The detrimental effects rapid power fluctuation has on wireless narrowband communication channels has long been a concern of the mobile radio community as appropriate channel models seek to gauge link quality. Furthermore, advances in signal processing capabilities and the desire for spectrally efficient and low power radio systems have rekindled the interest for adaptive transmission schemes, hence some method of quickly probing the link quality and/or predicting channel conditions is required. Mathematical distributions for modeling the channel profile seek to estimate fading parameters from a finite number of discrete time samples of signal amplitude. While the statistical inference of such estimators has proven to be robust to rapidly shifting channel conditions, the benefits are quickly realized at the expense of processing complexity. Furthermore, computations of the best-known estimation techniques are often iterative, tedious, and complex. This thesis takes a renewed look at estimating fading parameters for the Nakagami-m, Rice-K, and Weibull distributions, specifically by showing that the need to solve transcendental equations in the estimators can be circumvented through use of polynomial approximation in the least-squared error sense or via asymptotic series expansion which often lead to closed-form and simplified expressions. These new estimators are compared to existing ones, the performances of which are comparable while preserving a lower computational complexity. In addition, the thesis also investigates the impact knowledge of the fading profile has on systems employing adaptive switching modulation schemes by characterizing performance in terms of average bit error rates (BER) and spectral efficiency. A channel undergoing Rice-$K$ fading on top of log-normal shadowing is simulated by correlating samples of received signal amplitude according to the user's doppler speed, carrier frequency, etc. The channel's throughput and BER performances are analyzed using the above estimation techniques and compared to non-estimation assumptions. Further discussion on narrowband fading parameter estimation and its applicability to wireless communication channels is provided. / Master of Science

Wireless technologies, such as satellite, cellular, and wireless internet are now commercially driven by ever more demanding consumers, who are ready for seamless integration of communication networks from the home to the car, and into the office. There is a growing need to quickly transmit information wirelessly and accurately. Engineers have already combine techniques such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) suitable for high data rate transmission with forward error correction (FEC) methods over wireless channels. In this thesis, we enhance the system throughput of a working OFDM system by adding turbo coding and adaptive modulation (AD). Simulation is done over a time varying, frequency selective Rayleigh fading channel. The temporal variations in the simulated wireless channel are due to the presence of Doppler, a sign of relative motion between transmitter and receiver. The wideband system has 48 data sub-channels, each is individually modulated according to channel state information acquired during the previous burst. The end goal is to increase the system throughput while maintaining system performance under a bit error rate (BER) of 10-2. The results we obtained are preliminary. The lack of resources prevented us from producing detailed graphs of our findings. / Master of Science

Due to the rapid development of wireless communications together with the inflexibility of the current spectrum allocation policy, radio spectrum becomes more and more exhausted. One of the critical challenges of wireless communication systems is to efficiently utilize the limited frequency resources to be able to support the growing demand of high data rate wireless services. As a promising solution, cognitive radios have been suggested to deal with the scarcity and under-utilization of radio spectrum. The basic idea behind cognitive radios is to allow unlicensed users, also called secondary users (SUs), to access the licensed spectrum of primary users (PUs) which improves spectrum utilization. In order to not degrade the performance of the primary networks, SUs have to deploy interference control, interference mitigating, or interference avoidance techniques to minimize the interference incurred at the PUs. Cognitive radio networks (CRNs) have stimulated a variety of studies on improving spectrum utilization. In this context, this thesis has two main objectives. Firstly, it investigates the performance of single hop CRNs with spectrum sharing and opportunistic spectrum access. Secondly, the thesis analyzes the performance improvements of two hop cognitive radio networks when incorporating advanced radio transmission techniques. The thesis is divided into three parts consisting of an introduction part and two research parts based on peer-reviewed publications. Fundamental background on radio propagation channels, cognitive radios, and advanced radio transmission techniques are discussed in the introduction. In the first research part, the performance of single hop CRNs is analyzed. Specifically, underlay spectrum access using M/G/1/K queueing approaches is presented in Part I-A while dynamic spectrum access with prioritized traffics is studied in Part I-B. In the second research part, the performance benefits of integrating advanced radio transmission techniques into cognitive cooperative radio networks (CCRNs) are investigated. In particular, opportunistic spectrum access for amplify-and-forward CCRNs is presented in Part II-A where collaborative spectrum sensing is deployed among the SUs to enhance the accuracy of spectrum sensing. In Part II-B, the effect of channel estimation error and feedback delay on the outage probability and symbol error rate (SER) of multiple-input multiple-output CCRNs is investigated. In Part II-C, adaptive modulation and coding is employed for decode-and-forward CCRNs to improve the spectrum efficiency and to avoid buffer overflow at the relay. Finally, a hybrid interweave-underlay spectrum access scheme for a CCRN is proposed in Part II-D. In this work, the dynamic spectrum access of the PUs and SUs is modeled as a Markov chain which then is utilized to evaluate the outage probability, SER, and outage capacity of the CCRN.

OFDM has been recognized as a powerful multi-carrier modulation technique that provides efficient spectral utilization and resilience to frequency selective fading channels. Adaptive modulation is a concept whereby the modulation modes are dynamically changed based on the perceived instantaneous channel conditions. In conjunction with OFDM systems, adaptive modulation is a very powerful technique to combat the frequency selective nature of mobile channels, while simultaneously attempting to fully maximize the time-varying capacity of the channel. This is based on the fact that frequency selective fading affects the sub-carriers unevenly, causing some of them to fade more severely than others. The modulation modes are adaptively selected on the sub-carriers depending on the amount of fading, to maximize throughput and improve the overall BER. Transmission parameter adaptation is the response of the transmitter to the time-varying channel quality. To efficiently react to the dynamic nature of the channel, adaptive OFDM systems rely on efficient algorithms in three key areas namely, channel quality estimation, transmission parameter selection and signaling or blind detection mechanisms of the modified parameters. These are together termed as the enabling techniques that contribute to the effective performance of adaptive OFDM systems. This thesis deals with higher performance and efficient enabling parameter estimation algorithms that further improve the overall performance of adaptive OFDM systems. Traditional estimation of channel quality indicators, such as noise power and SNR, assume that the noise has a flat power spectral density within the transmission band of the OFDM signal. Hence, a single estimate of the noise power is obtained by averaging the instantaneous noise power values across all the sub-carriers. In reality, the noise within the OFDM bandwidth is a combination of white and correlated noise components, and has an uneven affect across the sub-carriers. It is this fact that has motivated the proposal of a windowing approach for noise power estimation. Windowing provides many local estimates of the dynamic noise statistics and allows better noise tracking across the OFDM transmission band. This method is particularly useful for better resource utilization and improved performance in sub-band adaptive modulation, where adaptation is performed on the sub-carriers on a group-by-group basis based on the observed channel conditions. Blind modulation mode detection is another relatively unexplored issue in regard to adaptation of OFDM systems. The receiver has to be informed of the appropriate modulation modes used at the transmitter for proper demodulation. If this can be done without any explicit signaling information embedded within the OFDM symbol, it has the advantage of improved throughput and data capacity. A model selection approach is taken, a novel statistical blind modulation detection method based on the Kullback-Leibler (K-L) distance is proposed. This algorithm takes into account the distribution of the Euclidian distances from the received noisy samples on the complex plane to the closest legitimate constellation points of all the modulation modes used. If this can be done without any explicit signaling information embedded within the OFDM symbol, it has the advantage of improved throughput and data capacity. A model selection approach is taken, and a novel statistical blind modulation detection method based on the Kullback-Leibler (K-L) distance is proposed. This algorithm takes into account the distribution of the Euclidian distances from the received noisy samples on the complex plane to the closest legitimate constellation points of all the modulation modes used.

[pt] Este trabalho é um estudo sobre um enlace do sistema HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), um subsistema do padrão UMTS/WCDMA, desenvolvido para a transmissão de dados em alta velocidade no enlace de descida. Para atingir altas taxas de transmissão, é prevista a utilização, neste sistema, de diversas técnicas avançadas de processamento de sinais, entre elas a modulação adaptativa. O princípio desta técnica é escolher, para cada quadro de bits transmitido, a modulação mais adequada às condições do canal. Através de simulação, o desempenho da modulação adaptativa em enlaces HSDPA foi avaliado em [4], considerando um canal com desvanecimento plano. Estendendo este trabalho, foram introduzidos novos módulos no simulador, de forma a considerar um canal com multipercursos e a utilização de um receptor Rake. A estimação do canal, utilizada na adaptação, é implementada através da análise do sinal recebido e combinado no receptor Rake. O desempenho do enlace foi avaliado em presença de duplo percurso, para diversas situações, através da taxa de erro de pacote e da vazão obtida na transmissão, procurando-se investigar a influência de parâmetros do sistema e da interferência entre os dois percursos nesse desempenho. / [en] This work is a study about the performance of a HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) which is a subsystem of UMTS/WCDMA designed for high-speed data transmission in the downlink. In order to achieve high bit rates, the use of advanced signal processing techniques, including adaptive modulation, is specified. This technique consists of choosing, for each transmitted frame, the most efficient modulation according to the channel condition. The performance of adaptive modulation in HSDPA links in a flat fading channel has been evaluated in [4] through simulation. In the present work, new simulation modules have been developed to consider multipath and a Rake receiver. The channel estimation used in the link adaptation is obtained from the received and combined signal at Rake receiver. The link level performance has been evaluated in a double path channel for different situations through packet error rate and throughput. The influence of system parameters and path interference on the performance has been investigated.

This thesis comprises two parts: the first part presents channel-adaptive techniques to achieve high spectral efficiency in a single user multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system; the second part exhibits a programmable and reconfigurable software-defined-radio orkbench(SDR-WB) in the Matlab/Octave environment that accommodates a variety of wireless applications. In an attempt to achieve high spectral efficiency, an adaptive modulation technique is applied at the transmitter to vary the data rate depending on the channel state information (CSI). To further enhance the spectral efficiency, adaptive power allocation schemes are applied in the spatial domain to adjust the power on every transmit antenna. We analyze several power control schemes subject to a peak power constraint to maximize the spectral efficiency given an instantaneous target bit-error-rate (BER). A novel power allocation trategy is proposed to achieve high spectral efficiency with relatively low complexity. In addition, adaptive techniques that switch across different MIMO schemes enables even higher spectral efficiency by choosing the scheme with the highest spectral efficiency. We propose a new method to switch between spatial multiplexing with zero-forcing (ZF) detection and orthogonal space-time block coding (OSTBC). This is done by exploiting closed form expressions of the spectral efficiencies--discrete rate spectral efficiency--and finding the crossing points of the two curves. The proposed adaptation scheme adds limited complexity to the transmitter since it requires only statistical information of the channel, which does not change as time evolves. Software Defined Radio (SDR) has received more and more interest recently as a promising multi-band multi-standard solution for transceiver design. In order to support as many wireless applications as possible, we build up a programmable and reconfigurable workbench, namely SDR-WB, in Matlab/Octave environment. The workbench is functionally modularized into generic blocks to facilitate fast development and verification of new algorithms and architectures. The modulation formats that are currently supported by the SDR-WB are MIMO, Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), MIMO-OFDM, DS-CDMA and Filtered Multitone (FMT). / QC 20101108

This thesis examines the benefits of using adaptive modulation and coding in terms of spectral efficiency and probability of bit error. Specifically, we examine the performance enhancement made possible by using linear prediction along with channel estimation in conjunction with adaptive modulation. We begin this manuscript with basic fundamentals of our study, followed by a detailed view of simulations, their results, and our conclusions from them. The study includes simulations in slow and moderately fast flat fading Rayleigh channels. We present our findings regarding the advantages of using predictive measures to foresee the state of the channel and make adjustments to transmissions accordingly. In addition to finding the general advantages of channel prediction in adaptive modulation, we explore various ways to adjust the prediction algorithm when we are faced with high Doppler rates and fast fading. By the end of this work, we should have a better understanding of when channel prediction is most valuable to adaptive modulation and when it is weakest, and how we can alleviate the problems that prediction will have in harsh environments. / Master of Science

Submitted by isabela.moljf@hotmail.com (isabela.moljf@hotmail.com) on 2017-05-30T12:08:23Z No. of bitstreams: 1 gléversonfabnercondelemos.pdf: 2102819 bytes, checksum: e934ec8e8bf0daaaa39a52749b708828 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-05-30T13:52:51Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 gléversonfabnercondelemos.pdf: 2102819 bytes, checksum: e934ec8e8bf0daaaa39a52749b708828 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-30T13:52:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 gléversonfabnercondelemos.pdf: 2102819 bytes, checksum: e934ec8e8bf0daaaa39a52749b708828 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-09-12 / A presente dissertação versa sobre técnicas de baixo custo para detecção, modulação e demodulação de constelações M-QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) de ordem elevada, ou seja, M = 2n, n = {2,3, · · · ,16}. Al´em disso, s˜ao propostas constelações alternativas para M-QAM, M = 22n, n = {1,2, · · · ,8}, que buscam minimizar a PAPR (peak to average power ratio) quando um sistema OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) ´e utilizado para a transmissão de dados. Uma implementação, de baixo custo e em dispositivo FPGA (field programmable gate array), de um esquema de modulação constante e adaptativa para sistemas OFDM, quando a modulação é MQAM, M = 22n, n = {1,2, · · · ,8}, é descrita e analisada. O desempenho das técnicas de detecção propostas é avaliado através de simulações computacionais quando o ruído é AWGN (additive white Gaussian noise) e AIGN (additive impulsive Gaussian noise). Os resultados em termos de BER × Eb/N0 indicam que as perdas de desempenho geradas com as técnicas propostas não são significativas e, portanto, tais técnicas são candidatas adequadas para a implementação de um sistema OFDM com elevada eficiência espectral. Os resultados computacionais revelam ainda que as propostas alternativas para constelações M-QAM reduzem a PAPR, mas, em contrapartida, degradam consideravelmente a BER. Finalmente, a análise da complexidade computacional das técnicas de detecção e demodulação, as quais foram implementadas em dispositivo FPGA, indica que há uma redução do custo computacional, ou seja, redução do uso de recursos de hardware do dispositivo FPGA quando tais técnicas são implementadas para a demodulação e detecção de símbolos M-QAM de ordem elevada. / This dissertation deals with low-cost techniques for detection, modulation and demodulation of high order M-QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) constellations, i.e., M = 2n, n = {2,3, · · · ,16}. In addition, alternative constellations are proposed to M-QAM, M = 22n, n = {1,2, · · · ,8}, which seek to minimize the PAPR (peak to average power ratio) when an OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) system is used for data transmission. A low-cost implementation using a FPGA (field programmable gate array) device of a modulation scheme for constant and adaptive OFDM systems when the modulation is M-QAM, M = 22n, n = {1,2, · · · ,8}, is described and analyzed. The performance of the proposed detection techniques is evaluated through computer simulations when the noise is AWGN (additive white Gaussian noise) and AIGN (additive impulsive Gaussian noise). The results in terms of BER × Eb/N0 indicate that the performance losses generated by the proposed techniques are not significant and, therefore, such techniques are appropriate candidates for the implementation of an OFDM system with high spectral efficiency. The computational results reveal that the alternative proposals for M-QAM constellations reduce the PAPR, but, considerably degrade the BER. Finally, the analysis of computational complexity of detection and demodulation techniques, which were implemented in a FPGA device, indicates that there is a computational cost reduction, i.e., a reduction of resource usage of hardware device such as FPGA when these techniques are implemented for the demodulation and detection of high-order M-QAM symbols.

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

Poussé par la demande croissante de services multimédia dans les réseaux Internet à haut débit, la technologie WIMAX a émergé comme une alternative compétitive à la solution filaire d’accès à haut débit. L’IEEE 802.16 constitue une solution qui offre des débits élevés en assurant une qualité de service (QoS) satisfaisante. En particulier, elle est adaptée aux applications multimédia qui ont des contraintes de QoS à satisfaire. Cependant, avec la présence d’utilisateurs hétérogènes qui ont des caractéristiques diverses en termes de bande passante, de conditions radio et de ressources disponibles, de nouveaux défis posés doivent être résolus. En effet, les applications multimédia doivent interagir avec leur environnement pour informer le réseau d’accès de leurs besoins en QoS et s’adapter dynamiquement aux variations des conditions du réseau.Dans ce contexte, nous proposons deux solutions pour la transmission des flux vidéo sur les réseaux 802.16 sur la base de l’approche Cross-layer. Nous nous intéressons à la fois à la transmission unicast et multicast sur le lien montant et descendant d’une ou plusieurs cellules WIMAX.Premièrement, nous proposons une architecture Cross-Layer qui permet l’adaptation et l’optimisation du streaming vidéo en fonction des ressources disponibles. Nous avons défini une entité CLO (Cross-Layer Optimizer) qui exploite des messages de gestion des flux de service, échangés entre BS et SS, au niveau MAC, pour déterminer l’adaptation nécessaire et optimale afin d’assurer le bon fonctionnement de l’application. Les adaptations se produisent en deux temps, lors de l'admission du flux et au cours de la session de streaming. L’analyse des performances, par simulations, de notre solution montre l’efficacité du CLO à adapter, d’une façon dynamique, le débit vidéo en fonction des conditions du réseau afin d’assurer une QoS optimale.Deuxièmement, nous proposons une solution de streaming multicast des flux vidéo dans les réseaux WIMAX. Cette solution permet de trouver un compromis entre la diversité des clients, en termes de conditions radio, de schémas de modulation et de ressources disponibles, ainsi que le format de codage vidéo hiérarchique SVC, pour offrir la meilleure qualité vidéo y compris pour les clients ayant de faibles conditions radio. En effet, cette solution permet à chaque utilisateur d’obtenir une qualité vidéo proportionnellement à ses conditions radio et à sa bande passante disponible. Pour atteindre cet objectif, plusieurs groupes multicast sont formés par couches vidéo SVC. Cette solution permet d’optimiser davantage les ressources radio et ainsi d’augmenter la capacité globale du système. / Driven by the increasing demand for multimedia services in broadband Internet networks, WIMAX technology has emerged as a competitive alternative to the wired broadband access solutions. The IEEE 802.16 is a solution that provides high throughput by ensuring a satisfactory QoS. In particular, it is suitable for multimedia applications that have strict QoS constraints. However, the users’ heterogeneity and diversity in terms of bandwidth, radio conditions and available resources, pose new deployment challenges. Indeed, multimedia applications need to interact with their environment to inform the access network about their QoS requirements and dynamically adapt to changing network conditions.In this context, we propose two solutions for video streaming over 802.16 networks based on Cross-Layer approach. We are interested in both unicast and multicast transmissions in uplink and downlink of one or more WIMAX cells.First, we proposed an architecture that enables Cross-Layer adaptation and optimization of video streaming based on available resources. We defined the entity CLO (Cross-Layer Optimizer) that takes benefits from service flow management messages, exchanged between BS and SS, at the MAC level, to determine the necessary adaptations / adjustment to ensure optimal delivery of the application. Adaptations occur at two epochs, during the admission of the video stream and during the streaming phase. The performance analysis, performed through simulations, shows the effectiveness of the CLO to adapt in a dynamic way, the video data rate depending on network conditions, and thus guarantee an optimal QoS.Second, we proposed a solution that enables IP multicast video delivery in WIMAX network. This solution allows finding the compromise between the diversity of end-user requirements, in terms of radio conditions, modulation schemes and available resources, along with the SVC hierarchy video format, to offer the best video quality even for users with low radio conditions. Indeed, we define a multicast architecture that allows each user to get a video quality proportionally to its radio conditions and its available bandwidth. Towards this end, several IP multicast groups are created depending on the SVC video layers. Subsequently, our solution allows optimizing the use of radio resources by exploiting the different modulations that can be selected by the end-users.