Physical layer security for dual‐hop FSO/RF system using generalized ΓΓ/η−μ fading channels

We investigate the physical layer security of decode‐and‐forward–relayed free space optics (FSO)/radio frequency (RF) communication system. In this network, the eavesdropper exists after relay node and overhears RF transmission. Further, FSO being a line‐of‐sight transmission is assumed to be secure from eavesdroppers. Here, we have the Gamma‐Gamma (ΓΓ) distribution for FSO link and generalized η?μ distribution for RF link. The security for information transmission to the legitimate user in the presence of an eavesdropper is measured in terms of secrecy capacity and secrecy outage probability. Deriving the probability density function and cumulative distribution function of end‐to‐end signal‐to‐noise ratio, the closed‐form expressions for security parameters are achieved. The numerical analysis of the proposed system is done under the influence of atmospheric turbulence effects and various fading conditions. The results have been verified through simulation.     

Application of ANFIS Power Control for Downlink CDMA‐Based LMDS Systems

Rain attenuation and intercell interference are two crucial factors in the performance of broadband wireless access networks such as local multipoint distribution systems (LMDS) operating at frequencies above 20 GHz. Power control can enhance the performance of downlink CDMA‐based LMDS systems by reducing intercell interference under clear sky conditions; however, it may damage system performance under rainy conditions. To ensure robust operation under both clear sky and rainy conditions, we propose a novel power‐control scheme which applies an adaptive neuro‐fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) for downlink CDMA‐based LMDS systems. In the proposed system, the rain rate and the number of users are two inputs of the fuzzy inference system, and output is defined as channel quality, which is applied in the power control scheme to adjust the power control region. Moreover, ITU‐R P.530 is employed to estimate the rain attenuation. The influence of the rain rate and the number of users on the distance‐based power control (DBPC) scheme is included in the simulation model as the training database. Simulation results indicate that the proposed scheme improves the throughput of the DBPC scheme.     

A comparative study of STBC transmissions at 2.4 GHz over indoor channels using a 2 × 2 MIMO testbed

In this paper we employ a 2 × 2 Multiple‐Input Multiple‐Output (MIMO) hardware platform to evaluate, in realistic indoor scenarios, the performance of different space‐time block coded (STBC) transmissions at 2.4 GHz. In particular, we focus on the Alamouti orthogonal scheme considering two types of channel state information (CSI) estimation: a conventional pilot‐aided supervised technique and a recently proposed blind method based on second‐order statistics (SOS). For comparison purposes, we also evaluate the performance of a Differential (non‐coherent) space‐time block coding (DSTBC). DSTBC schemes have the advantage of not requiring CSI estimation but they incur in a 3 dB loss in performance. The hardware MIMO platform is based on high‐performance signal acquisition and generation boards, each one equipped with a 1 GB memory module that allows the transmission of extremely large data frames. Upconversion to RF is performed by two RF vector signal generators whereas downconversion is carried out with two custom circuits designed from commercial components. All the baseband signal processing is implemented off‐line in MATLAB ®, making the MIMO testbed very flexible and easily reconfigurable. Using this platform we compare the performance of the described methods in line‐of‐sight (LOS) and non‐line‐of‐sight (NLOS) indoor scenarios. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multiple spot diffusing geometries for indoor optical wireless communication systems

In order to improve the performance of indoor optical wireless communication links, two multispot diffusing geometries based on diamond and line strip spot distribution geometries are proposed, analysed and compared to the known uniform spot distribution. Such geometries combine the advantages of the diffuse and the line‐of‐sight systems, giving great robustness and ease of use. The novel line strip multibeam transmitter geometry has resulted in a receiver signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) improvement of about 4 dB compared to the conventional diffuse system as well as a significant reduction in the pulse spread. Simulation and comparison results for both the conventional diffuse system and the three multispot diffusing geometries are presented. Further, pulse responses, SNR, and delay spread results at various locations are presented. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On optimal cell planning: Case study for a DCS 1800 system

Micro and pico cell planning strategies are adopted in personal communication systems (PCS) in order to increase their capacity. The usage of the upper UHF band in combination with greater bandwidth is already proposed by telecom engineers in order to achieve the promised service quality and data rates. These strategies are characterized by an increased number of cells in specific geographical areas with the corresponding operating base transceiving stations (BTS) located at relatively low heights above the street level. In this case, the cell planning procedure in linear streets under line‐of‐sight (LOS) conditions needs further study concerning the technical characteristics of the PCS. In this paper, the propagation characteristics of a DCS 1800 system are investigated on a theoretical and experimental basis in a specific geographical area (center of Patras City in Northern Pelloponesse). An improved RF propagation model is proposed in order to determine the propagation path losses occurring under certain multipath fading conditions. Hence an optimum determination of a system's cellular area can be achieved. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance analysis of two‐hop decode‐amplify‐forward relayed system in different fading conditions

Recent advances in the field of wireless communication have proven the importance of diversity in combating channel fading and improving the bit error rates (BERs). In this report, a dual‐hop decode‐amplify‐forward (DAF) transmission system over Nakagami‐m fading channel is studied. The DAF relay system is a hybrid of decode‐and‐forward and amplify‐and‐forward relay systems that shows the benefits of both decode‐and‐forward and amplify‐and‐forward relay systems and is also called hybrid relay system or hybrid DAF relay system. Signal‐to‐noise ratios and BERs for various system models with varying number of transmit and receive antennas have been discussed. The diversity is achieved in two ways: firstly, by the use of relay and secondly, by the use of multiple antennas at both the transmitter and the receiver. Dual‐hop relaying gives better trunking efficiency and with single antenna at the relay site acquisition and antenna structures are much less expensive. The variations in the performance levels when the relay is moved to different locations within the line of sight of the transmitter and the receiver have also been analyzed. BERs with respect to variations in the fading parameter ‘m’ have also been presented and discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hybrid TOA/AOA estimation error test and non‐line of sight identification in wireless location

In this paper, a modified time‐of‐arrival (TOA) estimation error test and a hybrid time‐of‐arrival/angle‐of‐arrival (TOA/AOA) estimation error test for identification of line of sight (LOS) base stations (BSs) are proposed. The proposed schemes aim to improve the location accuracy of wireless location systems suffering from the non‐line of sight (NLOS) propagation errors. The modified TOA‐based estimation error test is considered a straightforward approach in identifying the LOS‐BS set when the number of LOS BSs is greater than or equal to three. When both TOA and AOA metrics are available, hybrid TOA/AOA squares of normalized estimation errors are formulated by adopting the approximate maximum likelihood (AML) estimation. The proposed hybrid estimation error test scheme is capable of identifying the LOS/NLOS status of each BS, and performing location estimation in the situation where only two LOS BSs exist. Simulation results show that the proposed schemes are capable of correctly identifying the LOS BSs and improving the overall location accuracy. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Key payload technologies for future satellite personal communications: A European perspective

This paper deals with satellite payload architectures adequate for the provision of universal mobile telecommunication services (UMTS) by medium altitude earth and geostationary orbit (MEO and GEO) satellites. The payload concept introduced is based on a transparent transponder with onboard digital signal processing (DSP) operations and digital beamforming at the traffic carrier level (narrowband beamforming). The emphasis of the paper is on key design aspects and technology considerations of the payload processor unit (PPU), which includes multiplexing/demultiplexing and digital beamforming operations, and on the antenna and RF signal handling subsystems. For completeness, a review on the European digital technology is also presented. The development of such a payload architecture is in line with present and planned activities of the European Space Agency (ESA) for MEO and GEO orbit systems, which are also implicitly discussed in the paper.     

Medium earth orbit optical satellite communication networks: Ground terminals selection optimization based on the cloud‐free line‐of‐sight statistics

In this paper, a methodology for the generation of cloud coverage time series correlated on both temporal and spatial domains and the estimation of cloud‐free line‐of‐sight (CFLOS) probability for a single optical ground station (OGS) and a network of OGSs (multiple OGS) for medium earth orbit (MEO) constellation satellite communication systems is presented. Spatial diversity is employed as a mitigation technique against cloud blockage to increase the availability of an OGS network (OGSN). In the second part of the paper, an effective algorithm based on the ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm is proposed for the optimum selection of OGSs forming an OGSN. The proposed algorithm takes into consideration the spatial correlation between the OGSs. In the simulation results section, a MEO constellation system with 12 MEO satellites has been assumed. The integrated liquid water content (ILWC) statistical parameters that are necessary for the CFLOS time series are taken from ECMWF Re‐Analysis (ERA)‐Interim database, European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). Finally, numerical results for the optimum selection of OGSs using the proposed methodology are exhibited and commented. Interesting conclusions are drawn, and future work with technical challenges is briefly described.     

Inter‐HAP handoff analysis for multi‐cell short‐endurance HAP communications systems

In this paper, we investigate an inter‐high‐altitude platform (HAP) handoff model for multi‐cell short‐endurance HAP wireless communications systems. Equations are derived to calculate system parameters, such as minimum user beamwidth and handoff opportunity (HO) interval, and system performance, such as handoff success ratio, inter‐HAP HO start rate and handoff load, when the current serving platform is replaced either for maintenance or for periodic replacement. Research results show some directions on how to select the trajectory of the platform, user beamwidth and handoff schemes. It is shown that it is better for the replacing platform to fly above and be as close as possible to the current serving platform. A higher altitude adopted by the current serving platform will allow a narrower user beamwidth. Two cellular handoff schemes are presented. It is shown that in the case of users with a wider antenna beamwidth free selection of any handoff destination cell can result in the handoff load being very high. By restricting the handoff destination cell to the cell with the same cell number within the footprints of the two platforms, the handoff traffic can be reduced to a minimum, but the two platforms are required to maintain the same relative cell layout. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cooperative communications for LTE‐advanced—relay and CoMP

The Long Term Evolution‐Advanced (LTE‐A) system is currently under development to allow for significantly higher spectral efficiency and data throughput than the LTE systems. In a wireless system based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing with frequency reuse factor one, the achievable cell spectral efficiency is often limited by the inter‐cell interference or coverage shortage of base stations. In LTE‐A, coordinated multi‐point transmission/reception (a.k.a. multi‐cell MIMO or base station cooperation) and relaying technologies are being introduced to clear these major performance hurdles. In this paper, cooperative communication technologies being discussed in LTE‐A systems are presented, together with considerations on system design. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Statistical analysis of co‐channel interference in wireless communications systems

Co‐channel interference is recognized as one of the major factors that limits the capacity and link quality of a wireless communications system. An appropriate understanding of the statistical behavior of the co‐channel interference is therefore required when analyzing and designing techniques that mitigate its undesired effects. The total co‐channel interference in a wireless communications system is usually modeled as the sum of lognormally distributed signals, and is generally assumed to be itself lognormally distributed. Based on this assumption, several methods for estimating the moments of the resulting lognormal distribution have been proposed. The accuracy of these methods has been studied in previous works, under the assumption of having all summand signals (individual interference signals) identically distributed. Such an assumption rarely holds in practical cases of emerging wireless communications systems, where co‐channel interference may stem from far‐away macrocells and nearby transmitters, causing the interference signals to have different moments. In this paper we present an analysis of the accuracy of two popular methods for computing the moments of a sum of lognormal random variables, namely Wilkinson's method and Schwartz and Yeh's method, for the general case when the summands have different mean values and standard deviations in decibel units. We show that Schwartz and Yeh's method provides better accuracy than Wilkinson's method and is virtually invariant with the difference of the mean values and standard deviations of the summands. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Deterministic process‐based generative models for characterizing packet‐level bursty error sequences

Errors encountered in digital wireless channels are not independent but rather form bursts or clusters. Error models aim to investigate the statistical properties of bursty error sequences at either packet level or bit level. Packet‐level error models are crucial to the design and performance evaluation of high‐layer wireless communication protocols. This paper proposes a general design procedure for a packet‐level generative model based on a sampled deterministic process with a threshold detector and two parallel mappers. In order to assess the proposed method, target packet error sequences are derived by computer simulations of a coded enhanced general packet radio service system. The target error sequences are compared with the generated error sequences from the deterministic process‐based generative model using some widely used burst error statistics, such as error‐free run distribution, error‐free burst distribution, error burst distribution, error cluster distribution, gap distribution, block error probability distribution, block burst probability distribution, packet error correlation function, normalized covariance function, gap correlation function, and multigap distribution. The deterministic process‐based generative model is observed to outperform the widely used Markov models. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Support vector machine‐based equalisation for direct‐sequence ultra wideband systems

We proposed the support vector machine (SVM)‐based equalisation schemes for direct‐sequence ultra wideband (UWB) systems. The severe intersymbol interference caused by the UWB channel was formulated as a pattern classification problem in the SVM‐based equaliser, which operates in two main modes: training and detection. We also applied the least squares support vector classifiers (LS‐SVCs) to reduce the training complexity and sparse LS‐SVCs to reduce the detection complexity, with little performance loss compared to SVCs. Simulation results confirm the outperformance of the proposed equalisers over the conventional rake receiver with the same order of complexity for detection, especially when no channel information is known at the receiver. Also, the SVM‐based equalisers in the line‐of‐sight scenario provide a performance close to the case with additive white Gaussian noise only. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Load‐regulated CSMA

In this paper, we derive throughput of a threshold‐based transmission policy, namely load‐regulated carrier sense multiple access (CSMA), taking into account the propagation delay of the medium and the offered load at different probabilities of the fading channel. In case of the saturated load‐regulated CSMA, a trivial relationship between deterministic offered load to the channel at a particular fading channel condition and the maximum possible offered load has been shown. We further extend the load regulation concept into multi‐channel domain. Both single and multi‐channel load‐regulated CSMA improves the throughput of the system compared with the existing CSMA system, which does not consider channel fading to control the packet transmissions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improved TOA‐Based Localization Method with BS Selection Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks

The purpose of a localization system is to estimate the coordinates of the geographic location of a mobile device. The accuracy of wireless localization is influenced by non‐line‐of‐sight (NLOS) errors in wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we present an improved time of arrival (TOA)–based localization method for wireless sensor networks. TOA‐based localization estimates the geographic location of a mobile device using the distances between a mobile station (MS) and three or more base stations (BSs). However, each of the NLOS errors along a distance measured from an MS (device) to a BS (device) is different because of dissimilar obstacles in the direct signal path between the two devices. To accurately estimate the geographic location of a mobile device in TOA‐based localization, we propose an optimized localization method with a BS selection scheme that selects three measured distances that contain a relatively small number of NLOS errors, in this paper. Performance evaluations are presented, and the experimental results are validated through comparisons of various localization methods with the proposed method.     

Study on cognitive DF relaying cooperation with the mutual interference between primary and secondary users over Nakagami‐m fading channels

In this paper, the cognitive relay cooperation (CRC) wireless communication systems are investigated over Nakagami‐m fading channels. The decode‐and‐forward (DF) relay is employed to assist the communications between cognitive source and destination. Especially, to achieve full diversity order, we consider the case in which there is a direct path between cognitive source and destination. Besides the interference at primary users (PUs) created by secondary users (SUs), the interference at SUs created by PUs is also considered. For the interested CRC systems, we first achieve the exact expression for the CDF of the equivalent end‐to‐end signal‐to‐interference ratio (SIR) of CRC systems. Then, with the exact CDF, the exact average symbol error ratio (SER) and outage performance of CRC systems are achieved. The derivation is of significance, by which we can obtain a detailed knowledge about CRC systems. Though a single integral included in the derivation, it can be calculated numerically by employing some mathematical tools such as Matlab. At the same time, to obtain the insight and highlight the effect of system parameters on the considered CRC systems, by using the high SIR approximation, we obtain the asymptotic closed‐form expression of CDF as well as the ones of average SER and outage probability. From the asymptotic results, we can find the main factors that dominate the performance of CRC systems. The presented simulation results for outage probability and average SER show the derivations and simulations are in agreement. Moreover, in high SIR the achieved asymptotic results match well the exact ones. As a result, in high SIR we can employ the asymptotic closed‐form solutions to evaluate the exact performance of CRC systems. This can reduce greatly the implementation complexity. Besides this, the simulations also show that the diversity order is dominated by the fading severities of the secondary systems, i.e. the diversity order be proportional to the summation of the minimum fading severity between the two hops and that of the direct link. In contrast, the parameters of the primary systems only affect the coding gain, not the diversity gain. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Co‐simulation‐based modeling and performance analysis of hybrid fiber–wireless links

We present a new approach for the performance analysis of hybrid fiber/wireless communication systems. This approach is based on a co‐simulation using two types of dedicated software: the first is used for RF/wireless systems whereas the second is devoted to optical communication systems. The proposed method enables simultaneous simulation of all elements of the radio‐over‐fiber link with accurate modeling. A low‐cost wireless local area network over a fiber distribution system is implemented in order to validate the results experimentally. Simulation results are in good agreement with experimental measurements in terms of EVM evolution for different link element configurations. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

System of Systems Approach to Formal Modeling of CPS for Simulation‐Based Analysis

This paper presents a system‐of‐systems (SoS) approach to the formal modeling of a cyber‐physical system (CPS) for simulation‐based analysis. The approach is based on a convergence technology for modeling and simulation of a highly complex system in which SoS modeling methodology, hybrid systems modeling theory, and simulation interoperation technology are merged. The methodology maps each constituent system of a CPS to a disparate model of either continuous or discrete types. The theory employs two formalisms for modeling of the two model types with formal specification of interfaces between them. Finally, the technology adapts a simulation bus called DEVS BUS whose protocol synchronizes time and exchange messages between subsystems simulation. Benefits of the approach include reusability of simulation models and environments, and simulation‐based analysis of subsystems of a CPS in an inter‐relational manner.     

A UWB solution for wireless intra‐spacecraft transmissions of sensor and SpaceWire data

This paper presents the design, testing, and validation of a ultra‐wideband (UWB) wireless solution to replace wired intra‐spacecraft communications with wireless communications. The system requirements are provided in the framework of the Eu:CROPIS mission and the wired intra‐spacecraft communication system is replaced with a two‐segment wireless network. As such, distinct sets of UWB gateways and nodes are prototyped to interface with the on‐board entities and properly handle the data transmission in the resulting spacecraft and payload wireless networks. To accomplish these tasks, a custom radio module integrated into the prototypes was designed to provide the appropriate UWB RF front‐end and run a custom‐built communication stack. The viability of the solution was tested in laboratory conditions. For the test scenarios, sensor data are acquired in the payload network and forwarded as SpaceWire packets over the spacecraft network. Experimental test results indicate the suitability of the proposed solution in terms of delay and data integrity for implementing intra‐spacecraft wireless communications.