A hardware demonstrator for TD-CDMA

TD-CDMA is an air interface concept for third-generation mobile radio systems. It utilizes a combination of the three elementary multiple-access schemes: frequency-division multiple access (FDMA), time-division multiple access (TDMA) and code-division multiple access (CDMA). Multiple-access interference (MAI) and intersymbol interference (ISI) are combated by joint detection of all simultaneous signals of the same cell, achieving a high spectrum efficiency. The authors have been involved in the implementation of a first experimental hardware setup of a TD-CDMA mobile radio system. Important objectives of this project are the demonstration of the economic feasibility of CDMA receivers utilizing joint detection and the performance verification of TD-CDMA by measurement campaigns. The authors present a new way of modeling the TD-CDMA receiver in the form of a data-flow model. This model serves as a starting point for the systematic design of an efficient software architecture for TD-CDMA based on a multiprocessor system. The complete digital signal processing (DSP) of a mobile terminal or of a base station can be implemented on a single Texas Instruments digital signal processor TMS320C80. Measurement results obtained by first field trials are presented. The system parameters of the TD-CDMA demonstrator described are similar but not equal to those chosen for the time-division duplex (TDD) mode of the UMTS terrestrial air interface according to the ETSI decision taken in January 1998.     

Intelligent MBWIMA/UMTS protocol using cascade fuzzy logic control for UTRA TDD mode

An intelligent medium-access-control (MAC) protocol based on cascade fuzzy-logic-control (CFLC), consisting of a fuzzy V/sub max/ (maximum number of voice/video slots) control and a fuzzy data-rate control for universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) terrestrial radio access time-division duplex (UTRA TDD) mode is presented. Voice, data, and video are integrated for transmission using CFLC-based movable-boundary wireless multiple access (MBWIMA) in the UMTS protocol. The performance of the CFLC-based MBWIMA/UMTS protocol with data-rate control is optimized by using the CFLC to generate the proper maximum number of voice/video slots and a suitable data rate. Simulation results demonstrate that the data-packet delay for the CFLC-based MBWIMA/UMTS protocol with data-rate control is less than that for the CFLC-based MBWIMA/UMTS protocol without data-rate control. The CFLC-based MBWIMA/UMTS protocol with data-rate control can greatly improve both the voice-video dropping probability and the data-packet delay of the MBWIMA/UMTS and general packet-radio system/UMTS protocols at the expense of a small decrease in the data-packet throughput. Voice-activity detector, single cell, and multicell environments are also considered.     

CRDA: a collision resolution and dynamic allocation MAC protocol tointegrate data and voice in wireless networks

One key requirement for radio access in advanced, third generation (3G) mobile communication systems is the ability to accommodate a variety of services via a flexible and efficient medium access control (MAC) protocol. The paper presents and evaluates a new multiple access protocol termed CRDA (collision resolution and dynamic allocation), which has the potential to meet the above requirement. CRDA is basically a slotted packet-reservation multiple access technique with dedicated reservation slots, which allows the main shortcoming of previous PRMA schemes, i.e., contention, to be overcome through the integration in the MAC protocol of a code-division multiple-access (CDMA) transmission mode used to access the reservation slots. This prevents collisions during the reservation phase and enhances channel throughput, notably in the case of mixed voice/data traffic. Our simulations of the CRDA MAC integrate voice channels with data sources, generating what we call advanced data traffic, which has a very similar shape to the actual traffic generated by World Wide Web (WWW) applications. The standard assumption of Poissonian data traffic is also considered. Our conclusion is that the CRDA MAC protocol satisfactorily accommodates both types of traffic     

Packet CDMA versus dynamic TDMA for multiple access in anintegrated voice/data PCN

A comparative evaluation of dynamic time-division multiple access (TDMA) and spread-spectrum packet code-division multiple access (CDMA) approaches to multiple access in an integrated voice/data personal communications network (PCN) environment are presented. After briefly outlining a cellular packet-switching architecture for voice/data PCN systems, dynamic TDMA and packet CDMA protocols appropriate for such traffic scenarios are described. Simulation-based network models which have been developed for performance evaluation of these competing access techniques are then outlined. These models are exercised with example integrated voice/data traffic models to obtain comparative system performance measures such as channel utilization, voice blocking probability, and data delay. Operating points based on typical performance constraints such as voice blocking probability 0.01 (for TDMA), voice packet loss rate 10^-3 (for CDMA), and data delay 250 ms are obtained, and results are presented     

Idle-signal casting multiple access with data slot reservation(ICMA-DR) for packet radio communications

A population of terminals communicating with a central station over a packet-switched multiple access radio channel is investigated with regard to multiple access control schemes. The authors describe the ICMA-DR, which is an advanced idle-signal casting multiple access (ICMA) scheme characterized by data slot reservation. This improved central controlled multiple-access scheme for packet transmission in terrestrial radio communications is evaluated in terms of throughput traffic, throughput delay characteristics, and handling capacity. It is shown that the throughput characteristics of ICMA-DR are superior than those of ICMA or slotted ALOHA when a packet for data slot reservation is relatively short in comparison to that for upward data. Thus, it is shown that ICMA-DR is suitable for the packet radio multiple-access scheme, especially in the case where fading packet error occurs frequently and ordered traffic is heavy. The ICMA-DR scheme has been utilized for the access control channel of NTT's new 800-MHz-band high-capacity land mobile communication system since the Spring of 1988     

FLC-Based MBWIMA/UMTS Protocol for Multimedia Services in UTRA TDD Mode

An intelligent medium access control (MAC) protocol based on fuzzy logic control (FLC) is proposed and compared with a general packet radio system in UMTS (GPRS/UMTS), priority scheme and the movable boundary wireless integrated multiple access in UMTS (MBWIMA/UMTS) protocols. The integrated video/voice/data services of UMTS in UTRA TDD mode have different transmission properties. By fuzzy logic control, the resources of the wireless communication can be intelligent assigned for different types of mediums. The voice-video dropping probability and data packet delay are input to FLC to optimally select the maximum number of voice/video slots. Voice activity detector (VAD) and multiple access interference in single cell are also considered in the simulations.     

Adaptive S-ALOHA CDMA as an alternative way of integrating servicesin mobile environments

Code-division multiple-access (CDMA) schemes appear to be very promising access techniques for coping with the requirements of third-generation mobile systems, mainly because of their flexibility. This paper proposes an adaptive S-ALOHA DS-CDMA access scheme as a method for integrating nonreal-time (i.e., Internet applications) and real-time (i.e., voice) services in a multicell scenario by exploiting the potentials of CDMA under time-varying channel load conditions. The adaptive component makes data terminals autonomously change their transmission rate according to the total (voice+data) channel occupancy, so that the minimum possible data delay, which can be analytically obtained by defining a birth-death process, is almost always achieved. Moreover, by means of a simplified cellular model, the proposed algorithm revealed the same behavior, i.e., it tries to select the most suitable transmission rate at any time slot, when it is affected by intercell interference and even by power control imperfections. Finally, in order to gain more insight into the potentials of such an access strategy, the adaptive S-ALOHA CDMA scheme is then compared to a reservation time-division multiple-access (TDMA)-based protocol (PRMA++), showing the benefits of the CDMA-based solution in terms of capacity, flexibility, and data delay performance     

Performance Investigation of CDMA/PRMA with Imperfect Power Control in TDD Cellular Systems

This study investigates the performance of joint code-division multiple access/packet-reservation multiple access (CDMA/PRMA) with the consideration of imperfect power control in TDD-CDMA cellular systems, and compares with that of CDMA/PRMA with an assumption of perfect power control. Both voice and World Wide Web (WWW) Internet browsing traffic were considered. We have studied their performances in terms of packet loss probability, power outage probability and average access delay. The results show that the assumption of CDMA/PRMA with perfect power control is too optimistic and independent of cell radius. It might be valid when the cell radius is <500 m. In addition, the performance of CDMA/PRMA with imperfect power control is highly limited by the cell radius due to its constraint on transmission power levels. Therefore, careful study is required if CDMA/PRMA is used in TDD systems.     

Low-complexity turbo equalization and multiuser decoding for TD-CDMA

The authors propose a low complexity multiuser joint parallel interference cancellation (PIC) decoder and turbo decision feedback equalizer for code division multiple access (CDMA). In their scheme, an estimate of the interference signal (both multiple-access interference and intersymbol interference) is formed by weighting the hard decisions produced by conventional (i.e., hard-output) Viterbi decoders. The estimated interference is subtracted from the received signal in order to improve decoding in the next iteration. By using asymptotic performance analysis of random-spreading CDMA, they optimize the feedback weights at each iteration. Then, they consider two (mutually related) performance limitation factors: the bias of residual interference and the ping-pong effect. The authors show that the performance of the proposed algorithm can be improved by compensating for the bias in the weight calculation, and they propose a modification of the basic PIC algorithm, which prevents the ping-pong effect and allows higher channel load and/or faster convergence to the single-user performance. The proposed algorithm is validated through computer simulation in an environment fully compliant with the specifications of the time-division duplex mode of third-generation systems, contemplating a combination of time-division multiple access and CDMA and including frequency-selective fading channels, user asynchronism, and power control. The main conclusion of this work is that, for such application, soft-input soft-output decoders (e.g., implemented by the forward-backward BCJR algorithm) are not needed to attain very high spectral efficiency, and simple conventional Viterbi decoding suffices for most practical settings.     

Advantages of CDMA and spread spectrum techniques over FDMA andTDMA in cellular mobile radio applications

A unified theoretical method for the calculation of the radio capacity of multiple-access schemes such as FDMA (frequency-division multiple access), TDMA (time-division multiple access), CDMA (code-division multiple access) and SSMA (spread-spectrum multiple access) in noncellular and cellular mobile radio systems is presented for AWGN (additive white Gaussian noise) channels. The theoretical equivalence of all the considered multiple-access schemes is found. In a fading multipath environment, which is typical for mobile radio applications, there are significant differences between these multiple-access schemes. These differences are discussed in an illustrative manner revealing several advantages of CDMA and SSMA over FDMA and TDMA. Novel transmission and reception schemes called coherent multiple transmission and coherent multiple reception are briefly presented     

Common packet data channel (CPDC) for integrated wireless DS-CDMAnetworks

A common packet data channel (CPDC) architecture is proposed to support bursty, packet-based services in direct sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) integrated wireless access networks. The architecture employs an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) strategy in the forward CPDC link and a spread ALOHA-type random access strategy in the reverse CPDC link. A congestion control algorithm using base station broadcast and portable terminal random delay call reattempt is described. A performance analysis of the CPDC architecture and algorithms is carried out, and formulas for the bit error rate, blocking probability, system delay time, transmission time, and waiting time for packet data calls are derived. The interference caused by a CPDC to stream services in the network is determined, and the capacity of a CPDC is evaluated in terms of the number of packet data subscribers that can be served with a specified grade of service (GOS)     

System performance comparison of optical CDMA and WDMA in a broadcast local area network

The performance of optical code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems with wavelength-hopping/time-spreading codes is compared to that of a wavelength-division multiple-access (WDMA) system. The multiple-access techniques are applied in a time-slotted broadcast local area network. The utilization, defined as the throughput per unit of time-domain bandwidth expansion, and packet delay are used as metrics of performance. When more than seven wavelengths are available, optical CDMA systems using asymmetric prime-hop codes and all-optical signal processing are shown to have higher peak utilization and lower corresponding delay than a WDMA system with the same number of wavelengths. When the encoders/decoders operate at the chip rate, the utilization of optical CDMA exceeds that of WDMA at high offered loads; however, the peak utilization of the WDMA system is still superior.     

On the radio capacity of TDMA and CDMA for broadband wireless packet communications

Studies of the capacity of cellular systems, stated in terms of the admissible number of remote users, have generally been limited to voice telephony. We address the problem of comparing the interference-limited performance of code-division multiple-access (CDMA) and time-division multiple-access (TDMA) systems in a packet-switched environment. The objective is to determine whether the capacity advantages claimed for circuit-switched CDMA still apply in a packet-switched environment, where the natural time diversity of bursty transmission may be a significant factor. Under a set of specific assumptions about the wireless environment (including path loss, shadow fading, multipath delay spread, cochannel interference, power control, and coding), we evaluate the number of users that can be admitted to the system while maintaining some desired quality-of-service (QoS) level. Four different classes of users with different characteristics and requirements are considered. The system capacity is found to depend significantly on the QoS objectives, which might be stated in terms of availability of some specified signal-to-interference level, packet-loss rate, or mean tolerable delay. The main finding is that strict requirements imposed on the radio access level tend to favor CDMA, whereas if some form of packet recovery is allowed at the higher layers (implying a relaxed set of requirements on the radio interface), then a somewhat higher capacity may be achieved by TDMA.     

Time slot allocation in CDMA/TDD systems for mobile multimediaservices

An important issue in wireless multimedia communications is to cope with the traffic asymmetry between uplink and downlink. The asymmetrical slot allocation in the code division multiple-access systems with time-division duplex mode (CDMA/TDD systems) can be a good solution for this problem. However, the level of traffic asymmetry can be significantly different from cell to cell. In this letter, we calculate the utilization of a CDMA/TDD system for the multicell model. In addition, we suggest an optimal slot allocation that maximizes the frequency utilization     

Numerical analysis of joint CDMA/PRMA protocol based on equilibriumpoint analysis

Numerical expressions to assess the performance of a joint direct sequence code division multiple access/packet reservation multiple access (CDMA/PRMA) protocol are presented. Simulation of CDMA/PRMA systems with narrowbeam antennas is also applied to support the proposed technique     

Performance of Double-Tier Access-Control Schemes Using a Polling Backbone for Metropolitan and Interconnected Communication Networks

We consider a double-tier communication network architecture for metropolitan area and packet radio networks for controlling the access of network terminals into a single shared broadcast channel. Terminals are organized into local groups in accordance with their geographical proximity or other criteria. Each local group can be associated with a primary station. The latter can serve as an unbuffered repeater for terminal transmissions unto the multiple-access channel. A polling policy is used by the primary stations to gain access into the shared communications backbone. Once a primary station is provided access into the channel, it initiates a local access control procedure. Message delay performance results and bounds are obtained for general reservation local-access procedures. In particular, we analyze and present performance results for a polling/tree-random-access procedure which can be effectively used for many packet radio and cellular digital radio networks, as well as for a polling/positionalpriority scheme for CATV and fiber-optic based networks.     

Sensitivity of multiple-access techniques to narrow-bandinterference

This paper investigates the sensitivity of several multiple-access techniques to narrow-band interference. The analysis covers time-division multiple access (TDMA), code-division multiple access (CDMA), and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA). The study is carried out under the assumption that all the considered multiple-access systems occupy the same total bandwidth, and the bit rates of all active users are identical. A major finding of this study is that CDMA with pseudonoise spreading sequences is more sensitive to narrow-band interference than TDMA. We point out that the signal-to-jammer power ratio at the decision device input is in fact identical for both multiple-access techniques, but the amplitude distribution of the jammer term at the threshold detector input is more favorable to TDMA, which turns out to be more robust in terms of bit-error rate. Another finding is that in terms of sensitivity to narrow-band interference, orthogonal CDMA (OCDMA) is closer to TDMA than to CDMA with pseudonoise sequences, because the degradation is not the same for all users. Finally, we discuss the relationship of OCDMA and TDMA and highlight the superiority, in terms of capacity over the narrow-band interference channel, of TDMA to the other multiple-access techniques considered in this paper     

Shared time division duplexing: an approach to low-delayhigh-quality wireless digital speech communications

Various strategies to provide low-delay high-quality digital speech communications in a high-capacity wireless network are examined. Various multiple access schemes based on time-division and packet reservation are compared in terms of their statistical multiplexing capabilities, sensitivity to speech packet dropping, delay, robustness to lossy packet environments, and overhead efficiency. In particular, a low-delay multiple access scheme, called shared time-division duplexing (STDD) is proposed. This scheme allows both the uplink and downlink traffic to share a common channel, thereby achieving high statistical multiplexing gain even with a low population of simultaneous conversations. The authors also propose a choice of low delay, high quality speech coding and digital modulation systems based on adaptive DPCM, with QDPSK or pseudo-analog transmission (skewed DPSK), for use in conjunction with the STDD multiple access protocol. The choice of the alternative systems depends on required end-to-end delay, recovered speech quality and bandwidth efficiency. Typically, with a total capacity of 1 MBaud, 2 ms frame and 8 kBaud speech coding rate, low delay STDD is able to support 48 pairs of users compared to 38, 35, and 16 for TDMA with speech activity detection, basic TDMA and PRMA respectively. This corresponds to respective gains of 26%, 37% and 200%     

QoS-oriented packet scheduling for wireless multimedia CDMA communications

In the third-generation (and beyond) wireless communication systems, there will be a mixture of different traffic classes, each having its own transmission rate characteristics and quality-of-service (QoS) requirements. In this paper, a QoS-oriented medium access control (MAC) protocol with fair packet loss sharing (FPLS) scheduling is proposed for wireless code-division multiple access (CDMA) communications. The QoS parameters under consideration are the transmission bit error rate (BER), packet loss, and delay requirements. The MAC protocol exploits both time-division and code-division statistical multiplexing. The BER requirements are guaranteed by properly arranging simultaneous packet transmissions and controlling there transmit power levels, whereas the packet loss and delay requirements are guaranteed by proper packet scheduling. The basic idea of FPLS is to schedule the transmission of multimedia packets in such a way that all the users have a fair share of packet loss according to their QoS requirements, which maximizes the number of the served users under the QoS constraints. Simulation results demonstrate effectiveness of the FPLS scheduler, in comparison with other previously proposed scheduling algorithms.     

Interference and Queuing Delay Based Uplink Packet Access Control in Wideband Code-Division Multiple-Access Systems

In this letter, we propose a packet access control algorithm for non-real-time, interactive packet services via dedicated channels in the uplink of wideband code-division multiple-access (WCDMA) systems. We first derive an analytical expression of packet throughput as a function of packet queuing delay and the required signal-to-interference-plus-noise-density ratio. Based on such a relationship, we then propose a packet access control algorithm that not only maximizes the packet throughput per cell, but also provides quality of service (QoS) assurance. Practical aspects of a CDMA system such as the effects of power control inaccuracy and other cell interference are considered in the analysis.