In particular, the distance-varying and frequency-selective nature of the Terahertz channel is analyzed. Moreover, the coherence bandwidth and the significance of the delay spread are studied. Furthermore, the wideband channel capacity using flat and water-filling power allocation strategies is characterized. Additionally, the temporal broadening effects of the Terahertz channel are studied. Finally, distance-adaptive and multi-carrier transmissions are suggested to best benefit from the unique relationship between distance and bandwidth. The provided analysis lays out the foundation for reliable and efficient ultra-high-speed wireless communications in the (0.06–10) THz Band.

In this paper, a novel 3-D non-stationary wideband geometry-based stochastic theoretical channel model for massive multiple-input multiple-output communication systems is proposed. First, a second-order approximation to the spherical wavefront in space and time domains, i.e., parabolic wavefront , is proposed to efficiently model near-field effects . Second, environment evolution effects are modeled by spatial-temporal cluster (re)appearance and shadowing processes. We propose (re)appearance processes to model the visibility of clusters with enhanced spatial-temporal consistency. Shadowing processes are used to capture smooth spatial-temporal variations of the clusters’ average power. In addition, a corresponding simulation model is derived along with a 3-D extension of the Riemann sum method for parameters computation. Key statistical properties of the proposed model, e.g., the spatial-temporal cross-correlation function, are derived and analyzed. Finally, we present numerical and simulation results showing an excellent agreement between the theoretical and simulation models and validating the proposed parameter computation method. The accuracy and flexibility of the proposed simulation model are demonstrated by comparing simulation results and measurements of the delay spread, slope of cluster power variations, and visibility regions’ size.

The performance of OFDM systems over a multipath channel can strongly degrade due to the propagation delay spread. The distortion of the received signal over the fast Fourier transform window is referred to as multipath noise . This work aims to analytically determine the performance loss due to multipath noise as a function of OFDM and channel parameters for narrowband OFDM systems. First, it is investigated whether it is possible to describe the multipath noise, varying over different OFDM packets due to the temporal variation of the channel, by an effective noise factor $F_{\rm delay} $ , from which the loss factor is directly determined. Second, the theory of room electromagnetics is applied to develop a closed-form expression for $F_{\rm delay} $ as a function of the OFDM and reverberation parameters. This analytical method is validated with excellent agreement. Finally, the loss factor is determined for IEEE 802.11 based on channel measurements in two large conference rooms, providing values up to 19 dB for an 800 ns cyclic prefix length.

This paper develops a low-complexity channel estimation (CE) scheme based on compressive sensing (CS) for time-domain synchronous (TDS) orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) to overcome the performance loss under doubly selective fading channels. Specifically, an overlap-add method of the time-domain training sequence is first proposed to obtain the coarse estimates of the channel length, path delays and path gains of the wireless channel, by exploiting the channel's temporal correlation to improve the robustness of the coarse CE under the severe fading channel with long delay spread. We then propose the priori-information aided (PA) iterative hard threshold (IHT) algorithm, which utilizes the priori information of the acquired coarse estimate for the wireless channel and therefore is capable of obtaining an accurate channel estimate of the doubly selective fading channel. Compared with the classical IHT algorithm whose convergence requires the $l_2$ norm of the measurement matrix being less than 1, the proposed PA-IHT algorithm exploits the priori information acquired to remove such a limitation as well as to reduce the number of required iterations. Compared with the existing CS based CE method for TDS-OFDM, the proposed PA-IHT algorithm significantly reduces the computational complexity of CE as well as enhances the CE accuracy. Simulation results demonstrate that, without sacrificing spectral efficiency and changing the current TDS-OFDM signal structure, the proposed scheme performs better than the existing CE schemes for TDS-OFDM in various scenarios, especially under severely doubly selective fading channels., 9 pages 8 figures

This paper proposes feedback optimization schemes for multiple-input single-output orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (MISO-OFDMA) systems with heterogeneous users. The proposed scheme adjusts the unit and resolution of the feedback to efficiently exploit the long-term channel statistics, including the path loss, delay spread, and mobility. To develop an analytical optimization framework, we first derive the sum-rate of MISO-OFDMA systems when the channel-state information (CSI) at the transmitter is imperfect because of the quantization error, channel variation, and feedback delay. Based on the derived results, we present effective solutions to the sum-rate maximization problem for distributed and centralized scenarios. When the channel statistics of the users are not available at the base station, each user can improve the sum-rate of the system by minimizing the distortion on CSI feedback under a fixed per-user feedback rate. With the channel statistics of the users, the base station can further control the user set and the feedback rate in addition to the feedback granularity. We evaluate the performance of both distributed and centralized schemes over practical wireless environments, where each user has different long-term channel statistics. Simulation results show that both methods significantly improve the performance of MISO-OFDMA systems.

In this paper we provide channel characterization results for the elevator shaft channel in the 5-GHz band, based upon measurements conducted in four buildings. This channel is of interest for several applications, including WiFi and public safety. Although several authors have provided elevator shaft channel characteristics for lower-frequency bands (255-MHz, 900-MHz, 1.9-GHz), to our knowledge this is the first work that addresses the 5-GHz band. Moreover, prior work has not thoroughly addressed channel characteristics when the elevator car is in motion, whereas here we provide measurement and modeling results for this dynamic condition. Our measurements were of power delay profiles, from which we estimated propagation path loss and root-mean square delay spread (RMS-DS). Path loss exponents were approximately 2.5 in one building and 5.5 in the other three buildings, with standard deviations about the log-distance linear fits equal to approximately 3 dB and 5.5 dB, respectively. Mean RMS-DS values range from approximately 14-60 ns when the elevator car is motionless. Maximum RMS-DS values were 144 ns and 152 ns in the two different types of buildings when the elevator car is moving. The significant differences in these channel characteristics among the four buildings are likely attributable to the distinct physical features of the buildings.

Utilizing channel reciprocity, the traditional time-reversal technique boosts the signal-to-noise ratio at the receiver with very low transmitter complexity. However, the large delay spread gives rise to severe inter-symbol interference (ISI) when the data rate is high, and the achievable transmission rate is further degraded in the multiuser downlink due to the inter-user interference (IUI). In this work, we study the weighted sum rate optimization problem by means of waveform design in the time-reversal multiuser downlink where the receiver processing is based on a single sample. Power allocation has a significant impact on the waveform design problem. We propose a new power allocation algorithm named Iterative SINR Waterfilling, which is able to achieve comparable sum rate performance to that of globally optimal power allocation. We further propose another approach called Iterative Power Waterfilling for multiple data streams. Iterative SINR Waterfilling provides better performance than Iterative Power Waterfilling in the scenario of high interference, while Iterative Power Waterfilling can work under multiple data streams. Simulation results show the superior performance of the proposed algorithms in comparison with other waveform designs such as zero-forcing and conventional time-reversal waveform.

The characterization of a Line of Sight (LOS) and a Non-Line of Sight (NLOS) link is performed over the military Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band (225 to 450 MHz). This is done using experimental results collected inside the cargo hold of a merchant ship. By analyzing the guiding effect associated with the cargo hold and its sub-structures, the channel characteristics of the environment can be determined. This important propagation mechanism is analyzed using the 3-D ray tracing simulator. Path loss for both topologies is studied and linear path loss models are proposed. Small-scale channel characteristics, such as the number of multipath components, decay factor of the multipath components and Root-Mean-Square (RMS) delay spread are studied and compared for the LOS and NLOS scenarios. Due to the guiding effect and multiple reflections along the cargo hold, both the LOS and NLOS scenarios are found to exhibit similar channel characteristics. A linear decay function is proposed to model the average Power Delay Profiles (PDPs). It is concluded that the linear model provides a good representation for the shape of the impulse responses for a cluttered environment with reflective substructures. This study is useful for the implementation of wireless sensor networks for status monitoring in maritime applications.

Popular smart wireless devices become equipped with multiple radio interfaces. Multihoming support can be enabled to allow for multiple simultaneous associations with heterogeneous networks. In this study, we focus on video streaming traffic and propose analytical approaches to evaluate the packet-level and call-level performance of a multipath transmission scheme, which sends video traffic bursts over multiple available channels in a probabilistic manner. A probability generation function (PGF) and z-transform method is applied to derive the PGF of packet delay and any arbitrary moment in general. Particularly, we can obtain the average delay, delay jitter, and delay outage probability. The essential characteristics of video traffic are taken into account, such as deterministic burst intervals, highly dynamic burst length, and batch arrivals of transmission packets. The video substream traffic resulting from the probabilistic flow splitting is characterized by means of zero-inflated models. Further, the call-level performance, in terms of flow blocking probability and system throughput, is evaluated with a three-dimensional Markov process and compared with that of an always-best access selection. The numerical and simulations results demonstrate the effectiveness of our analysis framework and the performance gain of multipath transmission.

An orthogonal frequency division multiplexing system suffers performance degradation when the length of the cyclic prefix is less than the channel impulse response. The root cause of this degradation is the inter-carrier interference (ICI) and inter-symbol interference (ISI) introduced by the excessive multipath delay. Generally, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) beamforming is helpful in mitigating such interference because it can spatially suppress some of the multipath. However, the effectiveness of this suppression is very limited. In this paper, we propose an ICI/ISI-aware beamforming algorithm which explicitly takes into account the multipath characteristic of the channel. Optimal steering vectors are derived to maximize the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio. This technique not only achieves the beamforming benefit, but also significantly mitigates the ICI and ISI. We show, via simulations, that the proposed algorithm can dramatically reduce the block error rate, permitting good performance for channel delay profiles that would break conventional links. This is vitally important for the extension of indoor wireless LAN designs to outdoor uses.

This letter presents radio channel measurements and modeling results for the feasibility study of 60 GHz high-speed radio systems in hospital environments. Two possible applications of those systems are considered: real-time video streaming for angiography and for ultrasonic inspection. Channel modeling was performed for the path loss and multipath characteristics of the propagation channel, i.e., the delay spreads. Results revealed generally lower path loss and delay spread values compared to regular indoor office and residential environments. The results indicate that the 60 GHz radio systems operating in hospital environments can provide better signal quality and wider coverage than those operated in regular indoor environments, though increased interference with neighboring cells might be an unfortunate consequence.

The performance of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) is known to be severely affected in multipath scenarios, providing a biased position solution which could jeopardize possible geodetic-grade applications. Indeed, multipath estimation and/or mitigation has attracted the attention of many researchers in the recent years. Nevertheless, few attention has been given to the detection of multipath. That is to say, acknowledging that a given scenario is corrupted by multiple propagation paths, and thus using adequate techniques to combat its effect. This paper proposes a statistical multipath detector based on an antenna array GNSS receiver. Specifically, the detector resorts to the estimated noise covariance matrix to compute a statistic that measures the dispersion of its eigenvalues. The theoretical distribution of such statistic is known. This is used by the proposed method to perform a Kolmogorov-Smirnov one-sample test to assess departures from the theoretical distribution, with the resulting detector being Constant False Alarm Rate. The detector is analyzed in terms of its probability of detection and an analysis is provided regarding its behavior under synchronization errors. Results of the detector under realistic scenarios are also discussed.

We study the physical-layer performance of a wideband multihop system in which a chain of amplify-and-forward relays is deployed for routing data from a source to a destination. The novelty of the system model w.r.t. prior work is in assuming frequency-selective multipath channels for all hops. We propose a new approach in which the channels are specified in terms of clustered exponentially decaying power-delay profiles (PDPs). Focusing on relays that apply time-domain signal processing, the distinctive form of the end-to-end source-destination PDP motivates us to introduce a new hypoexponential PDP and study it in detail. Then, we analyze the performance of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission over the multihop relay link. The type of the adopted analysis is suitable mainly for investigating the typical time-domain issues of OFDM transmission such as excessive multipath delay spread, non-ideal time syncronization, and interference due to insufficient cyclic prefix duration. In particular, we derive new closed-form expressions for evaluating the signal-to-interference and noise ratio. Our analysis confirms that multihopping increases considerably the delay spread of the end-to-end PDP and makes the channel more frequency selective. This imposes significant effect on the design of receiver time synchronization and pilot structures, and on the choice of OFDM physical layer parameters.

High Doppler effects resulting from fast time varying dispersive channels give rise to the so-called intercarrier interference, whose accurate modeling for data recovery is paramount. We present a novel turbo estimation scheme based on a known linearized model of the time varying channel via its derivatives. The derivatives estimation is adaptive, in the sense that at each turbo estimation it incorporates information on previously estimated parameters. This is combined with a decision-directed scheme implemented at bit level with soft decision. We show that any pilot based scheme that is able to induce a Toeplitz structure in the channel correlation matrix, can make use of an existing class of so-called superfast algorithms for minimum mean-square error (MMSE) channel estimation. Given a structure for the vector of pilots and an upper bound for the channel delay spread, say N, we show that it is only necessary to store 2N coefficients per pilot structure in order to recover the entire channel parameters. We bring attention to the fact that either for static or slowly varying channels, any Toeplitz-like model can yield a superfast equalization method as well, and show how fast order recursive algorithms can be combined to a superfast receiver structure, in order to yield both efficient equalizer computation and equalization.

We investigate the reliability of radio channel simulators in predicting channel responses throughout a well-specified environment. Indoor environments for which the geometric layout and material properties of surfaces are known lend themselves to such site-specific simulation. We assess the performance of this approach by comparing its predictions with measurements in a specific static environment. The good agreement on path loss, Ricean K-factor and RMS delay spread, over the set of paths measured and simulated, suggests that a well-designed radio simulator can be used reliably to predict system behavior. Typically, wireless channel models obtained through this or similar techniques do not capture the temporal variability in the channel response due to people movement in the environment. We treat the time-varying part of the channel response using stochastic processes. Using channel sounding experiments for several typical office scenarios, we show that autoregressive processes can be used to model the time-varying tap gains for several different motion scenarios.

Delay matters in future wireless communication. An appropriate limit for rates achievable under delay constraints is the delay limited capacity (DLC). In this work, the DLC of OFDM systems is investigated. Despite its complicated correlation structure the OFDM DLC is fully characterized for low and high SNR. It is shown that (under weak assumptions) the OFDM DLC is almost independent of the fading distribution in the low SNR region but strongly depends on the delay spread thereby achieving a capacity gain over AWGN capacity. In the high SNR region the roles are exchanged. Here, the impact of delay spread is negligible while the impact of the fading distribution becomes dominant. The relevant quantities and their asymptotic behaviour are derived without employing simplifying assumptions on the OFDM correlation structure. Using a general convergence framework the analysis further shows that if the delay spread becomes large even the predominant impact of the fading distribution vanishes and DLC capacity loss compared to AWGN capacity approaches 0.58[nats/s/Hz]. The convergence speed, the loss due to non-uniform power delay profile, and the relation to ergodic capacity is also analyzed and underlined with simulations and application examples. The main conclusion here is that OFDM fully takes advantage of the degrees of freedom of the underlying fading channel in terms of delay spread and, regardless of the fading distribution, delay sensitive capacity measures such as the DLC converge to the ergodic capacity. Finally, since universal bounds are obtained which apply to any fading distribution the results can also be used for other classes of parallel channels extending the range of applicability.

In this study, the noise variance and channel estimation problems are investigated over the UWB channel with narrowband interference (NBI). We first give two ways to construct the samples of noise variance using the least square (LS) channel estimates, by which we model the estimation problem of noise variance as parameter estimation of an exponential distribution and turn the NBI detection in the LS channel estimates into a general constant false alarm rate (CFAR) problem. Then, a robust noise variance estimator based on order statistic is presented to avoid the impact of NBI, and its estimation variance is also analyzed. In addition, a low complexity robust channel estimation (RCE) scheme is provided without requiring any knowledge of channel statistics including finite delay spread. The RCE scheme includes three new steps, namely the identification of the NBI signal by a CFAR detector, the recovery of channel estimates at the jammed frequency bins by either utilizing the conjugate symmetry property of the UWB channel or median filtering, and finally noise reduction through threshold filtering. Simulation results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed schemes compared to the existing methods.

Differential, transmitted reference (TR) and energy detection (ED) based ultra-wideband impulse radios (UWBIR) can collect the rich multipath energy offered by UWB channels with a low-complexity receiver. However, they perform satisfactorily only when the channel induced inter-pulse interference (IPI) is negligible. This can be achieved by appending a guard interval with duration greater than or equal to the channel's delay spread to each frame an operation limiting the maximum achievable data rate. As a remedy, this Letter advocates block transmissions in conjunction with orthogonal spreading sequences to remove the introduced IPI. The resultant scheme requires no channel knowledge besides timing offset and incurs slightly more complexity than non-block alternatives, while it increases the data rate at no cost in error performance. Given a fixed data rate of 25 Mbps, the novel block scheme exhibits about 1.8 dB gain relative to its non-block counterpart in single-user simulated tests.

An exact closed-form bit error rate (BER) expression is derived for an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing system with π/4-shifted differentially encoded quadrature phase shift keying (π/4-DQPSK) in the presence of carrier frequency offset over frequency-selective fast Rayleigh fading channels. Different system configurations, including time domain differential modulation, frequency domain differential modulation, single channel reception, and multi-channel reception with maximal ratio combining diversity, are considered in the exact BER analysis. For a small number of subcarriers, the BER expression can be calculated directly. A Monte Carlo method is designed to evaluate the BER for a large number of subcarriers. The analytical expression can be used to investigate the effect of several channel parameters, including mean delay spread and maximum Doppler spread, on the system BER performance. Particularly, the effect of carrier frequency offset on the system performance, and the differences and opportunities to use frequency domain differential modulation or time domain differential modulation, can be studied in a quantitative way for a more realistic wireless channel environment model. By using the exact closed-form BER expression, an optimum number of subcarriers can be found, and the allowable carrier frequency offset, Doppler spread, and mean delay spread for given operating conditions can be determined.

We consider a single-antenna broadcast block fading channel with n users where the transmission is packet- based. We define the (packet) delay as the minimum number of channel uses that guarantees all n users successfully receive m packets. This is a more stringent notion of delay than average delay and is the worst case (access) delay among the users. A delay optimal scheduling scheme, such as round-robin, achieves the delay of mn. For the opportunistic scheduling (which is throughput optimal) where the transmitter sends the packet to the user with the best channel conditions at each channel use, we derive the mean and variance of the delay for any m and n. For large n and in a homogeneous network, it is proved that the expected delay in receiving one packet by all the receivers scales as nlogn, as opposed to n for the round-robin scheduling. We also show that when m grows faster than (log n)r, for some r > 1, then the delay scales as mn. This roughly determines the time- scale required for the system to behave fairly in a homogeneous network. We then propose a scheme to significantly reduce the delay at the expense of a small throughput hit. We further look into the advantage of multiple transmit antennas on the delay. For a system with M antennas in the transmitter where at each channel use packets are sent to M different users, we obtain the expected delay in receiving one packet by all the users.

In conventional CDMA receivers, the detection of multipath components and RAKE finger management is normally based on the received signal energy per path. These schemes essentially overlook the interference component contaminating the total received power. Consequently, they exhibit poor multipath detection capability especially at low signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). In this paper, we present a new scheme for multipath detection that takes into consideration the interference level in each resolved path individually. Specifically, the proposed scheme is devised to estimate and cancel the interference per path before detection. To account for the hardware limitations of the receiver, we propose a low complexity version of the above scheme which can be easily incorporated into the receiver structure. Our results show that the proposed scheme provides significant improvements in the detection probability of multipath components over the energy-based schemes.

This paper proposes a channel estimation algorithm using super-imposed pilots for OFDM systems. The pilot symbols are added linearly to the modulated data symbol at a fraction of the total transmit power, making the method spectrally efficient. We present a series of iterative and non-iterative receivers in which complexity is traded for performance. In particular, a high complexity non-iterative receiver that achieves the theoretically lowest BER and a low complexity iterative receiver that show near-optimal performance are presented. The proposed iterative receiver offers a 50 - 98% reduction in complexity over a non- iterative receiver having equivalent performance, depending on the modulation used. We observe that the performance of the receiver is independent of the channel's Doppler frequency and delay spread. Finally, we compute an analytic bound for the bit error rate of the proposed non-iterative receiver.

Due to their extremely large transmission bandwidth, ultrawideband (UWB) communications systems have the potential for significant multipath capture. However, such capture can be dependent on the accuracy of channel estimation, which is the problem considered herein. Strategies that exploit properties of the UWB channel can offer performance improvement over schemes which are less parametric. To this end, recent UWB propagation studies and associated channel modelling suggest that clustering occurs in both space and time for indoor wireless office/laboratory environments. Motivated by this study, a two-stage channel estimation scheme is proposed. First, coarse channel estimation is conducted which estimates the location and dispersion of a cluster around this location. Then, channel estimation efforts are localized around the nominal location to reduce the dimensionality of the estimation of the parameters associated with the different multipath components. For cluster estimation, methods based on maximum-likelihood and correlation matrix fitting are considered. Different strategies are presented for multipath estimation, based on the expectation maximization algorithm and correlator output maximization. The bit error rate of a Rake type receiver is simulated with the estimated channel parameters for a multipath scenario based on clusters. Simulation results indicate that the clustered approach offers solid performance gains over conventional methods

An ultra-wideband (UWB) transmitted reference (TR) system transmits an un-modulated pulse and a delayed modulated pulse pair. Then, a correlation receiver uses the former to demodulate the latter. Because of the long spread of a typical UWB channel, time delay between the two pulses is preferable to be larger than the channel delay spread for reduced noise at the receiver. However, for bandwidth efficiency, that delay should be made small, resulting in inter-pulse interference at the receiver. In this paper, digital receivers are constructed for TR-UWB systems including inter-pulse interference. A typical mean matching technique, appropriate for both PPM and PAM schemes, is implemented digitally to obtain a good template for symbol detection. Joint estimation and detection performance of this family of digital receivers, using finite number of bits in analog-to-digital conversion and finite noisy observations, is analyzed. Closed form results are derived and verified by computer simulations. In addition, the effect of time offset between the reference pulse and information carrying pulse is studied. Overlap of the two pulses does not incur noticeable performance degradation. The proposed analytical framework can be applied to study detection performance of other related digital receivers not covered in this paper