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Unlike most general wireless users enjoying broadband access to the Internet and so on, a number of mission-critical applications such as PPDR are using narrowband systems that are only capable of transmitting voice and low-rate data. Broadband wireless networks with greater reliability are increasingly demanded by these applications including the emerging Smart Grid. With this vision, the IEEE 802.16 Working Group completed two standard amendments recently, IEEE Std 802.16n-2013 and IEEE Std 802.16.1a-2013. 802.16 network reliability is significantly increased by technical developments dealing with failures of network infrastructure stations, radio path and backhaul connectivity, and so on. This article serves to analyze the envisaged typical use cases of greater reliable broadband wireless networks, outline the main technical developments of the two standards, and introduce a recently developed practical system for PPDR applications in Japan.

This study evaluates the performance of a practical IEEE 802.15.4/4e/4g low-rate (LR) wireless personal area network (WPAN) with multiple physical (PHY) layers and multi-hop capabilities for smart utility networks, machine-to-machine networks and other advanced sensor networks. The proposal includes realistic design considerations addressing demands of practical applications, country-specific regulatory requirements and technical specification in international standards. A cross-layer open system interconnection model from the application, transport, network, medium access control, down to the multiple PHY layers is constructed based on the specification in IEEE 802.15.4 LR-WPAN and other layer-specific standards. Employing the cross-layer model, extensive computer simulations were conducted to investigate the performance of the LR-WPAN system in this application domain. As a result, the authors have successfully verified the simulated achievable average throughput in both PHY layer designs, multi-rate and multi-regional frequency shift keying (MR-FSK) and multi-rate and multi-regional orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MR-OFDM) with the theoretical throughput by calculation. Secondly, in a multi-PHY environment with the presence of 30 interferer devices, throughput degradation of the victim system is observed within 30%. Furthermore, when interferer devices transmit frames with interval beyond 1 s, the degradation to the victim system becomes negligible. Thirdly, MR-FSK PHY has a simpler design with higher energy-efficiency, whereas MR-OFDM PHY is more complicated with more resilience to interference. They have found an interference tolerance capability difference of 15 dB between the MR-FSK and MR-OFDM systems. Fourthly, comparing with their single-hop counterparts, multi-hop systems have lower average throughput in MR-FSK by 25% and MR-OFDM by 10%. Finally, comparing with networks with periodical beacon transmissions, asynchronous networks have more inferior average throughput of 20% in MR-FSK and 3% in MR-OFDM, with the advantage of longer battery lifespan.

This article reports on the technical design and analysis of an interference management protocol that enables interference avoidance among multiple PHY layer designs in the recently completed IEEE 802.15.4g standard for smart utility networking (SUN). The IEEE 802.15.4g system employs three alternate PHY layer designs for enhanced SUN implementation and deployment targeting different market segments. First, SUN is introduced from different perspectives concerning technology, regulation, and the standardization process. Updates on the IEEE 802.15.4g standardization activities, the SUNrelated rules and regulations, and a summary of system design are presented. Next, the interference management protocol for multi-PHY-layer design in a single network is described and discussed. The impact of interference due to coexisting multiple PHY layer designs is highlighted. The operational procedure and mechanism of the management protocol, known as Multi-PHY Management (MPM), are then described. Finally, performance analysis in the presence of MPM is provided and discussed to justify its significance. It is anticipated that in the near future, this interference management approach will be put to field test and then deployed to provide solutions to mitigate interference among different PHY layer designs in SUN.

This article provides an overview of technical design considerations for IEEE 802.15.4m LRWPAN operating in TVWS. We summarize and discuss TVWS regulatory requirements and LRWPAN applications, the two major driving forces motivating the formation of the new IEEE 802.15.4m standard. These forces define the criteria necessary for consideration during IEEE 802.15.4m system design to meet regulatory requirements and optimize performance. First, system design is presented from the perspective of LR-WPAN channelization with reference to the TV channel plan. Next, design considerations for network architecture and topology are discussed by relating the architecture requirement in TVWS regulations to that in the legacy IEEE 802.15.4 standard. Third, the PHY and MAC layer designs, which are crucial for meeting the criterion of optimizing LR-WPAN performance to support potential applications, are studied. In the PHY layer, the existing design in IEEE 802.15.4 is listed and discussed with regard to its applicability and reusability in TVWS. In the MAC layer, two functional entities, the TVWS operation-enabling feature and the dynamic frequency-band switching mechanism, are discussed with respect to their necessity and practicality for performance enhancement.

In this paper, we study the performance of complete complementary code-based spread-time code-division multiple access (CC-ST-CDMA) in frequency-nonselective and frequency-selective fading channels. The theoretical bit-error-rate (BER) expressions conditioned on the number of users and the sequence length (and the number of resolvable paths for multipath frequency-selective fading) are obtained. The theoretical approximation of the BER for the system using long-sequence-length complete complementary codes is investigated as well. The simulations are conducted over flat-fading and two-path frequency-selective fading channels and have been used to verify the theoretical analysis. The results show that the proposed CC-ST-CDMA system has a comparable BER performance with complete complementary code-based multicarrier direct-sequence code-division multiple access (CC-MC-DSCDMA) for a flat-fading channel. However, for a frequency-selective fading channel, the CC-ST-CDMA is found to be more resistant, resulting in about 2-3 dB better performance than the CC-MC-DSCDMA.

The Complete Complementary (CC) codes have been able to improve the performance of multicarrier CDMA system for both downlink and uplink transmission. However, the number of users supported by CC code design is limited as its family size is relatively small. In this letter, an extension to CC codes using Zadoff-Chu sequence is proposed. The proposed codes are able to support large number of users and have perfect auto- and cross-correlation function just like CC codes.