Recently, the transmission of vector quantization (VQ) over a code-division multiple access (CDMA) channel has received a considerable attention in research community. The complexity of the optimal decoding for VQ in CDMA communications is prohibitive for implementation, especially for systems with a medium or large number of users. A suboptimal approach to VQ decoding over a CDMA channel, disturbed by additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), was recently developed. Such a suboptimal decoder is built from a soft-output multiuser detector (MUD), a soft bit estimator and the optimal soft VQ decoders of individual users. <p>Due to its lower complexity and good performance, such a decoding scheme is an attractive alternative to the complicated optimal decoder. It is necessary to extend this decoding scheme for a frequency-selective Rayleigh fading CDMA channel, a channel model typically seen in mobile wireless communications. This is precisely the objective of this thesis. <p>Furthermore, the suboptimal decoders are obtained not only for binary phase shift keying (BPSK), but also for M-ary pulse amplitude modulation (M-PAM). This extension offers a flexible trade-off between spectrum efficiency and performance of the systems. In addition, two algorithms based on distance measure and reliability processing are introduced as other alternatives to the suboptimal decoder. <p>Simulation results indicate that the suboptimal decoders studied in this thesis also performs very well over a frequency-selective Rayleigh fading CDMA channel.

Wireless Networks have been the topic of fundamental research in recent years with the aim of achieving reliable and efficient communications. However, due to their complexity, there are still many aspects of such configurations that remain as open problems. The focus of this thesis is to investigate some throughput limits of wireless networks. The network under consideration consists of $n$ source-destination pairs (links) operating in a single-hop fashion. In Chapters 2 and 3, it is assumed that each link can be active and transmit with a constant power P or remain silent. Also, fading is assumed to be the dominant factor affecting the strength of the channels between transmitter and receiver terminals. The objective is to choose a set of active links such that the throughput is maximized, where the rate of active links are either unconstrained or constrained. For the unconstrained throughput maximization, by deriving an upper bound and a lower bound, it is shown that in the case of Rayleigh fading: (i) the maximum throughput scales like $\log n$, (ii) the maximum throughput is achievable in a distributed fashion. The upper bound is obtained using probabilistic methods, where the key point is to upper bound the throughput of any random set of active links by a chi-squared random variable. To obtain the lower bound, a threshold-based link activation strategy (TBLAS) is proposed and analyzed. The achieved throughput of TBLAS is by a factor of four larger than what was obtained in previous works with centralized methods and with multihop communications. When the active links are constrained to transmit with a constant rate $\lambda$, an upper bound is derived that shows the number of active links scales at most like $\frac{1}{\lambda} \log n$. It is proved that TBLAS \emph{asymptotically almost surely(a.a.s.)} yields a feasible solution for the constrained throughput maximization problem. This solution, which is suboptimal in general, performs close to the upper bound for small values of $\lambda$. To improve the suboptimal solution, a double-threshold-based link activation strategy (DTBLAS) is proposed and analyzed based on some results from random graph theory. It is demonstrated that DTBLAS performs very close to the optimum. Specifically, DTBLAS is a.a.s. optimum when $\lambda$ approaches $\infty$ or $0$. The optimality results are obtained in an interference-limited regime. However, it is shown that, by proper selection of the algorithm parameters, DTBLAS also allows the network to operate in a noise-limited regime in which the transmission rates can be adjusted by the transmission powers. The price for this flexibility is a decrease in the throughput scaling law by a factor of $\log \log n$. In Chapter 4, the problem of throughput maximization by means of power allocation is considered. It is demonstrated that under individual power constraints, in the optimum solution, the power of at least one link should take its maximum value. Then, for the special case of $n=2$ links, it is shown that the optimum power allocation strategy for throughput maximization is such that either both links use their maximum power or one of them uses its maximum power and the other keeps silent.

Wireless Networks have been the topic of fundamental research in recent years with the aim of achieving reliable and efficient communications. However, due to their complexity, there are still many aspects of such configurations that remain as open problems. The focus of this thesis is to investigate some throughput limits of wireless networks. The network under consideration consists of $n$ source-destination pairs (links) operating in a single-hop fashion. In Chapters 2 and 3, it is assumed that each link can be active and transmit with a constant power P or remain silent. Also, fading is assumed to be the dominant factor affecting the strength of the channels between transmitter and receiver terminals. The objective is to choose a set of active links such that the throughput is maximized, where the rate of active links are either unconstrained or constrained. For the unconstrained throughput maximization, by deriving an upper bound and a lower bound, it is shown that in the case of Rayleigh fading: (i) the maximum throughput scales like $\log n$, (ii) the maximum throughput is achievable in a distributed fashion. The upper bound is obtained using probabilistic methods, where the key point is to upper bound the throughput of any random set of active links by a chi-squared random variable. To obtain the lower bound, a threshold-based link activation strategy (TBLAS) is proposed and analyzed. The achieved throughput of TBLAS is by a factor of four larger than what was obtained in previous works with centralized methods and with multihop communications. When the active links are constrained to transmit with a constant rate $\lambda$, an upper bound is derived that shows the number of active links scales at most like $\frac{1}{\lambda} \log n$. It is proved that TBLAS \emph{asymptotically almost surely(a.a.s.)} yields a feasible solution for the constrained throughput maximization problem. This solution, which is suboptimal in general, performs close to the upper bound for small values of $\lambda$. To improve the suboptimal solution, a double-threshold-based link activation strategy (DTBLAS) is proposed and analyzed based on some results from random graph theory. It is demonstrated that DTBLAS performs very close to the optimum. Specifically, DTBLAS is a.a.s. optimum when $\lambda$ approaches $\infty$ or $0$. The optimality results are obtained in an interference-limited regime. However, it is shown that, by proper selection of the algorithm parameters, DTBLAS also allows the network to operate in a noise-limited regime in which the transmission rates can be adjusted by the transmission powers. The price for this flexibility is a decrease in the throughput scaling law by a factor of $\log \log n$. In Chapter 4, the problem of throughput maximization by means of power allocation is considered. It is demonstrated that under individual power constraints, in the optimum solution, the power of at least one link should take its maximum value. Then, for the special case of $n=2$ links, it is shown that the optimum power allocation strategy for throughput maximization is such that either both links use their maximum power or one of them uses its maximum power and the other keeps silent.

Recently, the transmission of vector quantization (VQ) over a code-division multiple access (CDMA) channel has received a considerable attention in research community. The complexity of the optimal decoding for VQ in CDMA communications is prohibitive for implementation, especially for systems with a medium or large number of users. A suboptimal approach to VQ decoding over a CDMA channel, disturbed by additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), was recently developed. Such a suboptimal decoder is built from a soft-output multiuser detector (MUD), a soft bit estimator and the optimal soft VQ decoders of individual users. <p>Due to its lower complexity and good performance, such a decoding scheme is an attractive alternative to the complicated optimal decoder. It is necessary to extend this decoding scheme for a frequency-selective Rayleigh fading CDMA channel, a channel model typically seen in mobile wireless communications. This is precisely the objective of this thesis. <p>Furthermore, the suboptimal decoders are obtained not only for binary phase shift keying (BPSK), but also for M-ary pulse amplitude modulation (M-PAM). This extension offers a flexible trade-off between spectrum efficiency and performance of the systems. In addition, two algorithms based on distance measure and reliability processing are introduced as other alternatives to the suboptimal decoder. <p>Simulation results indicate that the suboptimal decoders studied in this thesis also performs very well over a frequency-selective Rayleigh fading CDMA channel.

Underwater acoustic channel models have been studied in the context of communication and sonar applications. Acoustic propagation channel in an underwater environment exhibits multipath, time-variability and Doppler eects. In this thesis, multipath fading channel models, underwater physical properties and sound propagation characteristics are studied. An underwater channel model for sonar applications is proposed. In the proposed model, the physical characteristics of underwater environment are considered in a comprehensive manner. Experiments /simulations were carried out using real-life data. Model parameters are estimated for a specific location, scenario and physical conditions. The channel response is approximated by fitting the model output to the recorded data. The optimization and estimation are conducted in frequency domain using Mean Square Error criterion.

No description available.

Diversity transmission is an effective technique to combat fading channels and this thesis introduces two main ideas. Firstly, a novel precoding technique is proposed to achieve diversity transmission and improve bit error rate (BER) performance over the existing linear constellation precoding (LCP) techniques. Experimental and theoretical results are presented to show that the proposed precoding schemes can outperform the existing LCP schemes in various fading channels and additive white Gaussian noise channels. Secondly, an interleaving technique to further improve the BER performance is proposed. The proposed diversity transmission techniques are implemented for both single-carrier and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The second part of the thesis focuses on the pairwise error probability analysis of the proposed and LCP schemes when receivers have imperfect channel state information (CSI). The BER performance of the proposed precoding and interleaver scheme are investigated in OFDM systems with minimum mean square error channel estimators and single-carrier systems with basis expansion model based channel estimators. It is demonstrated that while precoding schemes designed for receivers with perfect CSI yield near-optimum BER performance in the former system, the proposed phase-shift keying based precoding schemes perform well in the latter system. In both cases, the proposed precoding scheme, combined with the novel interleaving technique, outperforms the existing LCP schemes.

Many recent research results have concluded that the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication architecture is a promising approach to achieve high bandwidth efficiencies. MIMO wireless channels can be simply defined as a link for which both the transmitting and receiving ends are equipped with multiple antenna elements. This advanced communication technology has the potential to resolve the bottleneck in traffic capacity for future wireless networks. Applying MIMO techniques to mobile communication systems, the problem of channel fading between the transmitters and receivers, which results in received signal strength fluctuations, is inevitable. The time-varying nature of the mobile channel affects various aspects of receiver design. This thesis provides some analytical methodologies to investigate the variation of MIMO eigenmodes. Although the scope is largely focussed on the temporal variation in this thesis, our results are also extended to frequency variation. Accurate analytical approximations for the level crossing rate (LCR) and average fade duration (AFD) of the MIMO eigenmodes in an independent, identically distributed (i.i.d.) flat-fading channel are derived. Furthermore, since several channel metrics (such as the total power gain, eigenvalue spread, capacity and Demmel condition number) are all related to the eigenmodes, we also derive their LCRs and AFDs using a similar approach. The effectiveness of our method lies in the fact that the eigenvalues and corresponding channel metrics can be well approximated by gamma or Gaussian variables. Our results provide a comprehensive, closed-form analysis for the temporal behavior of MIMO channel metrics that is simple, robust and rapid to compute. An alternative simplified formula for the LCR for MIMO eigenmodes is also presented with applications to different types of autocorrelation functions (ACF). Our analysis has been verified via Monte Carlo computer simulations. The joint probability density function (PDF) for the eigenvalues of a complex Wishart matrix and a perturbed version of it are also derived in this thesis. The latter version can be used to model channel estimation errors and variations over time or frequency. Using this PDF, the probabilities of adaptation error (PAE) due to feedback delay in some adaptive MIMO schemes are evaluated. In particular, finite state Markov chains (FSMC) have been used to model rate-feedback system and dual-mode antenna selection schemes. The PDF is also applied to investigate MIMO systems that merge singular value decomposition (SVD)-based transceiver structure and adaptive modulation. A FSMC is constructed to investigate the modulation state entering rates (MSER), the average stay duration (ASD), and the effects of feedback delay on the accuracy of modulation state selection in mobile radio systems. The system performance of SVD-based transceivers is closely related to the quality of the channel information at both ends of the link. Hence, we examine the effect of feedback time delay, which causes the transmitter to use outdated channel information in time-varying fading channels. In this thesis, we derive an analytical expression for the instantaneous signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) of eigenmode transmission with a feedback time delay. Moreover, this expression implies some novel metrics that gauge the system performance sensitivity to time-variations of the steering vectors (eigenvectors of the channel correlation matrix) at the transmitter. Finally, the fluctuation of the channel in the frequency domain is of interest. This is motivated by adaptive orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems where the signalling parameters per subcarriers are assigned in accordance with some channel quality metrics. A Gaussian distribution has been suggested to approximate the number of subcarriers using certain signalling modes (such as outage/transmission and diversity/multiplexing), as well as the total data rates, per OFDM realization. Additionally, closed-form LCRs for the channel gains (including the individual eigenmode gains) over frequency are also derived for both single-input single-output (SISO) and MIMO-OFDM systems. The corresponding results for the average fade bandwidth (AFB) follow trivially, These results may be useful for system design, for example by calculating the feedback overheads based on subcarrier aggregation.

In this work wireless communication systems with multiple co-channel signals present at the receiver are considered. One of the major challenges in the development of such systems is the computational complexity required for the detection of the transmitted signals. This thesis addresses this problem and develops reduced complexity algorithms for the detection of multiple co-channel signals in receivers with multiple antennas. The signals are transmitted from either a single user employing multiple transmit antennas, from multiple users or in the most general case by a mixture of the two. The receiver is assumed to be overloaded in that the number of transmitted signals exceeds the number of receive antennas. Joint Maximum Likelihood (JML) is the optimum detection algorithm which has exponential complexity in the number of signals. As a result, detection of the signals of interest at the receiver is challenging and infeasible in most practical systems. The thesis presents a framework for the detection of multiple co-channel signals in overloaded receivers. It proposes receiver structures and two list-based signal detection algorithms that allow for complexity reduction compared to the optimum detector while being able to maintain near optimum performance. Complexity savings are achieved by first employing a linear preprocessor at the receiver to reduce the effect of Co-Channel Interference (CCI) and second, by using a detection algorithm that searches only over a subspace of the transmitted symbols. Both algorithms use iterative processing to extract ordered lists of the most likely transmit symbols. Soft information can be obtained from the detector output list and can then be used by error control decoders. The first algorithm named Parallel Detection with Interference Estimation (PD-IE) considers the Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel. It relies on a spatially reduced search over subsets of the transmitted symbols in combination with CCI estimation. Computational complexity under overload is lower than that of JML. Performance results show that PD-IE achieves near optimum performance in receivers with Uniform Circular Array (UCA) and Uniform Linear Array (ULA) antenna geometries. The second algorithm is referred to as List Group Search (LGS) detection. It is applied to overloaded receivers that operate in frequency-flat multipath fading channels. The List Group Search (LGS) detection algorithm forms multiple groups of the transmitted symbols over which an exhaustive search is performed. Simulation results show that LGS detection provides good complexity-performance tradeoffs under overload. A union bound for group-wise and list-based group-wise symbol detectors is also derived. It provides an approximation to the error performance of such detectors without the need for simulation. Moreover, the bound can be used to determine some detection parameters and tradeoffs. Results show that the bound is tight in the high Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio (SINR) region.

Diversity transmission is an effective technique to combat fading channels and this thesis introduces two main ideas. Firstly, a novel precoding technique is proposed to achieve diversity transmission and improve bit error rate (BER) performance over the existing linear constellation precoding (LCP) techniques. Experimental and theoretical results are presented to show that the proposed precoding schemes can outperform the existing LCP schemes in various fading channels and additive white Gaussian noise channels. Secondly, an interleaving technique to further improve the BER performance is proposed. The proposed diversity transmission techniques are implemented for both single-carrier and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The second part of the thesis focuses on the pairwise error probability analysis of the proposed and LCP schemes when receivers have imperfect channel state information (CSI). The BER performance of the proposed precoding and interleaver scheme are investigated in OFDM systems with minimum mean square error channel estimators and single-carrier systems with basis expansion model based channel estimators. It is demonstrated that while precoding schemes designed for receivers with perfect CSI yield near-optimum BER performance in the former system, the proposed phase-shift keying based precoding schemes perform well in the latter system. In both cases, the proposed precoding scheme, combined with the novel interleaving technique, outperforms the existing LCP schemes.