Space-time duality in multiple antenna channels

The concept of information transmission in a multiple antenna channel with scattering objects is studied from first physical principles. The amount of information that can be transported by electromagnetic radiation is related to the space-wavenumber and the time-frequency spectra of the system composed by the transmitting antennas and the scattering objects, and to the spatial extension of the receiving domain. The spatial information content of the field is related to the number of relevant communication modes of the channel. It is shown that for narrow-band frequency transmission space and time can be decoupled, leading to a space-time information duality principle in the computation of the capacity of the radiating system. In contrast, in the case of wide-band frequency transmission, it is shown that time and space cannot be decoupled and they jointly characterize the wave's information content.     

Transceiver optimization for block-based multiple access through ISI channels

In this paper, we describe a formulation of the minimum mean square error (MMSE) joint transmitter-receiver design problem for block-based multiple access communication over intersymbol interference (ISI) channels. Since the direct formulation of this problem turns out to be nonconvex, we develop various alternative convex formulations using techniques of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) and second-order cone programming (SOCP). In particular, we show that the optimal MMSE transceiver design problem can be reformulated as a semidefinite program (SDP), which can be solved using highly efficient interior point methods. When the channel matrices are diagonal (as in cyclic prefixed multicarrier systems), we show that the optimal MMSE transceivers can be obtained by subcarrier allocation and optimal power loading to each subcarrier for all the users. Moreover, the optimal subcarrier allocation and power-loading can be computed fairly simply (in polynomial time) by the relative ratios of the magnitudes of the subchannel gains corresponding to all subcarriers. We also prove that any two users can share no more than one subcarrier in the optimal MMSE transceivers. By exploiting this property, we design an efficient strongly polynomial time algorithm for the determination of optimal powerloading and subcarrier allocation in the two-user case.     

Block-coded modulation and multiple block-coded modulation withViterbi decoding for fading channels

This paper describes how block-coded modulation (BCM) and multiple BCM (MBCM) with Viterbi decoding can be designed for use in Rayleigh fading and severe Rician fading channels. New codes are developed by modifying known codes to increase the minimum symbol distance, which is one of the distances that has a strong effect on the bit error rate (BER) performance under fading channels. Combined with anti-fading techniques such as fading compensation, interleaving, and branch weighting, the new codes significantly improve BER performance. Computer simulations were used to confirm the code performance     

Multistage block-spreading for impulse radio multiple access through ISI channels

Transmitting digital information using ultra-short pulses, impulse radio (IR) has received increasing interest for multiple access (MA). When IRMA systems have to operate in dense multipath environments, the multiple user interference (MUI) and intersymbol interference (ISI) induced, adversely affect system capacity and performance. Analog IRMA utilizes pulse position modulation (PPM) and random time-hopping codes to mitigate ISI and suppress MUI statistically. We develop an all-digital IRMA scheme that relies on multistage block-spreading (MS-BS), and judiciously designed transceiver pairs to eliminate MUI deterministically, and regardless of ISI multipath effects. Our proposed MS-BS-IRMA system can accommodate a large number of users and is capable of providing different users with variable transmission rates, which is important for multimedia applications. Unlike conventional IRMA systems, MS-BS-IRMA exhibits no degradation in bit-error rate performance, as the number of users increases.     

Space-time block-coded OFDMA with linear precoding for multirateservices

Relying on space-time linearly precoded orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) and exploiting both transmit and receive antenna diversity, we design herein multirate transceivers that guarantee deterministic symbol recovery with diversity gains regardless of the (possibly unknown) frequency-selective finite impulse response (FIR) channels and multiuser interference. Our approach is based on a three-level design of user codes: the top level (based on OFDMA) handles multiuser interference, the middle level (based on space-time block coding) results in space-time diversity gains, and the lower level (based on linear precoding) mitigates intersymbol interference (ISI). In a multiuser/multirate setting, with two transmit and a single receive antenna, our designs achieve guaranteed diversity gains, whereas the use of two receive antennas could potentially double the capacity of the system (in terms of maximum number of users or achievable transmission rates) under favorable conditions (such as no frequency offset). Simulations illustrate the merits of our approach     

A frequency offset estimation technique for frequency-selectivefading channels

Rapid frequency offset estimation is required in burst communication systems. The performance of traditional open loop frequency estimation techniques is severely degraded by multipath propagation. We present a new data-aided technique for frequency offset estimation in the presence of strong multipath. The technique allows estimation of the frequency offset with no knowledge of the channel parameters. Results comparing the new technique with the maximum-likelihood estimation technique in a frequency selective Ricean fading environment are presented     

Nonlinear predistortion of OFDM signals over frequency-selectivefading channels

The linearization technique known as amplitude and phase (A&P) predistortion, proposed by D'Andrea and Lottici, is applied to the orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission context with nonlinear radio-frequency high-power amplification. The above technique is shown to provide a major enhancement in power efficiency in comparison with the unprotected system, as well as a nonnegligible gain over an alternative linearization strategy, identified as minimum mean-square-error (MMSE) predistortion, presented in the literature for application to OFDM. The relative performance of the A&P and the MMSE predistorter schemes is assessed over the additive white Gaussian noise channel and also in a frequency-selective fading environment. The impact of adjacent channel interference is also discussed     

Universal coding for multiple access channels

The problems of universal coding and decoding for multiple-access channels are examined. The hypothetical mutual information functions are used to prove that rate vectorsR=(R_{1},R_{2})in a subregionhat{cal C}of the capacity regioncal Care universally achievable in the sense that there exist codes of rateRthat are asymptotically optimum for all multiple-access channels with finite fixed input alphabetsX_{1},X_{2}, and output alphabetY.     

Sequential decoding for multiple access channels

The use of sequential decoding in multiple access channels is considered. The Fano metric, which achieves all achievable rates in the one-user case, fails to do so in the multiuser case. A new metric is introduced and an inner bound is given to it achievable rate region. This inner bound region is large enough to encourage the use of sequential decoding in practice. The new metric is optimal, in the sense of achieving all achievable rates, in the case of one-user and pairwise-reversible channels. Whether the metric is optimal for all multiple access channels remains an open problem. It is noted that even in the one-user case, the new metric differs from the Fano metric in a nontrivial way, showing that the Fano metric is not uniquely optimal for such channels. A new and stricter criterion of achievability in sequential decoding is also introduced and examined     

Extending the capacity of multiple access channels

Multiple access techniques which allow a communication medium to be shared between different users represent one of the most challenging topics in digital communications. In terms of the number of users that can be accommodated on a given channel, there are two distinct classes of multiple access techniques. The first class includes the well-known FDMA, TDMA, and OCDMA. On a channel whose bandwidth is N times the bandwidth of the individual user signals, these techniques can accommodate N users without any mutual interference, but not a single additional user can be supported beyond this limiting number. The second class includes CDMA with pseudo-noise spreading sequences (which we refer to as PN-CDMA) and some other related schemes. PN-CDMA does not have a hard limit on the number of users that can be accommodated, but is subject to multi-user interference which grows linearly with the number of users. In this article, after reviewing the capacity limits of existing multiple access techniques, we describe some newly introduced concepts which allow us to accommodate N users without any interference while also accommodating additional users at the expense of some SNR penalty     

Network-assisted diversity multiple access in dispersive channels

Network-assisted diversity multiple access (NDMA) is a novel random medium access method, which provides impressive throughput efficiency for multiplexing variable-bit-rate data sources. We study the implementation of the NDMA scheme in the presence of multipath channels. A transceiver architecture and random access strategies are proposed, which are able to detect and resolve collisions in the presence of unknown propagation channels. The performance issues are studied both analytically and numerically     

Rate-splitting multiple access for discrete memoryless channels

It is shown that the encoding/decoding problem for any asynchronous M-user discrete memoryless multiple-access channel can be reduced to corresponding problems for at most 2M-1 single-user discrete memoryless channels. This result, which extends a similar result for Gaussian channels, reduces the seemingly hard task of finding good multiple-access codes to the much better understood task of finding good codes for single-user channels. As a by-product, some interesting properties of the capacity region of M-user asynchronous discrete memoryless channels are derived     

Single-carrier space-time block-coded transmissions over frequency-selective fading channels

We study space-time block coding for single-carrier block transmissions over frequency-selective multipath fading channels. We propose novel transmission schemes that achieve a maximum diversity of order N/sub t/N/sub r/(L+1) in rich scattering environments, where N/sub t/ (N/sub r/) is the number of transmit (receive) antennas, and L is the order of the finite impulse response (FIR) channels. We show that linear receiver processing collects full antenna diversity, while the overall complexity remains comparable to that of single-antenna transmissions over frequency-selective channels. We develop transmissions enabling maximum-likelihood optimal decoding based on Viterbi's ( 1998) algorithm, as well as turbo decoding. With single receive and two transmit antennas, the proposed transmission format is capacity achieving. Simulation results demonstrate that joint exploitation of space-multipath diversity leads to significantly improved performance in the presence of frequency-selective fading channels.     

High-speed Internet access through unidirectional geostationarysatellite channels

One of the proposed solutions for increasing the speed of Internet access is to connect the home user to a direct satellite channel, at a speed 20 times faster than that of an average telephone modem. Communication over satellite links is often characterized by sporadic high bit-error rates and burst losses. This is especially true when working in the Ka band, where weather conditions greatly affect link availability. Under such conditions, the TCP protocol that is predominantly used by data applications degrades dramatically in performance. Using simulations, this paper studies the performance of TCP under different network conditions. Several modifications, that take advantage of the special properties of the satellite channel, are proposed, and a new sender algorithm which can efficiently handle burst losses is presented. The main attractiveness of the proposed new sender algorithm is that it can be implemented only at the satellite ground station, rather than at every server in the world     

Space-time block-coded OFDM systems with RF beamformers for high-speed indoor wireless communications

A beamforming network is considered for a space-time block-coded orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing system in a high-speed indoor wireless network. We find that choosing the most powerful beams for transmission provide the best performance in the absence of interference. In the presence of interference, an iterative two-metric beam-selection method is proposed.     

Orthogonal multiple access over time- and frequency-selective channels

Suppression of multiuser interference (MUI) and mitigation of time- and frequency-selective (doubly selective) channel effects constitute major challenges in the design of third-generation wireless mobile systems. Relying on a basis expansion model (BEM) for doubly selective channels, we develop a channel-independent block spreading scheme that preserves mutual orthogonality among single-cell users at the receiver. This alleviates the need for complex multiuser detection, and enables separation of the desired user by a simple code-matched channel-independent block despreading scheme that is maximum-likelihood (ML) optimal under the BEM plus white Gaussian noise assumption on the channel. In addition, each user achieves the maximum delay-Doppler diversity for Gaussian distributed BEM coefficients. Issues like links with existing multiuser transceivers, existence, user efficiency, special cases, backward compatibility with direct-sequence code-division multiple access (DS-CDMA), and error control coding, are briefly discussed.     

Performance of multicarrier DS/SSMA systems in frequency-selectivefading channels

Multicarrier direct-sequence spread-spectrum multiple-access systems in frequency-selective fading channels are investigated. A consistent channel model is used for each system. First, the tapped delay line (TDL) channel model with uniformly spaced, uncorrelated taps is investigated to model a complex Gaussian, wide-sense stationary, uncorrelated scattering channel. An approximate average bit-error-rate expression is obtained for the receiver with RAKE fingers on each subcarrier branch, whose outputs are combined according to the maximum signal-to-noise ratio criterion. Various system configurations are examined for the same TDL channel model, data rate, total system bandwidth, and excess bandwidth of the chip waveform. All the systems compared employ the same number of correlators. The numerical results show that, given a contiguous spectrum, the systems with more fractionally-spaced RAKE fingers per subchannel are more robust than the systems with more subcarriers     

Performance of multiple access channels with asymmetric feedback

Channel state feedback at the transmitter is extensively used to increase the reliability of wireless transmissions. In multiuser systems, the downlink capacity to different users is often different due to the near-far effect. We capture this asymmetry by introducing an asymmetric feedback model where different users get a different amount of feedback from the base station. First, we derive the outage probability for the optimum maximum-likelihood receiver which forms an upper bound on the diversity-multiplexing performance. This is accompanied by the conditions under which these bounds can be achieved. Second, we analyze the performance of two popular suboptimal receivers: the spatial decorrelator and the successive interference cancellation receiver. As a special case, when there is no asymmetry, the performance matches feedback-based single-user performance in many scenarios.     

Non white Gaussian multiple access channels with feedback

Although feedback does not increase the capacity of an additive white noise Gaussian channel, it enables prediction of the noise for non-white additive Gaussian noise channels and results in an improvement of capacity, but at most by a factor of 2 (Pinsker, Ebert, Pombra, and Cover). Although the capacity of white noise channels cannot be increased by feedback, multiple access white noise channels have a capacity increase due to the cooperation induced by feedback. Thomas has shown that the total capacity (sum of the rates of all the senders) of an m-user Gaussian white noise multiple access channel with feedback is less than twice the total capacity without feedback. The present authors show that this factor of 2 bound holds even when cooperation and prediction are combined, by proving that feedback increases the total capacity of an m-user multiple access channel with non-white additive Gaussian noise by at most a factor of 2     

A space-time block-coded OFDM scheme for unknownfrequency-selective fading channels

We introduce a space-time block-coded orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (STBC-OFDM) selective fading channels which does not require channel knowledge either at the transmitter or at the receiver. The decoding algorithm is based on generalized maximum-likelihood sequence estimation. We investigate the performance of the proposed scheme over two-tap Rayleigh fading channels. Simulation results show the performance to be near optimum