Digital communication systems which use Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) are now widely used and have many advantages. The main disadvantage is the requirement for highly linear analogue electronics including the high power amplifier (HPA). This requirement cannot be met in all circumstances because of the occurrence of symbols with high peak to average power ratio (PAPR). Such symbols may be non-linearly distorted by limiting. Approaches to solve this problem have been either to reduce the PAPR at the transmitter or to try to mitigate the effect of the non-linearity at the receiver. Soft-limiting, i.e. applying limiting in software prior to the HPA is a simple way to reduce the PAPR. It produces non-linear distortion which will cause an increase in the bit-error-rate (BER) at the receiver. This thesis surveys existing alternatives ways of reducing the effect of non-linearity and proposes some new ones. Two iterative receiver techniques, based on statistical analysis of the nature of the non-linearity, have been implemented and investigated. These are the ‘Bussgang Noise Cancellation’ (BNC) technique and the ‘Decision Aided Reconstruction’ (DAR) techniques. As these techniques are valid for any memory-less nonlinearity, an alternative form of limiting, named as Inverted-Wraparound (IWRAP) has been included in the BNC investigation. A new method is proposed which is capable of correcting the received time-domain samples that are clipped, once they have been identified. This is named the ‘Equation-Method’ and it works by identifying constellation symbols that are likely to be correct at the receiver. If there are a sufficient number of these and they are correctly identified, the FFT may be partitioned to produce a set of equations that may be solved for the clipped time-domain samples. The thesis proposes four enhancements to this new method which improve its effectiveness. It is shown that the best form of this method outperforms conventional techniques especially for severe clipping levels. The performance of these four enhancements is evaluated over channels with additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) in addition to clipping distortion. A technique based on a ‘margin factor’ is designed to make these methods work more effectively in the presence of AWGN noise. A new combining algorithm referred as ‘HARQ for Clipping’ is presented where soft bit decisions are combined from multiple transmissions. ‘HARQ for Clipping’ has been combined with the best version of the Equation-Method, and the performance of this approach is evaluated in terms of the BER with different levels of AWGN. It has been compared to other approaches from the literature and was found to out-perform the BNC iterative receiver by 3dB at signal to noise ratios around 10dB. Without HARQ, the best version of the Equation-Method performs better than the BNC receiver, at signal-to-nose ratios above about 17dB.

Image De-noising forms an integral part of image processing. It is used as a standalone algorithm for improving the quality of the image obtained through camera as well as a starting stage for image processing applications like face recognition, super resolution etc. Non Local Means (NL-Means) and Bilateral Filter are two computationally complex de-noising algorithms which could provide good de-noising results. Due to its computational complexity, the real time applications associated with these letters are limited. In this thesis, we propose the use of hardware accelerators such as GPU (Graphics Processing Units) and FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) to speed up the filter execution and efficiently implement using them. GPU based implementation of these letters is carried out using Open Computing Language (Open CL). The basic objective of this research is to perform high speed de-noising without compromising on the quality. Here we implement a basic NL-Means filter, a Fast NL-Means filter, and Bilateral filter using Gauss Polynomial decomposition on GPU. We also propose a modification to the existing NL-Means algorithm and Gauss Polynomial Bilateral filter. Instead of Gaussian Spatial Kernel used in standard algorithm, Box Spatial kernel is introduced to improve the speed of execution of the algorithm. This research work is a step forward towards making the real time implementation of these algorithms possible. It has been found from results that the NL-Means implementation on GPU using Open CL is about 25x faster than regular CPU based implementation for larger images (1024x1024). For Fast NL-Means, GPU based implementation is about 90x faster than CPU implementation. Even with the improved execution time, the embedded system application of the NL-Means is limited due to the power and thermal restrictions of the GPU device. In order to create a low power and faster implementation, we have implemented the algorithm on FPGA. FPGAs are reconfigurable devices and enable us to create a custom architecture for the parallel execution of the algorithm. It was found that the execution time for smaller images (256x256) is about 200x faster than CPU implementation and about 25x faster than GPU execution. Moreover the power requirements of the FPGA design of the algorithm (0.53W) is much less compared to CPU(30W) and GPU(200W).

The work deals with the problematics of receiving very weak radio signals and it is focused especially on systems for low rate telemetry with carrier-subcarrier modulation. The part of this work is dedicated to calculation the link budget of typicall telemetry data transmission system between the Mars and the Earth in respect of the receiving equipment, which could be developed in the Experimental sattelites laboratory on the Institute of radio electronics BUT. The main part of this work is dedicated to developing and testing the low rate telemetry data transmission system model. The model is developed for the purpose of study the effects of AWGN and phase noise on the whole system and also on its component parts. The model has been developed and described in the way of easy parameters modification. The design for each parameter of the model is described carefully. With the developed model, the study of the effects of AWGN and phase noise on the whole system and also on its component parts has been performed.

This thesis presents a comprehensive investigation into improving wireless transmission rates and reliability through the implementation of Space Time Trellis Codes(STTC). The study focuses on enhancing the coding gain, diversity gain, and flexible transmission capabilities, which are crucial for Error-Correcting Codes (ECC)in wireless communications. Spectral efficiency, a primary concern, is achieved byincorporating Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) techniques. This thesis discusses the encoding method and decoding algorithm for STTC systems. Then, the performance of MIMO using the Alamouti scheme is determined.Further, the benefits of Cognitive Radio (CR), an intelligent radio technology capable of automatically detecting the best available wireless channel in the spectrumat any given time, are utilized. Energy Detection (ED) is employed for SpectrumSensing (SS) to detect the presence of Primary Users (PUs). The thesis analyzes theperformance of Probability of Detection (PD) and Probability of False Alarm (PFA). Furthermore, the thesis evaluates the Bit Error Rate (BER) performance of STTCover an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, considering different modulation schemes generated in MATLAB. Specifically, it investigates the performance ofSTTC-MIMO in terms of BER over Rayleigh channels with Quadrature AmplitudeModulation (QAM) for different combinations of transmitting and receiving antennas. The findings from this research contribute to advancing wireless communicationsystems by addressing the challenges of error correction, spectral efficiency, and reliable data transmission. The integration of STTC with MIMO and CR presents aprogressive approach towards maximizing the potential of wireless communicationtechnologies to cater to the increasing demands for seamless connectivity and superior performance. This research adds to the ongoing efforts of enhancing wirelesscommunication systems’ performance and efficiency, fostering advancements in wireless technology.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is being successfully used in numerous applications. It was chosen for IEEE 802.11a wireless local area network (WLAN) standard, and it is being considered for the fourthgeneration mobile communication systems. Along with its many attractive features, OFDM has some principal drawbacks. Sensitivity to frequency errors is the most dominant of these drawbacks. In this thesis, the frequency offset and phase noise effects on OFDM based communication systems are investigated under a variety of channel conditions covering both indoor and outdoor environments. The simulation performance results of the OFDM system for these channels are presented. / Lieutenant Junior Grade, Turkish Navy

We implement a package for the construction of a new class of Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes based on a new random high girth graph construction technique, and study the performance of the codes so constructed on both the Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel as well as the Binary Erasure Channel (BEC). Our codes are “near regular”, meaning thereby that the the left degree of any node in the Tanner graph constructed varies by at most 1 from the average left degree and so also the right degree. The simulations for rate half codes indicate that the codes perform better than both the regular Progressive Edge Growth (PEG) codes which are constructed using a similar random technique, as well as the MacKay random codes. For high rates the ARG (Almost Regular high Girth) codes perform better than the PEG codes at low to medium SNR’s but the PEG codes seem to do better at high SNR’s. We have tried to track both near codewords as well as small weight codewords for these codes to examine the performance at high rates. For the binary erasure channel the performance of the ARG codes is better than that of the PEG codes. We have also proposed a modification of the sum-product decoding algorithm, where a quantity called the “node credibility” is used to appropriately process messages to check nodes. This technique substantially reduces the error rates at signal to noise ratios of 2.5dB and beyond for the codes experimented on. The average number of iterations to achieve this improved performance is practically the same as that for the traditional sum-product algorithm.

In this dissertation an in-depth study was conducted into the design, implementation and evaluation of a QPSK-based receiver structure for application in a UMTS WCDMA environment. The novelty of this work lies with the specific receiver architecture aimed to optimise the BER performance when possibly sparse data streams are transmitted. This scenario is a real possibility according to Verd´u et al [1] and Hagenauer et al [2–6]. A novel receiver structure was conceptualised, developed and evaluated in both narrowband and wideband scenarios, where it was found to outperform conventional receivers when a sparse data stream is transmitted. In order to reach the main conclusions of this study, it was necessary to develop a realistic simulation platform. The developed platform is capable of simulating a communication system meeting the physical layer requirements of the UMTS WCDMA standard. The platform can also perform narrowband simulations. A flexible channel emulator was developed that may be configured to simulate AWGN channel conditions, frequency non-selective fading (either Rayleigh or Rician with a configurable LOS component and Doppler spread), or a full multipath scenario where each path has a configurable LOS component, Doppler spread, path gain and path delay. It is therefore possible to even simulate a complex, yet realistic, COST207-TU channel model. The platform is also capable of simulating MUI. Each interfering user has a unique and independent multipath fading channel, while sharing the same bandwidth. Finally, the entire platform executes all simulations in baseband for improved simulation times. The research outputs of this work are summarised below: <ul> <li>A parameter, the sparseness measure, was defined in order to quantify the level by which a data stream differs from an equiprobable data stream.</li> <li>A novel source model was proposed and developed to simulate data streams with a specified amount of sparseness.</li> <li>An introductory investigation was undertaken to determine the effect of simple FEC techniques on the sparseness of an encoded data stream.</li> <li>Novel receiver structures for both narrowband and wideband systems were proposed, developed and evaluated for systems where possibly sparse data streams may be transmitted.</li> <li>Analytic expressions were derived to take the effect of sparseness into account in communication systems, including expressions for the joint PDF of a BPSK branch, the optimal decision region of a detector in AWGN conditions as well as the BER performance of a communication system employing the proposed optimal receiver in both AWGN channel conditions as well as in flat fading channel conditions.</li> <li>Numerous BER performance curves were obtained comparing the proposed receiver structure with conventional receivers in a variety of channel conditions, including AWGN, frequency non-selective fading and a multipath COST207-TU channel environment, as well as the effect of MUI</li></ul>. AFRIKAANS : In hierdie verhandeling word ’n in-diepte studie gedoen rakende die ontwerp, implementasie en evaluasie van ’n KPSK-gebaseerde ontvanger struktuur wat in ’n UMTS WKVVT omgewing gebruik kan word. Die bydrae van hierdie werk lˆe in die spesifieke ontvanger argitektuur wat daarop mik om die BFT werksverrigting te optimeer wanneer yl data strome versend word. Hierdie is ’n realistiese moontlikheid volgens Verd´u et al [1] en Hagenauer et al [2–6]. ’n Nuwe ontvanger struktuur is gekonsepsualiseer, ontwikkel en evalueer vir beide noueband en wyeband stelsels, waar dit gevind is dat dit beter werksverrigting lewer as tradisionele ontvangers wanneer yl data strome versend word. Dit was nodig om ’n realistiese simulasie platform te ontwikkel om die belangrikste gevolgtrekkings van hierdie studie te kan maak. Die ontwikkelde platform is in staat om ’n kommunikasie stelsel te simuleer wat aan die fisiese laag vereistes van die UMTS WKVVT standaard voldoen. Die platform kan ook noueband stelsels simuleer. ’n Aanpasbare kanaal simulator is ontwikkel wat opgestel kan word om SWGR kanaal toestande, plat duining (beide Rayleigh of Ricies met ’n verstelbare siglyn komponent en Doppler verspreiding), sowel as ’n veelvuldige pad omgewing (waar elke unieke pad ’n verstelbare siglyn komponent, Doppler verspreiding, pad wins en pad vertraging het) te emuleer. Dit is selfs moontlik om ’n komplekse, maar steeds realistiese COST207-TU kanaal model te simuleer. Die platform het ook die vermo¨e om VGS te simuleer. Elke steurende gebruiker het ’n unieke en onafhanklike veelvuldige pad deinende kanaal, terwyl dieselfde bandwydte gedeel word. Laastens, alle simulasies van die platvorm word in basisband uitgevoer wat verkorte simulasie periodes verseker. Die navorsingsuitsette van hierdie werk kan as volg opgesom word: <ul> <li>’n Parameter, die ylheidsmaatstaf, is gedefin¨ýeer om dit moontlik te maak om die vlak waarmee die ylheid van ’n datastroom verskil van ’n ewekansige stroom te versyfer.</li> <li>’n Nuwe bronmodel is voorgestel en ontwikkel om datastrome met ’n spesifieke ylheid te emuleer.</li> <li>’n Inleidende ondersoek is onderneem om vas te stel wat die effek van VFK tegnieke op die ylheid van ’n enkodeerde datastroom is.</li> <li>Nuwe ontvanger strukture is voorgestel, ontwikkel en evalueer vir beide noueband en wyeband stelsels waar yl datastrome moontlik versend kan word.</li> <li>Analitiese uitdrukkings is afgelei om die effek van ylheid in ag te neem in kommunikasie stelsels. Uitdrukkings vir onder andere die gedeelte WDF van ’n BFVK tak, die optimale beslissingspunt van ’n detektor in SWGR toestande, sowel as die BFT werksverrigting van ’n kommunikasie stelsel wat van die voorgestelde optimale ontvangers gebruik maak, hetsy in SWGR of in plat duinende kanaal toestande.</li> <li>Talryke BFT werksverrigting krommes is verkry wat die voorgestelde ontvanger struktuur vergelyk met die konvensionele ontvangers in ’n verskeidenheid kanaal toestande, insluitend SWGR, plat duinende kanale en ’n veelvuldige pad COST207-TU kanaal omgewing, sowel as in die teenwoordigheid van VGS.</li></ul></p Copyright / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted

Since the frantic race towards the Shannon bound [1] commenced in the early 1950’s, linear block codes have become integral components of most digital communication systems. Both binary and non-binary linear block codes have proven themselves as formidable adversaries against the impediments presented by wireless communication channels. However, prior to the landmark 1974 paper [2] by Bahl et al. on the optimal Maximum a-Posteriori Probability (MAP) trellis decoding of linear block codes, practical linear block code decoding schemes were not only based on suboptimal hard decision algorithms, but also code-specific in most instances. In 1978 Wolf expedited the work of Bahl et al. by demonstrating the applicability of a block-wise Viterbi Algorithm (VA) to Bahl-Cocke-Jelinek-Raviv (BCJR) trellis structures as a generic optimal soft decision Maximum-Likelihood (ML) trellis decoding solution for linear block codes [3]. This study, largely motivated by code implementers’ ongoing search for generic linear block code decoding algorithms, builds on the foundations established by Bahl, Wolf and other contributing researchers by thoroughly evaluating the VA decoding of popular binary and non-binary linear block codes on realistic narrowband and wideband digital communication platforms in lifelike mobile environments. Ideally, generic linear block code decoding algorithms must not only be modest in terms of computational complexity, but they must also be channel aware. Such universal algorithms will undoubtedly be integrated into most channel coding subsystems that adapt to changing mobile channel conditions, such as the adaptive channel coding schemes of current Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), 3rd Generation (3G) and Beyond 3G (B3G) systems, as well as future 4th Generation (4G) systems. In this study classic BCJR linear block code trellis construction is annotated and applied to contemporary binary and non-binary linear block codes. Since BCJR trellis structures are inherently sizable and intricate, rudimentary trellis complexity calculation and reduction algorithms are also presented and demonstrated. The block-wise VA for BCJR trellis structures, initially introduced by Wolf in [3], is revisited and improved to incorporate Channel State Information (CSI) during its ML decoding efforts. In order to accurately appraise the Bit-Error-Rate (BER) performances of VA decoded linear block codes in authentic wireless communication environments, Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN), flat fading and multi-user multipath fading simulation platforms were constructed. Included in this task was the development of baseband complex flat and multipath fading channel simulator models, capable of reproducing the physical attributes of realistic mobile fading channels. Furthermore, a complex Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) system were employed as the narrowband communication link of choice for the AWGN and flat fading channel performance evaluation platforms. The versatile B3G multi-user multipath fading simulation platform, however, was constructed using a wideband RAKE receiver-based complex Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum Multiple Access (DS/SSMA) communication system that supports unfiltered and filtered Complex Spreading Sequences (CSS). This wideband platform is not only capable of analysing the influence of frequency selective fading on the BER performances of VA decoded linear block codes, but also the influence of the Multi-User Interference (MUI) created by other users active in the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) system. CSS families considered during this study include Zadoff-Chu (ZC) [4, 5], Quadriphase (QPH) [6], Double Sideband (DSB) Constant Envelope Linearly Interpolated Root-of- Unity (CE-LI-RU) filtered Generalised Chirp-like (GCL) [4, 7-9] and Analytical Bandlimited Complex (ABC) [7, 10] sequences. Numerous simulated BER performance curves, obtained using the AWGN, flat fading and multi-user multipath fading channel performance evaluation platforms, are presented in this study for various important binary and non-binary linear block code classes, all decoded using the VA. Binary linear block codes examined include Hamming and Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) codes, whereas popular burst error correcting non-binary Reed-Solomon (RS) codes receive special attention. Furthermore, a simple cyclic binary linear block code is used to validate the viability of employing the reduced trellis structures produced by the proposed trellis complexity reduction algorithm. The simulated BER performance results shed light on the error correction capabilities of these VA decoded linear block codes when influenced by detrimental channel effects, including AWGN, Doppler spreading, diminished Line-of-Sight (LOS) signal strength, multipath propagation and MUI. It also investigates the impact of other pertinent communication system configuration alternatives, including channel interleaving, code puncturing, the quality of the CSI available during VA decoding, RAKE diversity combining approaches and CSS correlation characteristics. From these simulated results it can not only be gathered that the VA is an effective generic optimal soft input ML decoder for both binary and non-binary linear block codes, but also that the inclusion of CSI during VA metric calculations can fortify the BER performances of such codes beyond that attainable by classic ML decoding algorithms. / Dissertation (MEng(Electronic))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted

The dissertation thesis deals with a study of an influence of a simultaneous incidence of an additive thermal noise and a multiplicative phase noise on the useful signal transmission in narrowband satellite communication systems. While the additive thermal noise affects the useful signal only on the receiver side of the communication system, the multiplicative phase noise is produced in all system oscillators. One investigates how the receiver filter bandwidth reduction takes effect on the influence of individual noise types. The thesis is divided into four units. The first one (chapters 4 and 5) solves the ways of modeling of both noise types. In the second part (chapter 6), on the simple example, the primary analysis of the phase noise influence is made. Basic modulation schemes used in the satellite communication are also discussed (chapter 7). Third part (chapter 8) is devoted to the modeling of a general digital system with a M PSK modulation made directly on the main carrier wave. The last part (chapter 9) describes the modeling of a digital system with a BPSK modulation on the auxiliary subcarrier wave followed by an SSB modulation on the main carrier wave. General conclusions are deduced from obtained simulation results.