Programs are not only a tool for the simplification or automation of everyday tasks; they also represent a significant time and money investment. A program's life may span years, or even decades, which creates certain risks for the stakeholders involved. To mitigate the risks associated with these legacy systems, software renovation can be undertaken. Software renovation can be described as a series of processes and/or tools used to modernize a legacy system, thereby preserving and maintaining the investment it represents while decreasing the risks associated with it. In this thesis, the focus is on renovation of software created by in-house development. A series of case studies will be examined to demonstrate basic renovation strategies, including the formation of goals for a renovation and exploring trade-offs between robustness, performance, and usability.

ITC/USA 2005 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-First Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2005 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) communication systems can have dramatically higher throughput than single-input, single-output systems. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find the space-time codes these systems need to achieve their potential. Previously published results located good codes by minimizing the maximum correlation between transmitted signals. This paper shows how this min-max method may produce sub-optimal codes. A new method which sorts codes based on the union bound of pairwise error probabilities is presented. This new technique can identify superior MIMO codes, providing higher system throughput without increasing the transmitted power or bandwidth requirements.

There is an increasing demand to support high data rate multimedia applications over the current day wireless networks which are highly prone to errors. Relay channels, by virtue of their spatial diversity, play a vital role in meeting this demand without much change to the current day systems. A compress-forward relaying scheme is one of the exciting prospects in this regard owing to its ability to always outperform direct transmission. With regards to video transmission, there is a serious need to ensure higher protection for the source bits that are more important and sensitive. The objective of this thesis is to develop a practical scheme for transmitting video data over a relay channel using a compress-forward relaying scheme and compare it to direct and multi-hop transmissions. We also develop a novel scheme whereby the relay channel can be used as a means to provide the required unequal error protection among the MPEG-2 bit stream. The area of compress-forward (CF) relaying has not been developed much to date, with most of the research directed towards the decode-forward scheme. The fact that compress-forward relaying always ensures better results than direct transmission is an added advantage. This has motivated us to employ CF relaying in our implementation. Video transmission and streaming applications are being increasingly sought after in the current generation wireless systems. The fact that video applications are bandwidth demanding and error prone, and the wireless systems are band-limited and unreliable, makes this a challenging task. CF relaying, by virtue of their path diversity, can be considered to be a new means for video transmission. To exploit the above advantages, we propose an implementation for video transmission over relay channels using a CF relaying scheme. Practical gains in peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) have been observed for our implementation compared to the simple binary-input additive white Gaussian noise (BIAWGN) and two-hop transmission scenarios.

There is an increasing demand to support high data rate multimedia applications over the current day wireless networks which are highly prone to errors. Relay channels, by virtue of their spatial diversity, play a vital role in meeting this demand without much change to the current day systems. A compress-forward relaying scheme is one of the exciting prospects in this regard owing to its ability to always outperform direct transmission. With regards to video transmission, there is a serious need to ensure higher protection for the source bits that are more important and sensitive. The objective of this thesis is to develop a practical scheme for transmitting video data over a relay channel using a compress-forward relaying scheme and compare it to direct and multi-hop transmissions. We also develop a novel scheme whereby the relay channel can be used as a means to provide the required unequal error protection among the MPEG-2 bit stream. The area of compress-forward (CF) relaying has not been developed much to date, with most of the research directed towards the decode-forward scheme. The fact that compress-forward relaying always ensures better results than direct transmission is an added advantage. This has motivated us to employ CF relaying in our implementation. Video transmission and streaming applications are being increasingly sought after in the current generation wireless systems. The fact that video applications are bandwidth demanding and error prone, and the wireless systems are band-limited and unreliable, makes this a challenging task. CF relaying, by virtue of their path diversity, can be considered to be a new means for video transmission. To exploit the above advantages, we propose an implementation for video transmission over relay channels using a CF relaying scheme. Practical gains in peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) have been observed for our implementation compared to the simple binary-input additive white Gaussian noise (BIAWGN) and two-hop transmission scenarios.

Turbo-codes are a popular error correction method for applications requiring bit error rates from 10−3 to 10−6, such as wireless multimedia applications. In order to reduce the complexity of the turbo-decoder, it is advantageous to use the simplest possible constituent codes, such as 4-state recursive systematic convolutional (RSC) codes. However, for such codes, the error floor can be high, thus making them unable to achieve the target bit error range. In this dissertation, two methods of lowering the error floor are investigated. These methods are interleaver selection, and puncturing selective data bits. Through the use of appropriate code design criteria, various types of interleavers, and various puncturing parameters are evaluated. It was found that by careful selection of interleavers and puncturing parameters, a substantial reduction in the error floor can be achieved. From the various interleaver types investigated, the variable s-random type was found to provide the best performance. For the puncturing parameters, puncturing of both the data and parity bits of the turbo-code, as well as puncturing only the parity bits of the turbo-code, were considered. It was found that for applications requiring BERs around 10−3 , it is sufficient to only puncture the parity bits. However, for applications that require the full range of BER values, or for applications where the FER is the important design parameter, puncturing some of the data bits appears to be beneficial. / Graduate

L'utilisation de la modulation à phase continue (CPM) est particulièrement intéressante lorsque le canal de communication comporte une forte non-linéarité et un support spectral limité, en particulier pour la voie aller, lorsque l'on dispose d'un amplificateur par porteuse à bord du satellite, et pour la voie retour où le terminal d'émission travaille à saturation. De nombreuses études ont été effectuées sur le sujet mais les solutions proposées reposent sur la démodulation/décodage itératif des CPM couplées à un code correcteur d'erreur de type convolutif ou bloc. L'utilisation de codes LDPC n'a pas été à ce jour abordée de façon précise. En particulier, il n'existe pas à notre connaissance de travaux sur l'optimisation des codes basés sur des graphes creux adaptés à ce type de schémas. Dans cette étude, nous proposons d'effectuer l'analyse asymptotique et le design d'un schéma Turbo-CPM basé sur des graphes creux. Une étude du récepteur associé comportant les fonctions de démodulation sera également effectuée. / The use of the continuous phase modulation (CPM) is interesting when the channel represents a strong non-linearity and in the case of limited spectral support; particularly for the uplink, where the satellite holds an amplifier per carrier, and for downlinks where the terminal equipment works very close to the saturation region. Numerous studies have been conducted on this issue but the proposed solutions use iterative CPM demodulation/decoding concatenated with convolutional or block error correcting codes. The use of LDPC codes has not yet been introduced. Particularly, no works, to our knowledge, have been done on the optimization of sparse graph-based codes adapted for the context described here. In this study, we propose to perform the asymptotic analysis and the design of turbo-CPM systems based on the optimization of sparse graph-based codes. Moreover, an analysis on the corresponding receiver will be done.

The efficient and reliable communication of data from multiple sources to a single receiver plays an important role in emerging applications such as wireless sensor networks. The correlation among observations picked-up by spatially distributed sensors in such a network can be exploited to enhance the efficiency and reliability of communication. In particular, information theory shows that optimal communication of information from correlated sources requires distributed joint source-channel (DJSC) coding. This dissertation develops new approaches to designing DJSC codes based on low density parity check (LDPC) codes. The existence of low complexity code optimization algorithms and decoding algorithms make these codes ideal for joint optimization and decoding of multiple codes operating on correlated sources. The well known EXIT analysis-based LDPC code optimization method for channel coding in single-user point-to-point systems is extended to the optimization of two-user LDPC codes for DJSC coding in multi-access channels (MACs) with correlated users. Considering an orthogonal MAC with two correlated binary sources, an asymptotically optimal DJSC code construction capable of achieving any rate-pair in the theoretically-achievable two-user rate-region is presented. A practical approach to realizing this scheme using irregular LDPC codes is then developed. Experimental results are presented which demonstrate that the proposed codes can approach theoretical bounds when the codeword length is increased. For short codeword length and high inter-source correlation, these DJSC codes are shown to significantly outperform separate source and channel codes. Next, the DJSC code design for the transmission of a pair of correlated binary sources over a Gaussian MAC (GMAC) is investigated. The separate source and channel coding is known to be sub-optimal in this case. For the optimization of a pair of irregular LDPC codes, the EXIT analysis for message passing in a joint factor-graph decoder is analyzed, and an approach to modeling the probability density functions of messages associated with graph nodes which represent the inter-source dependence is proposed. Simulation results show that, for sufficiently large codeword lengths and high inter-source correlation, the proposed DJSC codes for GMAC can achieve rates higher than the theoretical upper bound for separate source and channel coding.

The efficient and reliable communication of data from multiple sources to a single receiver plays an important role in emerging applications such as wireless sensor networks. The correlation among observations picked-up by spatially distributed sensors in such a network can be exploited to enhance the efficiency and reliability of communication. In particular, information theory shows that optimal communication of information from correlated sources requires distributed joint source-channel (DJSC) coding. This dissertation develops new approaches to designing DJSC codes based on low density parity check (LDPC) codes. The existence of low complexity code optimization algorithms and decoding algorithms make these codes ideal for joint optimization and decoding of multiple codes operating on correlated sources. The well known EXIT analysis-based LDPC code optimization method for channel coding in single-user point-to-point systems is extended to the optimization of two-user LDPC codes for DJSC coding in multi-access channels (MACs) with correlated users. Considering an orthogonal MAC with two correlated binary sources, an asymptotically optimal DJSC code construction capable of achieving any rate-pair in the theoretically-achievable two-user rate-region is presented. A practical approach to realizing this scheme using irregular LDPC codes is then developed. Experimental results are presented which demonstrate that the proposed codes can approach theoretical bounds when the codeword length is increased. For short codeword length and high inter-source correlation, these DJSC codes are shown to significantly outperform separate source and channel codes. Next, the DJSC code design for the transmission of a pair of correlated binary sources over a Gaussian MAC (GMAC) is investigated. The separate source and channel coding is known to be sub-optimal in this case. For the optimization of a pair of irregular LDPC codes, the EXIT analysis for message passing in a joint factor-graph decoder is analyzed, and an approach to modeling the probability density functions of messages associated with graph nodes which represent the inter-source dependence is proposed. Simulation results show that, for sufficiently large codeword lengths and high inter-source correlation, the proposed DJSC codes for GMAC can achieve rates higher than the theoretical upper bound for separate source and channel coding.

abstract: There has been a lot of work on the characterization of capacity and achievable rate regions, and rate region outer-bounds for various multi-user channels of interest. Parallel to the developed information theoretic results, practical codes have also been designed for some multi-user channels such as multiple access channels, broadcast channels and relay channels; however, interference channels have not received much attention and only a limited amount of work has been conducted on them. With this motivation, in this dissertation, design of practical and implementable channel codes is studied focusing on multi-user channels with special emphasis on interference channels; in particular, irregular low-density-parity-check codes are exploited for a variety of cases and trellis based codes for short block length designs are performed. Novel code design approaches are first studied for the two-user Gaussian multiple access channel. Exploiting Gaussian mixture approximation, new methods are proposed wherein the optimized codes are shown to improve upon the available designs and off-the-shelf point-to-point codes applied to the multiple access channel scenario. The code design is then examined for the two-user Gaussian interference channel implementing the Han-Kobayashi encoding and decoding strategy. Compared with the point-to-point codes, the newly designed codes consistently offer better performance. Parallel to this work, code design is explored for the discrete memoryless interference channels wherein the channel inputs and outputs are taken from a finite alphabet and it is demonstrated that the designed codes are superior to the single user codes used with time sharing. Finally, the code design principles are also investigated for the two-user Gaussian interference channel employing trellis-based codes with short block lengths for the case of strong and mixed interference levels. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 2015

We introduced nested search methods to design (n, k) block codes for arbitrary channels by optimizing an appropriate metric spectrum in each iteration. For a given k, the methods start with a good high rate code, say k/(k + 1), and successively design lower rate codes up to rate k/2^k corresponding to a Hadamard code. Using a full search for small binary codes we found that optimal or near-optimal codes of increasing length can be obtained in a nested manner by utilizing Hadamard matrix columns. The codes can be linear if the Hadamard matrix is linear and non-linear otherwise. The design methodology was extended to the generic complex codes by utilizing columns of newly derived or existing unitary codes. The inherent nested nature of the codes make them ideal for progressive transmission. Extensive comparisons to metric bounds and to previously designed codes show the optimality or near-optimality of the new codes, designed for the fading and the additive white Gaussian noise channel (AWGN). It was also shown that linear codes can be optimal or at least meeting the metric bounds; one example is the systematic pilot-based code of rate k/(k + 1) which was proved to meet the lower bound on the maximum cross-correlation. Further, the method was generalized such that good codes for arbitrary channels can be designed given the corresponding metric or the pairwise error probability. In synchronous multiple-access schemes it is common to use unitary block codes to transmit the multiple users’ information, especially in the downlink. In this work we suggest the use of newly designed non-unitary block codes, resulting in increased throughput efficiency, while the performance is shown not to be substantially sacrificed. The non-unitary codes are again developed through suitable nested searches. In addition, new multiple-access codes are introduced that optimize certain criteria, such as the sum-rate capacity. Finally, the introduction of the asymptotically optimum convolutional codes for a given constraint length, reduces dramatically the search size for good convolutional codes of a certain asymptotic performance, and the consequences to coded code-division multiple access (CDMA) system design are highlighted.