Access network evolution beyond third generation mobile communications

Second-generation mobile radio systems have been deployed successfully worldwide. These systems have evolved to higher data rates and packet transmission. Third-generation mobile radio systems are currently being standardized worldwide to be initially deployed in 2001 and 2002 in different regions of the world. New advanced multimedia services are under development, and first services are already being offered in second-generation systems, which will provide new business opportunities. Already today discussion is starting on the development of systems beyond third-generation mobile radio systems due to the long timeframe for system specification and international standardization. However, today there is no clear vision available on such systems. This discussion takes into account the new deregulated and liberalized communication environment. This article presents a concept for a system beyond third-generation mobile radio systems, which comprises a combination of several optimized access systems in a common IP-based medium access and core network platform. These different access systems will interwork through horizontal and vertical handover, service negotiation, and global roaming. The different access systems are allocated to different mutually complementing cell layers in the sense of hierarchical cells with respect to cell size, coverage, and mobility to provide globally optimized seamless services to users. This vision requires extensive international research and standardization activities to solve many technical challenges. Key issues are the global interworking of different access systems on a common platform, advanced antenna concepts, and the implementation of multimode and multiband terminals and base stations through software-defined radio concepts.     

Software-defined radio technology in the problem concerning with the successive sounding of HF ionospheric communication channels

The problem concerning new software-defined radio technology is investigated as applied to the successive sounding of HF ionospheric communication radio channels. The algorithm for quadrature processing of chirp signals subjected to elementwise compression in the frequency domain is developed. It is established that a channel scattering function and a delay power profile are related to a compressed-signal spectrum and their basic parameters. Data on the key characteristic of HF communications modems are presented. The efficiencies of different modems are estimated using the experimental data on channel parameters. It is demonstrated that the aforementioned technology can be used to estimate not only HF communication channel parameters from the pass band of a radio line but also select the optimal one and, furthermore, makes it possible to combine communications and radio sounding systems in the single device.     

Capture-division packet access for wireless personal communications

This paper presents a new architecture for the third-generation mobile systems, capture-division packetized access (CDPA), that overcomes most of the limitations of present cellular systems. It addresses the three main issues of radio access, namely the channel reuse, the multiple access, and the handover problems, in complete adherence to packet-switching principles. The CDPA channel reuse mechanism is a completely new alternative with respect to time-division, frequency-division, or code-division multiple-access (TDMA, FDMA, and CDMA, respectively), which achieve communication parallelism by subdividing the bandwidth a priori among cells. In CDPA, a single frequency channel is used and parallel transmissions are achieved through the “capture” capability of receivers. The hybrid reservation-polling multiple access mechanism used in CDPA is able to integrate any kind of traffic and guarantees almost immediate retransmission of packets that are not captured, thus assuring their correct reception. Finally, the packet-switching approach allows connectionless communications with any base station (BS), and eliminates the need for extra radio traffic in managing handovers. This turns out to be very effective in local area systems where the required high bandwidth is obtained by using a pico-cell structure. We present the CDPA architecture, discuss some implementation issues, and evaluate its performance under a variety of system parameters and operating conditions, using analytical and simulation methods     

An overview of configurable computing machines for software radio handsets

The advent of software radios has brought a paradigm shift to radio design. A multimode handset with dynamic reconfigurability has the promise of integrated services and global roaming capabilities. However, most of the work to date has been focused on software radio base stations, which do not have as tight constraints on area and power as handsets. Base station software radio technology progressed dramatically with advances in system design, adaptive modulation and coding techniques, reconfigurable hardware, A/D converters, RF design, and rapid prototyping systems, and has helped bring software radio handsets a step closer to reality. However, supporting multimode radios on a small handset still remains a design challenge. A configurable computing machine, which is an optimized FPGA with application-specific capabilities, show promise for software radio handsets in optimizing hardware implementations for heterogeneous systems. In this article contemporary CCM architectures that allow dynamic hardware reconfiguration with maximum flexibility are reviewed and assessed. This is followed by design recommendations for CCM architectures for use in software radio handsets.     

Third generation PCN and the intelligent multimode mobile portable

The radio interfaces required for a third generation personal communications network (PCN), and the attributes of an intelligent multimode portable to operate within the PCN are speculated upon. After discussing key factors in determining spectral efficiency in PCNs, multiple access methods are considered for radio interfaces associated with high-capacity network nodes, microcellular networks, macrocellular networks, megacells, satellite mobile and private mobile radio. Modulation issues are then addressed, followed by source and channel coding. Some elements of a third generation PCN are considered next. Finally the authors present their views on an intelligent multimode mobile portable that will function in many different geographical environments and, in any one, be adaptive in changing its subsystems to variations in the channel conditions and local teletraffic loading     

Symbol rate processing for the downlink of DS-CDMA systems

Many services of third-generation (3G) mobile radio systems will have higher data rates in the downlink than in the uplink. We propose to utilize adaptive antennas at the base stations because spatial interference suppression is able to reduce the near-far effect in the downlink of single-user detection direct-sequence (DS) code division multiple access (CDMA) systems. Besides the channel parameters in terms of directions of arrival, delays, and medium-term average path attenuations which are estimated in the uplink, we also take into account the correlation properties of the spreading and scrambling codes. In DS-CDMA the users are distinguished by different spreading codes, which change over time due to scrambling. In Brunner et al. (see Proc. EPMCC, p.375-80, 1999), the beamforming vectors at the base station were computed slotwise, whereas in this paper, we favor a symbol-rate beamforming at the base station. The new approach optimizes the actual values of the decision variables of the RAKE demodulators at the receivers. The superiority of the symbol rate beamforming algorithm compared to slotwise beamforming is shown by bit error rate (BER) simulations     

A smart software radio: concept development and demonstration

A testbed system was developed for smart networking radio algorithms. The associated modular software environment and Phase I hardware testbed are described. It provides the framework for the development of advanced processing algorithms, adaptive multirate systems, and operational radio algorithms and modules. Modular software radio technology allows for the insertion of new algorithms, the quantitative characterization of waveform performance, and the separation of the waveform definition from the details of the implementation to enhance portability. The testbed is representative of SPEAKeasy II-class open architecture software radios. The FLIPWAVE spread-spectrum modem invented at the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) was developed and evaluated using this testbed. The waveform is presented with experimental results. A unique feature of this modem is a new single-channel quadraphase differential RAKE receiver processor, which illustrates the contributions of the testbed toward the flexibility and portability of novel modems     

Software radio technology: a European perspective

Software radio has emerged as a priority theme of research in Europe. This tutorial review provides a European perspective on technical and commercial issues in the field. Significant differences exist between North American and European views of software radio in personal communications services. This article explains the reasons for these differences. It explains how the European marketplace is influencing short-term directions taken in the commercialization of software radio technology initially at the application layer. Some research is related to handset architectures and to generic RF and digital technologies focused on third-generation systems-Universal Mobile Telecommunications Systems. Software base stations, including their synergies with adaptive (often now termed soft) antennas are also addressed     

Variable rate QAM for mobile radio

Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) schemes which vary the number of modulation levels in accordance with the mobile radio fading channel variations are investigated. Important parameters considered are the fading rate and the block size used. We describe how the adaptive QAM modems can be employed and consider their use in a DECT-like TDD packet structure. System performance in the presence of cochannel interference is also considered. Simulations show that the variable rate system has about 5 dB improvement in channel SNR over a fixed 16-level QAM system for BER's between 10^-2 and 10^-5 and channel SNR's between 25 and 40 dB     

Telephone traffic in mobile radio communication system using dynamic frequency assignments

Traffic characteristics of a mobile radio communication system using a dynamic channel assignment scheme which has all channels available at all base stations are derived. In the system with one channel, the traffic characteristics in each zone are exactly obtained. For a multichannel operation, some approximation methods are proposed and some simple examples are also presented.     

Exploitation of Systems by Deployment Intracell Macrodiversity of Remote in Mobile Radio Antennas

Future mobile radio systems will require a largenumber of compact and inexpensive base stations as wellas rather complex interference-resistant receivers. Toachieve low operation and maintenance costs, it is favorable to keep the number of siteswith costly signal processing hard- and software to aminimum, which, however, contradicts to just-mentionedrequirements. This contradiction can be solved by deploying remote antennas connected to centralbase stations. In this communication, basic concepts forapplying remote antennas to mobile radio systems areconsidered, and the beneficial exploitation of intracell macrodiversity is discussed.Simulation results for both a third-generation mobileradio system concept termed JD-CDMA (Joint DetectionCode Division Multiple Access) and the most successfulsecond-generation mobile radio system, GSM (Global System forMobile Communications), are presented.     

用MC145442实现多点通信

大部分单片调制解调器芯片都是依据电话线路设计制造的，即在一条信道上只能实现点对点的通信。文中简要论述了实用ＭＯＴＯＲＯＬＡ公司生产的单片调制解调器ＭＣ１４５４４２如何实现多点通信的基本思想和具体实现方法，并以一台主机和两台分机通信为例介绍了整个通信流程。     

Adaptive nondisruptive measurement of harmonic distortion forvoiceband data transmission

Volterra functional expansions are power series with memory that explicitly characterize the input/output relationship of a finite-memory single-valued nonlinear black box whenever the latter is time-invariant and stable. The purpose of this paper is to introduce and report on the strengths and weaknesses of two distinct Volterra-series-type classes of adaptive nonlinear techniques for the quantitative measurement of second- and third-order harmonic distortion present in the communications channel of a, possibly signal space coded, QAM data communication system. Our investigation was originated as part of a request for new nondisruptive impairment measurement algorithms that would reliably characterize in real-time the performance of voiceband modems over both D1 conditioned private lines and the direct-distance-dialing (DDD) public switched network. Though, contrary to earlier studies, we do not contemplate nonlinear distortion compensator design, experimental evidence obtained by implementing the simplest of our nondisruptive algorithms on a digital signal processor chip verifies that over a certain range of signal-to-second- and third-order intermodulation distortion ratios our measurements are consistent with those obtained via the disruptive digital four tone test under a variety of voiceband telephone channel impairment conditions. Unfortunately, our experiments also indicate that neither the digital four-tone test nor any of our nondisruptive techniques have chances to prove useful for greater than 5% of the existing voiceband channels. However, this is entirely due to the special nature of the telephone channel environment and is not likely to dilute the importance of our proposal for other types of nonlinear environments such as radio channels or satellite links     

A software radio for second- and third-generation mobile systems

This paper picks up the interesting technology of software radio. An explanation of the term software radio is given and differences between civilian and military applications are described. For the frequency region of second- and third-generation mobile cellular systems, the construction of a software radio terminal is investigated. Radiofrequency as well as intermediate-frequency processing and complex base-band processing are discussed. It is shown that all important mobile radio interfaces can be described by parameter lists and that a software radio can be reconfigured by using these parameter lists. With this strategy, interstandard handover becomes feasible. At the same time, the hardware effort is minimized     

Architecture and enablers for optimized radio resource usage in heterogeneous wireless access networks: The IEEE 1900.4 Working Group

Over the past decade or so, the wireless industry has undergone many significant changes. Radio systems have moved toward forming heterogeneous wireless networks: collaborations of multiple radio access networks, which in some cases operate different radio access technologies, such as second- and third-generation cellular RATs, IEEE 802.x wireless standards, and so on. On the other hand, multimode reconfigurable user devices with the ability to choose among various supported RATs have become a reality, and devices and networks with dynamic spectrum access capabilities, allowing real-time sharing of spectrum resource usage among different systems, are expected to be a part of the future radio eco-space. As a result of these changes, there is a need to develop a standard that addresses the requirements and leverages the opportunities posed by such a versatile radio environment. To this end, IEEE 1900.4 aims to standardize the overall system architecture and information exchange between the network and mobile devices, which will allow these elements to optimally choose from available radio resources. In other words, the standard facilitates the distributed dynamic optimization of the usage of spectrum offered by the heterogeneous wireless network, relying on a collaborative information exchange between networks and mobile devices, thereby acting as a common means to improve overall composite capacity and quality of service for the served networks. This article provides a snapshot of IEEE P1900.4 in its current form, covering the scope and purpose of the standard, reference use cases for which the standard is applicable, its system and functional architectures, and finally, the information model for its main interfaces.     

Smart antennas in software radio base stations

The application of adaptive antenna techniques to fixed-architecture base stations has been shown to offer wide-ranging benefits, including interference rejection capabilities or increased coverage and spectral efficiency. Unfortunately, the actual implementation of these techniques to mobile communication scenarios has traditionally been set back by two fundamental reasons. On one hand, the lack of flexibility of current transceiver architectures does not allow for the introduction of advanced add-on functionalities. On the other hand, the often oversimplified models for the spatiotemporal characteristics of the radio communications channel generally give rise to performance predictions that are, in practice, too optimistic. The advent of software radio architectures represents a big step toward the introduction of advanced receive/transmit capabilities. Thanks to their inherent flexibility and robustness, software radio architectures are the appropriate enabling technology for the implementation of array processing techniques. Moreover, given the exponential progression of communication standards in coexistence and their constant evolution, software reconfigurability will probably soon become the only cost-efficient alternative for the transceiver upgrade. This article analyzes the requirements for the introduction of software radio techniques and array processing architectures in multistandard scenarios. It basically summarizes the conclusions and results obtained within the ACTS project SUNBEAM, proposing algorithms and analyzing the feasibility of implementation of innovative and software-reconfigurable array processing architectures in multistandard settings     

Direct conversion radio for digital mobile phones-design issues, status, and trends

Applications of direct frequency-conversion techniques have been rapidly getting attention of radio designers worldwide. This paper focuses on bringing out key implementation challenges of direct conversion receivers and transmitters targeted for different second- and third-generation mobile phone standards like global system for mobile communication, code division multiple access (cdmaOne and CDMA 2000), and wide-band code division multiple access. Techniques and tradeoffs to arrive at optimal implementation are highlighted. Some of the commercially available application-specific integrated circuits that are based on direct conversion architecture and their salient features are summarized.     

A Mobile Radio Single-Frequency "Two-Way" Diversity System Using Adaptive Retransmission from the Base

This paper describes an adaptive retransmission system capable of providing a UHF (1 GHz) mobile radio channel with "twoway diversity." The system is unique in that all signal processing associated with the diversity combining is done at the base station. A two-branch prototype of the system, without modulation, was field tested to determine its adaptive retransmission performance. These tests indicate that the statistics of the fading envelope at both the base and mobile stations closely agree with those predicted by theory for an equal gain combiner with correlation between the branches.     

A mobile radio single-frequency "Two-way" diversity system using adaptive retransmission from the base

This paper describes an adaptive retransmission system capable of providing a UHF (1 GHz) mobile radio channel with "two-way diversity." The system is unique in that all signal processing associated with the diversity combining is done at the base station. A two-branch prototype of the system, without modulation, was field tested to determine its adaptive retransmission performance. These tests indicate that the statistics of the fading envelope at both the base and mobile stations closely agree with those predicted by theory for an equal gain combiner with correlation between the branches.     

Broadband wireless access and future communication networks

This paper presents a vision for wireless communication systems beyond the third generation, which comprises a combination of several optimized access systems on a common IP-based medium-access and core network platform. These different access systems will interwork via horizontal and vertical handover, service negotiation, and global roaming. The different access systems are allocated to different cell layers in the sense of hierarchical cells with respect to cell size, coverage, and mobility to provide globally optimized seamless services to all users. This vision requires extensive international research and standardization activities to solve many technical challenges. Key issues are the global interworking of different access systems on a common platform, the implementation of multimode and multiband terminals and base stations by software-defined radio concepts as well as advanced antenna concepts