While the capacity of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems has been explored in considerable detail, virtually all literature on this topic ignores electromagnetic considerations. This dissertation explores electromagnetic effects on the capacity performance of these multi-antenna architectures. Specifically, it examines the impact of superdirectivity for compact antenna arrays, the effect of antenna mutual coupling, and MIMO performance of multi-mode optical fiber with non-linear detection. Superdirectivity can lead to abnormally large capacity bounds in a MIMO communication system, especially when the antennas are placed close together. Because superdirective behavior is difficult to achieve in practice, this work formulates an approach for limiting the impact of superdirectivity by introducing finite ohmic loss into the capacity expressions. Results show that even a small amount of ohmic loss significantly affects the achievable system capacity and suppresses superdirective solutions. This formulation allows a more detailed examination of the capacity of MIMO systems for compact arrays. For channels which do not vary in time, placing antennas closer together generally reduces the system capacity. However, recent work has demonstrated that for a MIMO system operating in a fast fading environment where the transmitter and receiver know the channel covariance information, the capacity increases as antennas are placed near each other due to an increase in spatial correlation. Analysis of this behavior illustrates that when these capacity gains (due to closely spaced antennas) are observed the radiated power is also increased. Constraining the radiated power leads to superdirective solutions in which the ohmic loss constraint developed must be used to properly determine the capacity behavior of this system. Application of this constraint then leads to an optimum antenna spacing in contrast to the findings of previous research which indicate that antennas should be as close together as possible. Additionally, this section provides an analysis regarding the number of spatial modes that can be used for various system configurations. Recent research has shown that it is possible for MIMO communication techniques to be used with multimode optical fibers to increase the available distance-bandwidth. However, implementation of traditional MIMO schemes requires the use of coherent optical detection which can lead to high system complexity and cost. This dissertation proposes a multimode fiber MIMO system architecture which allows simultaneous transmission of unique streams to different users on the same fiber while using incoherent detection with amplitude and phase modulation at the transmitter. The resulting capacity scales nearly linearly with the number of transmitters and receivers. Because the architecture requires channel state information at the transmitter, a training scheme appropriate for use with optical intensity detection is also discussed.

Prevailing propagation phenomena in certain areas play a vital role in deciding terrestrial wireless systems performance. Vertical refractivity profile below 1 km is a critical parameter for designing reliable systems; noting that there is a shortage of upper-air data worldwide. Anomalous phenomena may cause severe signal fading and interference beyond the horizon. The objectives of this thesis are to investigate dominant refractive conditions in the subtropical Arabian Gulf region, develop new approaches and empirical models for evaluating vertical refractivity profiles and relevant propagation parameters in the low troposphere, and to examine the impact of frequently experienced anomalous phenomena on terrestrial microwave links. Twenty-three years of meteorological measurements, from 1990 to 2013, are utilized using spatially separated surface stations and a single radiosonde in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Profiles of sea level, surface and upper refractivity components are statistically analysed. Three major atmospheric layers; namely 65 m, 100 m and 1 km above the ground are studied to analyse relevant propagation parameters such as sub-refraction, super-refraction, anomalous propagation probability parameter β0 and point refractivity gradient not exceeded for 1% of time. The effective earth radius factor k is investigated using a new weighted averaged approach. In addition, the seasonal structure of atmospheric ducting is dimensioned within 350 m layer above ground. Finally, microwave measurement campaign is conducted using multiple radio links operating in UAE using various frequency bands. The link budget simulations are compared with the signal strength measurements. Fading scenarios are studied against the observed anomalous conditions and several recommendations are concluded.

The objectives of this work were to investigate, design and implement Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna arrays for mobile phones. Several MIMO antennas were developed and tested over various wireless-communication frequency bands. The radiation performance and channel capacity of these antennas were computed and measured: the results are discussed in the context of the frequency bands of interest. A comprehensive study of MIMO antenna configurations such as 2 × 1, 3 × 1, 2 × 2 and 3 × 3, using polarisation diversity as proposed for future mobile handsets, is presented. The channel capacity is investigated and discussed, as applying to Rayleigh fading channels with different power spectrum distributions with respect to azimuth and zenith angles. The channel capacity of 2 × 2 and 3 × 3 MIMO systems using spatial polarisation diversity is presented for different antenna designs. The presented results show that the maximum channel capacity for an antenna contained within a small volume can be reached with careful selection of the orthogonal spatial fields. The results are also compared against planar array MIMO antenna systems, in which the antenna size considered was much larger. A 50% antenna size reduction method is explored by applying magnetic wall concept on the symmetry reference of the antenna structure. Using this method, a triple dual-band inverted-F antenna system is presented and considered for MIMO application. Means of achieving minimum coupling between the three antennas are investigated over the 2.45 GHz and 5.2 GHz bands. A new 2 2 MIMO dual-band balanced antenna handset, intended to minimise the coupling with the handset and human body was proposed, developed and tested. The antenna coupling with the handset and human hand is reported in terms the radiation performance and the available channel capacity. In addition, a dual-polarisation dipole antenna is proposed, intended for use as one of three collocated orthogonal antennas in a polarisation-diversity MIMO communication system. The antenna actually consists of two overlaid electric and magnetic dipoles, such that their radiation patterns are nominally identical but they are cross-polarised and hence only interact minimally.

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Being one of the fastest growing fields of engineering, wireless has gained the attention of researchers and commercial businesses all over the world. Extensive research is underway to improve the performance of existing systems and to introduce cutting edge wireless technologies that can make high speed wireless communications possible. The first part of this dissertation deals with discrete channel models that are used for simulating error traces produced by wireless channels. Most of the time, wireless channels have memory and we rely on discrete time Markov models to simulate them. The primary advantage of using these models is rapid experimentation and prototyping. Efficient estimation of the parameters of a Markov model (including its number of states) is important to reproducing and/or forecasting channel statistics accurately. Although the parameter estimation of Markov processes has been studied extensively, its order estimation problem has been addressed only recently. In this report, we investigate the existing order estimation techniques for Markov chains and hidden Markov models. Performance comparison with semi-hidden Markov models is also discussed. Error source modeling in slow and fast fading conditions is also considered in great detail. Cognitive Radio is an emerging technology in wireless communications that can improve the utilization of radio spectrum by incorporating some intelligence in its design. It can adapt with the environment and can change its particular transmission or reception parameters to execute its tasks without interfering with the licensed users. One problem that CR network usually faces is the difficulty in detecting and classifying its low power signal that is present in the environment. Most of the time traditional energy detection techniques fail to detect these signals because of their low SNRs. In the second part of this thesis, we address this problem by using higher order statistics of incoming signals and classifying them by using the pattern recognition capabilities of HMMs combined with cased-based learning approach. This dissertation also deals with dynamic spectrum allocation in cognitive radio using HMMs. CR networks that are capable of using frequency bands assigned to licensed users, apart from utilizing unlicensed bands such as UNII radio band or ISM band, are also called Licensed Band Cognitive Radios. In our novel work, the dynamic spectrum management or dynamic frequency allocation is performed by the help of HMM predictions. This work is based on the idea that if Markov models can accurately model spectrum usage patterns of different licensed users, then it should also correctly predict the spectrum holes and use these frequencies for its data transmission. Simulations have shown that HMMs prediction results are quite accurate and can help in avoiding CR interference with the primary licensed users and vice versa. At the same time, this helps in sending its data over these channels more reliably. / Ph. D.

The success of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) paradigm relies on, among other things, developing energy-efficient communication techniques that can enable information exchange among billions of battery-operated IoT devices. With its technological capability of simultaneous information and energy transfer, ambient backscatter is quickly emerging as an appealing solution for this communication paradigm, especially for the links with low data rate requirements. However, many challenges and limitations of ambient backscatter have to be overcome for widespread adoption of the technology in future wireless networks. Motivated by this, we study the design and implementation of ambient backscatter systems, including non-coherent detection and encoding schemes, and investigate techniques such as multiple antenna interference cancellation and frequency-shift backscatter to improve the bit error rate performance of the designed ambient backscatter systems. First, the problem of coherent and semi-coherent ambient backscatter is investigated by evaluating the exact bit error rate (BER) of the system. The test statistic used for the signal detection is based on the averaging of energy of the received signal samples. It is important to highlight that the conditional distributions of this test statistic are derived using the central limit theorem (CLT) approximation in the literature. The characterization of the exact conditional distributions of the test statistic as non-central chi-squared random variable for the binary hypothesis testing problem is first handled in our study, which is a key contribution of this particular work. The evaluation of the maximum likelihood (ML) detection threshold is also explored which is found to be intractable. To overcome this, alternate strategies to approximate the ML threshold are proposed. In addition, several insights for system design and implementation are provided both from analytical and numerical standpoints. Second, the highly appealing non-coherent signal detection is explored in the context of ambient backscatter for a time-selective channel. Modeling the time-selective fading as a first-order autoregressive (AR) process, we implement a new detection architecture at the receiver based on the direct averaging of the received signal samples, which departs significantly from the energy averaging-based receivers considered in the literature. For the proposed setup, we characterize the exact asymptotic BER for both single-antenna (SA) and multi-antenna (MA) receivers, and demonstrate the robustness of the new architecture to timing errors. Our results demonstrate that the direct-link (DL) interference from the ambient power source leads to a BER floor in the SA receiver, which the MA receiver can avoid by estimating the angle of arrival (AoA) of the DL. The analysis further quantifies the effect of improved angular resolution on the BER as a function of the number of receive antennas. Third, the advantages of utilizing Manchester encoding for the data transmission in the context of non-coherent ambient backscatter have been explored. Specifically, encoding is shown to simplify the detection procedure at the receiver since the optimal decision rule is found to be independent of the system parameters. Through extensive numerical results, it is further shown that a backscatter system with Manchester encoding can achieve a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) gain compared to the commonly used uncoded direct on-off keying (OOK) modulation, when used in conjunction with a multi-antenna receiver employing the direct-link cancellation. Fourth, the BER performance of frequency-shift ambient backscatter, which achieves the self-interference mitigation by spatially separating the reflected backscatter signal from the impending source signal, is investigated. The performance of the system is evaluated for a non-coherent receiver under slow fading in two different network setups: 1) a single interfering link coming from the ambient transmission occurring in the shifted frequency region, and 2) a large-scale network with multiple interfering signals coming from the backscatter nodes and ambient source devices transmitting in the band of interest. Modeling the interfering devices as a two dimensional Poisson point process (PPP), tools from stochastic geometry are utilized to evaluate the bit error rate for the large-scale network setup. / Doctor of Philosophy / The emerging paradigm of Internet-of-Things (IoT) has the capability of radically transforming the human experience. At the heart of this technology are the smart edge devices that will monitor everyday physical processes, communicate regularly with the other nodes in the network chain, and automatically take appropriate actions when necessary. Naturally, many challenges need to be tackled in order to realize the true potential of this technology. Most relevant to this dissertation are the problems of powering potentially billions of such devices and enabling low-power communication among them. Ambient backscatter has emerged as a useful technology to handle the aforementioned challenges of the IoT networks due to its capability to support the simultaneous transfer of information and energy. This technology allows devices to harvest energy from the ambient signals in the environment thereby making them self-sustainable, and in addition provide carrier signals for information exchange. Using these attributes of ambient backscatter, the devices can operate at very low power which is an important feature when considering the reliability requirements of the IoT networks. That said, the ambient backscatter technology needs to overcome many challenges before its widespread adoption in IoT networks. For example, the range of backscatter is limited in comparison to the conventional communication systems due to self-interference from the power source at a receiver. In addition, the probability of detecting the data in error at the receiver, characterized by the bit error rate (BER) metric, in the presence of wireless multipath is generally poor in ambient backscatter due to double path loss and fading effects observed for the backscatter link. Inspired by this, the aim of this dissertation is to come up with new architecture designs for the transmitter and receiver devices that can improve the BER performance. The key contributions of the dissertation include the analytical derivations of BER which provide insights on the system design and the main parameters impacting the system performance. The exact design of the optimal detection technique for a communication system is dependent on the channel behavior, mainly the time-varying nature in the case of a flat fading channel. Depending on the mobility of devices and scatterers present in the wireless channel, it can either be described as time-selective or time-nonselective. In the time-nonselective channels, coherent detection that requires channel state information (CSI) estimation using pilot signals can be implemented for ambient backscatter. On the other hand, non-coherent detection is preferred when the channel is time-selective since the CSI estimation is not feasible in such scenarios. In the first part of this dissertation, we analyze the performance of ambient backscatter in a point-to-point single-link system for both time-nonselective and time-selective channels. In particular, we determine the BER performance of coherent and non-coherent detection techniques for ambient backscatter systems in this line of work. In addition, we investigate the possibility of improving the BER performance using multi-antenna and coding techniques. Our analyses demonstrate that the use of multi-antenna and coding can result in tremendous improvement of the performance and simplification of the detection procedure, respectively. In the second part of the dissertation, we study the performance of ambient backscatter in a large-scale network and compare it to that of the point-to-point single-link system. By leveraging tools from stochastic geometry, we analytically characterize the BER performance of ambient backscatter in a field of interfering devices modeled as a Poisson point process.

The rapid growth in wireless communications has given rise to an increasing demand for channel capacity using limited bandwidth. Wireless channels vary over time due to fading and changing interference conditions. Typical wireless systems are designed by choosing a modulation scheme to meet worst case conditions and thus rely on power control to adapt to changing channel conditions. Adaptive modulation, however, exploits these channel variations to improve the spectral efficiency of wireless communications by intelligently changing the modulation scheme based on channel conditions. Necessarily, among the modulation schemes used are spectrally efficient modulation schemes such as quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) techniques. QAM yields the high spectral efficiency due to its use of amplitude as well as phase modulation and therefore is an effective technique for achieving high channel capacity. The main drawbacks of QAM modulation are its reduced energy efficiency (as compared to standard QPSK) and its sensitivity to channel amplitude variations. Adaptive modulation attempts to address the first drawback by using more energy efficient schemes in low SNR conditions are reserving the use of QAM for high SNR conditions. The second drawback leads to a requirement of high quality channel estimation. Many researchers have studied pilot symbol assisted modulation for compensating the effects of fading at the receiver. A main contribution of this thesis is the investigation of different channel estimation techniques (along with the effect of pilot symbol spacing and Doppler spread) on the performance of adaptive modulation. Another important parameter affecting adaptive modulation is the signal-to-noise ratio. In order to adapt modulation efficiently, it is essential to have accurate knowledge of the channel signal-to-noise ratio. The performance of adaptive modulation depends directly on how well the channel SNR is estimated. The more accurate the estimation of the channel SNR is, the better the choice of modulation scheme becomes, and the better the ability to exploit the variations in the wireless channel is. The second main contribution of this thesis is the investigation of the impact of SNR estimation techniques on the performance and spectral efficiency of adaptive modulation. Further, we investigate the impact of various channel conditions on SNR estimation and the resulting impact on the performance of adaptive modulation. Finally, we investigate long term SNR estimation, its use in adaptive modulation and present a comparison between the two approaches / Master of Science

Yes / We study transmission over multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) block-fading channels with imperfect channel state information (CSI) at both the transmitter and receiver. Specifically, based on mismatched decoding theory for a fixed channel realization, we investigate the largest achievable rates with independent and identically distributed inputs and a nearest neighbor decoder. We then study the corresponding information outage probability in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime and analyze the interplay between estimation error variances at the transmitter and at the receiver to determine the optimal outage exponent, defined as the high-SNR slope of the outage probability plotted in a logarithmic-logarithmic scale against the SNR. We demonstrate that despite operating with imperfect CSI, power adaptation can offer substantial gains in terms of outage exponent. / A. T. Asyhari was supported in part by the Yousef Jameel Scholarship, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K., and the National Science Council of Taiwan under grant NSC 102-2218-E-009-001. A. Guillén i Fàbregas was supported in part by the European Research Council under ERC grant agreement 259663 and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under grant TEC2012-38800-C03-03.

This study was a replication and an extension of the 2021 research performed by Spurgin and Borquez on the correspondence between receptive and expressive behavior. Spurgin examined the role of the echoic in a hear-say procedure with adult learners, while Borquez examined the role of the echoic in both hear-say and see-say procedures. Both studies found that receptive and expressive correspondence did not occur consistently across participants. The present study asked if the fading steps used during training contributed to the results of the previous researchers. In the present study, the fading steps were changed to minimize the chance that the participant developed a position bias. The conditions were also counterbalanced to analyze the effects of hear-say vs. see-say, easy vs. difficult words, and the order in which the words were trained on the acquisition of receptive labels and the emergence of expressive labels. The study consisted of five phases: pre-training, hear-say teaching, see-say teaching, receptive testing, and expressive testing. Results indicated that although that acquisition of receptive labels improved, the change in fading steps did not make a significant difference in the correspondence of receptive and expressive language. Results showed similar correspondence in the hear-say and see-say procedures. Easy words and words taught more recently were correlated with increased receptive-expressive correspondence.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 23-26, 2000 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / Bit errors often occur in a wireless communications link when impairments alter the transmitted signal. It is advantageous to be able to predict how well a system will tolerate transmission problems. This paper details laboratory performance measurements and comparisons in terms of evaluating configurations of a digital receiver for Feher patented Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (FQPSK-B) demodulation. The transmitted signal is subjected to calibrated levels of impairments while the receiver performance is monitored in real-time.