There has been significant interest in the research community on detectors for DS-CDMA systems. The conventional detector, which detects users ' data bits, by using a filter matched to the users' spreading codes, has two major drawbacks. These drawbacks are (1) its capacity is limited by multiple access interference (MAl) and (2) it suffers from the near-far problem. The remedy to these problems is to use a multiuser detector, which exploits knowledge of users ' transmission and channel parameters to mitigate MAl. Such detectors are called multi user detectors (MUD). A number of these detectors have been proposed in the literature. The first such detector is the optimal detector proposed by Verdu. Following Verdu's work a number of suboptimal detector were proposed. These detectors offer better computational complexity at the expense of the bit error rate performance. Examples of these detectors are the decorrelating detector, the minimum mean squared error detector (MMSE), the successive interference cancellation and parallel interference cancellation. In this thesis, we consider the adaptive DS-CDMA MMSE detector, where lattice-based filter algorithms are employed to suppress MAl. Most of the work in the literature has considered the implementation of this detector using the Least Mean Square (LMS) algorithm. The disadvantage of using the LMS algorithm to implement the MMSE detector is that the LMS algorithm converges very slowly. The main aims of this thesis are as follows. A review of the literature on MUD is presented. A lattice based MUD is then proposed and its performance evaluated using both simulation and analytical methods. The results obtained are compared with those of the LMSMMSE detector. From the results obtained the adaptive Lattice-MMSE detector is shown to offer good performance tradeoff between convergence results and BER results. / Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2001.

Recent studies have shown that considerable system capacity gains in mobile communication systems can be obtained by exploiting the use of antenna arrays at the base station. Unfortunately, these studies make little mention of practical issues concerning implementation. It is thus one of the objectives of the Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Radio Access Technologies at the University of Natal to investigate the development of a widehand CDMA adaptive array transceiver using Alcatel software radios as the transceiver platforms. Such a transceiver system can be subdivided into three major sections: RF front-end, signal digitization and baseband processing stages. Due to the enormity of such an undertaking, the research outlined in this thesis is focused on (but not isolated to) some aspects of the RF front-end implementation for the proposed system. The work in this thesis can be catergorized into two sections. The first section focuses on the theoretical and practical (or implementation) aspects of antenna arrays and beamforming. In particular, it is evident that digital (rather than analogue) beamforming in a multi user environment, is a more viable option from both a cost and implementation standpoint. The second section evaluates the impact of RF component noise and local oscillator generated phase noise in a DS-CDMA system. The implementation of a RP front-end for a BPSK transceiver also forms part of the work in this section. LO phase noise and Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) measurements are performed on this system to support relevant theory. By use of the HP89410A phase noise measurement utility and the phase noise theory developed in this thesis, a quantitative phase noise comparison between two frequency sources used in the system were made. EVM measurement results conclusively verified the importance of an LNA in the system. It has also been shown that the DS-CDMA simulated system exhibits superior performance to the implemented BPSK system. Furthermore, an EVM troubleshooting methodology is introduced to identify possible impairments within the BPSK receiver RF front-end. However, this thesis was written with the intention of bridging the gap between the theoretical and practical implementation aspects of RP wireless communication systems. It is the author's opinion that this has been achieved to a certain extent. / Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.

Wireless mobile communication is witnessing a rapid growth in, and demand for, improved technology and range of information types and services. Further, third generation cellular networks are expected to provide mobile users with ubiquitous wireless access to a global backbone architecture that carries a wide variety of electronic services. We examine the topic of power control and models that arc suitable for modem third generation wireless networks. CDMA technology is proving to be a promising and attractive approach for spectrally efficient, economical and high quality digital communications wireless networks. This thesis addresses the challenge of integrating heterogeneous transmitting sources with a broad range of Quality of Service characteristics in the cellular COMA networks. Provided the right power control can be devised, COMA offers the potential of extracting gain from the statistical multiplexing of such sources. A distributed power control algorithm is proposed which is required to update the transmitted power of the mobiles in each of the service classes locally. and enhance the performance of the system significantly. Algorithms for pragmatic issues like power level quantization and truncation of power are derived and incorporated into the proposed distributed power control algorithm. / Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.

Personal wireless communications networks have flourished over the last decade as advances in digital cellular technology have made them more accessible to the general public. Third Generation Cellular Communication systems based on code division multiple access (CDMA) as the multiple access technique, show great scope for improvement in terms of capacity, through the use of advanced signal processing techniques. Two of the leading areas that encompass these techniques are space-time processing (smart antennas) and multiuser detection (MUD). Space-time-MUD (ST-MUD) is a relatively new field that hopes to bring together these two techniques. The focus of this thesis is ST -MUD in the context of a multi-carrier direct sequence CDMA (MC-DS-CDMA) communications system, which is one of the adopted multiple access techniques for the upcoming third generation cellular communications systems. The concepts of MUD and smart antennas are discussed, and their performance enhancing capabilities are demonstrated. The use of vector channel models and their role in modelling the propagation phenomena of the communications channel in terms of the space, time and frequency domains is also illustrated. A ST-MUD receiver architecture is presented, and the performance of the architecture with a minimum mean square error (MMSE) decision criterion is analysed in a frequency selective Rayleigh fading channel. The analysis results are verified via simulation. Three subspace MUD techniques are adapted for ST -MUD, and the joint space-frequency- multi path MMSE solution on these subspaces is given. Simulation results are used to quantify their relative performance. The relevance and applications of the subspace techniques are elaborated. / Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2001.

Since the ascendance of CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) as the generally accepted multiple access technology of choice for next generation networks, the rate of development of the wireless cellular communication industry has been phenomenal. Next generation wireless cellular networks offer a myriad of voice, video, data and text based information services for the future multimedia and information society. This mixed service scenario implies that the same [mite resource i.e. the air interface must be shared amongst different classes of user, each with a specific quality of service. With multiple services competing for the same resource and with the inherent soft capacity nature of CDMA, call admission control becomes a formidable task. The problem is further compounded by the introduction of priorities between classes. Call admission control is an essential component of these next generation networks and the open nature of the current standards, such as UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) allow for vendor implementation of different call admission control policies. The main area of focus in this dissertation is on a proposed downlink, load-based, mixed service call admission policy. In a CDMA environment with symmetrical service and equal bandwidths in each direction, the uplink is commonly considered to be the bottleneck. Based on the asymmetric nature of the expected traffic in next generation networks the downlink is envisaged as the future bottleneck. Some of the more common choices for downlink call admission control include number based as well as power based call admission policies. A load-based call admission policy has been chosen as the maximum load threshold that can be supported varies with the state of the system and thus effectively models the behaviour of a soft capacity CDMA network. This dissertation presents a teletraffic performance analysis model of a load-based call admission control policy for downlink mixed service CDMA cellular networks. The performance analysis yields customer oriented grade-of-service parameters such as call blocking probability which is essential for network planning. In our analysis we incorporate a Birth-Death Markov queuing model. This mathematical model is verified though computer simulation. / Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2007.

Reviews of possible telecommunication services that can be deployed in the rural areas are highlighted. These services range from narrowband to broadband. The aim of these services is to target rural Kwazulu-Natal areas that are without or with limited telecommunications infrastructure. Policies that govern telecommunications in South Africa are also reviewed with emphasis on Universal Service Obligation. The importance of telecommunications infrastructure in rural areas is also reviewed to the benefit of Kwazulu-Natal. FDMA, TDMA, CDMA, VSAT, MMDS and MVDS are compared for a possible use in rural areas. Cost comparison of GSM and CDMA is conducted with emphasis on fade margin, path loss and penetration rate. CDMA system design and coverage areas are discussed for rural KwaZulu-Natal. Lastly bit error rate graphs and power control algorithms are presented for Kwazulu-Natal scenario. / Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

Thesis (M Eng (Research)) -- University of South Australia, 1992

Thesis (M Eng (Research)) -- University of South Australia, 1992

The focus of this thesis is on the resource allocation problems in wireless sensor and cooperative networks. Typically, wireless sensor networks operate with limited energy and bandwidth are often required to meet some specified Quality-of-Service (QoS) constraints. The ultimate objective for the majority of the problems considered in this thesis is to save battery energy and maximize the network lifetime. / In the first part of this thesis, we employ complex mathematical models to emulate a variety of power drains in wireless sensor nodes. In the first instance, we address a lifetime optimization problem of a wireless TDMA/CDMA sensor network for joint transmit power and rate allocations. The effect of fast fading is captured by including rate outage and link outage constraints on each link. After that, a single-hop wireless sensor network is deployed for a certain application - to estimate a Gaussian source within a pre-specified distortion threshold. In this part, we consider lifetime maximization, in different multiple access protocols such as TDMA, an interference limited non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and an idealized Gaussian multiple access channel. This problem is further studied in a multi-hop scenario where sensing and receiving powers are also included in addition to transmission power. Finally, we investigate a balancing problem between the source coding and transmission power for video wireless sensor systems where the sensor node is required to send the collected video clips, through wireless media, to a base station within a corresponding distortion threshold. All these energy saving and lifetime optimization problems in sensor networks can be formulated via nonlinear nonconvex optimization problems, which are generally hard to solve. However, with favourable variable substitution and reasonable approximation, most of these problems are shown to be convex. The only exception is the Gaussian source esitmation problem in NOMA scenario for which we provide a simple successive convex approximation based algorithm for the NOMA case that converges fast to a suboptimal solution. / In the second part of the thesis, we propose an optimal power allocation scheme with a K-block coding delay constraint on data transmission using a three node cooperative relay network assuming a block fading channel model. Channel information is fed back to the transmitter only in a causal fashion, so that the optimal power allocation strategy is only based on the current and past channel gains. We consider the two simplest schemes for information transmission using a three node (a source, a relay and a destination) relay network, namely the amplify and forward (AF) and decode and forward (DF) protocols. We use the dynamic programming methodology to solve the (K-block delay constrained) expected capacity maximization problem and the outage probability minimization problem with a short term sum power (total transmission power of the source and the relay) constraint. / The main contribution of the thesis is a comprehensive suite of power minimization and lifetime maximization methods that can be used in wireless sensor networks. We present several such applications and extensive numerical examples at the end of each chapter.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Canterbury, 2007. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-108). Also available via the World Wide Web.