In wireless communications, employing pilot symbols enables to estimate the state of the wireless channel at the expense of decreasing the number of symbols available for transmitting data. Addressing this trade-off is particularly challenging when the channel changes rapidly over time, since channel estimates become obsolete over short transmission periods. This master thesis proposes an analytical model to characterize this trade-off and develops an algorithm to find the near-optimal pilot spacing in terms of the achieved over spectral efficiency. This algorithm is simulated in a cellular system that serves uncrewed aerial vehicles. Numerical results indicate that the altitude of the uncrewed aerial vehicle, the Rician factor, the Doppler frequency, and the number of receive antennas influence the overall spectral efficiency and consequently, pilot spacing should take into account these system parameters. / I trådlös kommunikation möjliggör användning av pilotsymboler att uppskatta tillståndet för den trådlösa kanalen på bekostnad av att minska antalet tillgängliga symboler för att överföra data. Att ta itu med denna avvägning är särskilt utmanande när kanalen ändras snabbt över tiden, eftersom kanaluppskattningar blir föråldrade under korta överföringsperioder. Denna masteruppsats föreslår en analytisk modell för att karakterisera denna avvägning och utvecklar en algoritm för att hitta det närmast optimala pilotavståndet i termer av uppnådd över spektral effektivitet. Denna algoritm simuleras i ett cellulärt system som betjänar obemannade flygfarkoster. Numeriska resultat indikerar att höjden för det obemannade luftfartyget, Rician-faktorn, Dopplerfrekvensen, antalet mottagarantenner påverkar den totala spektrala effektiviteten och följaktligen bör pilotavståndet ta hänsyn till dessa systemparametrar.

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Sistemas modernos de comunicação móvel sem fio, como os de quarta geração (4G), têm como principais metas prover elevada capacidade e alta qualidade de serviço (QoS) para os usuários. Para prover tal aumento de capacidade e QoS, sistemas 4G empregam diversas técnicas avançadas de transmissão e maior largura de banda, combinados com algoritmos de alocação de recursos que possam explorar de maneira eficiente tais técnicas, como por exemplo aproveitando as dimensões de diversidade do sistema. Em geral, porém, é necessário também aumentar a potência de transmissão para se atingir o ganho de capacidade desejado, o que implica maior custo para os provedores de serviço, menor tempo de vida para os dispositivos móveis e impacto ambiental cada vez mais pronunciado. Dado que a expectativa é que o número de usuários e a necessidade de dados continuem crescendo rapidamente, torna-se evidente a importância de analisar a relação entre capacidade e potência dispendida pelo sistema. Essa relação pode ser vista através da métrica de eficiência energética (EE), que é dada pela razão entre o número de bits efetivamente recebidos e a energia consumida no processo, revelando quão eficientemente o sistema transforma a energia consumida em informação efetivamente recuperada no receptor. Um sistema otimizado em relação à EE é capaz de transmitir mais informação por unidade de energia consumida, resultando em utilização mais racional e eficiente dos escassos recursos energéticos. Uma segunda questão acerca das metas é em relação à distribuição dos ganhos de capacidade/ QoS pela célula, i.e., quais usuários serão capazes de usufruir da maior capacidade e QoS. Em ambientes macrocelulares urbanos, a perda de percurso pode chegar a várias dezenas de decibéis em distâncias relativamente pequenas, além dos obstáculos naturais, como relevo, e artificiais, como prédios, o que limita ainda mais o desenvolvimento de sistemas energeticamente eficientes. Em abordagens tradicionais, tais problemas exigem a utilização de potências elevadas, em geral superiores à potência que os dispositivos podem utilizar, ou então requerem o aumento da densidade de estações rádio-base (BSs), o que geralmente resulta em custos inviáveis do ponto de vista dos operadores. Assim, busca-se em sistemas 4G emular o aumento da densidade de BSs através do conceito de redes heterogêneas, que são células com menor área de cobertura instaladas em pontos críticos de cobertura da célula original, como por exemplo a região de borda de célula, atendendo de maneira eficiente os usuários. No cenário de redes heterogêneas, um dos principais paradigmas é o conceito de redes cooperativas, no qual estações retransmissoras (RSs) reenviam o sinal recebido da estação fonte para estação destino, reduzindo a potência consumida com o canal móvel sem fio. Como utilizam conexão sem fio com a BS, as RSs podem ser instaladas em regiões com pouca infraestrutura sem a necessidade de grandes modificações, resultando em implantações bastante flexíveis. Assim, este trabalho de doutorado visa investigar estratégias de alocação de recursos baseadas no incremento da eficiência energética para sistemas celulares de quarta e quinta gerações utilizando o paradigma de redes cooperativas, determinando potencialidades e também itens que necessitam ser modificados, otimizados ou mesmo redefinidos, tendo em vista um aumento substancial da eficiência energética global da rede de comunicação sem fio. Busca-se durante o desenvolvimento do modelo de sistema capturar e quantificar as principais características de importantes sistemas celulares em uso atualmente, i.e., LTE-A e WiMAX, de modo que as decisões de design considerem os esforços de padronização, porém não se limitem a eles. Como a abordagem de alocação de recursos baseada em EE pode impactar nas métricas de desempenho do sistema, investiga-se também o compromisso entre as eficiências energética e espectral (SE), de modo que o aumento da EE não seja causado apenas pela degradação da SE e que seja possível obter maior EE para uma mesma SE e QoS. / Modern wireless communication systems, such as the fourth generation (4G) ones, have as main objectives to provide high capacity and quality of service (QoS) for the users. In order to provide such capacity and QoS gain, 4G systems use several advanced transmission techniques and higher bandwidth, combined with resource allocation algorithms that are able to efficiently exploit such techniques, as for example taking advantage of the diversity dimensions of the system. Generally, however, it is also necessary to increase the transmission power to achieve the desired capacity gain, which implies increased costs for service providers, shorter lifetime for the mobile devices and increasingly pronounced environmental impact. Since the expectation is that the number of users and data necessity will continue growing rapidly, it is evident the importance of analyzing the relation between capacity and power expended by the system. This relation can be seen through the energy efficiency (EE) metric, which is given by the ratio between the number of effectively received information bits and the energy consumed in the transmission process, revealing how efficiently the system transform consumed energy into effectively recovered information at the receiver. A system optimized regarding EE is able to transmit more information per unit of energy consumed, resulting in a more rational and efficient utilization of the scarce energetic resources. A second issue is relative to the distribution of the capacity/QoS gains over the whole cell, i.e, which users will be able to take advantage of the higher capacity and QoS. In urban macrocellular environments, the path-loss can reach several tens of decibels in relatively short distances, in addition to natural obstacles, such as land relief, or artificial, such as buildings, which further limits the development of energetically efficient systems. In traditional approaches, such problems require the use of high transmission power, generally greater than the power that the devices can use, or else require increased density of base-stations (BSs), which generally results in unviable costs from the operators point of view. Thus, in 4G systems it is sought to emulate the increase in the density of BSs through the concept of heterogeneous networks, which are cells with smaller coverage area installed in critical points of the original macrocell coverage, as for example the cell-edge area, serving efficiently the users. In the heterogeneous networks scenario, one of the main paradigms is the concept of cooperative networks, in which relay stations (RSs) retransmit the signal received from the source station to the destination station, reducing the power consumed with the mobile wireless channel. As the RSs use a wireless connection to the BS, they can be installed in places with poor infrastructure without requiring major modifications, resulting in very flexible deployments. Thus, this PhD work aims to investigate resource allocation strategies based on the improvement of the energy efficiency for fourth and fifty generation cellular systems using the cooperative networks paradigm, determining potentialities and also items that need to be modified, optimized or even redefined, aiming to a substantial increase in the overall energy efficiency of the wireless communication network. It is sought during the development of the system model to capture and quantify the main features of important cellular systems currently in use, i.e., LTE-A and WiMAX, so that the design decisions consider the standardization efforts, but do not be limited by them. Since the EE-based resource allocation approach can impact the performance metrics of the system, it will be investigated also the tradeoff between energy and spectral (SE) efficiencies, so that the increase in energy efficiency is not caused by degradation of the SE and also to be possible to obtain a higher EE for a same SE and QoS.

Sistemas modernos de comunicação móvel sem fio, como os de quarta geração (4G), têm como principais metas prover elevada capacidade e alta qualidade de serviço (QoS) para os usuários. Para prover tal aumento de capacidade e QoS, sistemas 4G empregam diversas técnicas avançadas de transmissão e maior largura de banda, combinados com algoritmos de alocação de recursos que possam explorar de maneira eficiente tais técnicas, como por exemplo aproveitando as dimensões de diversidade do sistema. Em geral, porém, é necessário também aumentar a potência de transmissão para se atingir o ganho de capacidade desejado, o que implica maior custo para os provedores de serviço, menor tempo de vida para os dispositivos móveis e impacto ambiental cada vez mais pronunciado. Dado que a expectativa é que o número de usuários e a necessidade de dados continuem crescendo rapidamente, torna-se evidente a importância de analisar a relação entre capacidade e potência dispendida pelo sistema. Essa relação pode ser vista através da métrica de eficiência energética (EE), que é dada pela razão entre o número de bits efetivamente recebidos e a energia consumida no processo, revelando quão eficientemente o sistema transforma a energia consumida em informação efetivamente recuperada no receptor. Um sistema otimizado em relação à EE é capaz de transmitir mais informação por unidade de energia consumida, resultando em utilização mais racional e eficiente dos escassos recursos energéticos. Uma segunda questão acerca das metas é em relação à distribuição dos ganhos de capacidade/ QoS pela célula, i.e., quais usuários serão capazes de usufruir da maior capacidade e QoS. Em ambientes macrocelulares urbanos, a perda de percurso pode chegar a várias dezenas de decibéis em distâncias relativamente pequenas, além dos obstáculos naturais, como relevo, e artificiais, como prédios, o que limita ainda mais o desenvolvimento de sistemas energeticamente eficientes. Em abordagens tradicionais, tais problemas exigem a utilização de potências elevadas, em geral superiores à potência que os dispositivos podem utilizar, ou então requerem o aumento da densidade de estações rádio-base (BSs), o que geralmente resulta em custos inviáveis do ponto de vista dos operadores. Assim, busca-se em sistemas 4G emular o aumento da densidade de BSs através do conceito de redes heterogêneas, que são células com menor área de cobertura instaladas em pontos críticos de cobertura da célula original, como por exemplo a região de borda de célula, atendendo de maneira eficiente os usuários. No cenário de redes heterogêneas, um dos principais paradigmas é o conceito de redes cooperativas, no qual estações retransmissoras (RSs) reenviam o sinal recebido da estação fonte para estação destino, reduzindo a potência consumida com o canal móvel sem fio. Como utilizam conexão sem fio com a BS, as RSs podem ser instaladas em regiões com pouca infraestrutura sem a necessidade de grandes modificações, resultando em implantações bastante flexíveis. Assim, este trabalho de doutorado visa investigar estratégias de alocação de recursos baseadas no incremento da eficiência energética para sistemas celulares de quarta e quinta gerações utilizando o paradigma de redes cooperativas, determinando potencialidades e também itens que necessitam ser modificados, otimizados ou mesmo redefinidos, tendo em vista um aumento substancial da eficiência energética global da rede de comunicação sem fio. Busca-se durante o desenvolvimento do modelo de sistema capturar e quantificar as principais características de importantes sistemas celulares em uso atualmente, i.e., LTE-A e WiMAX, de modo que as decisões de design considerem os esforços de padronização, porém não se limitem a eles. Como a abordagem de alocação de recursos baseada em EE pode impactar nas métricas de desempenho do sistema, investiga-se também o compromisso entre as eficiências energética e espectral (SE), de modo que o aumento da EE não seja causado apenas pela degradação da SE e que seja possível obter maior EE para uma mesma SE e QoS. / Modern wireless communication systems, such as the fourth generation (4G) ones, have as main objectives to provide high capacity and quality of service (QoS) for the users. In order to provide such capacity and QoS gain, 4G systems use several advanced transmission techniques and higher bandwidth, combined with resource allocation algorithms that are able to efficiently exploit such techniques, as for example taking advantage of the diversity dimensions of the system. Generally, however, it is also necessary to increase the transmission power to achieve the desired capacity gain, which implies increased costs for service providers, shorter lifetime for the mobile devices and increasingly pronounced environmental impact. Since the expectation is that the number of users and data necessity will continue growing rapidly, it is evident the importance of analyzing the relation between capacity and power expended by the system. This relation can be seen through the energy efficiency (EE) metric, which is given by the ratio between the number of effectively received information bits and the energy consumed in the transmission process, revealing how efficiently the system transform consumed energy into effectively recovered information at the receiver. A system optimized regarding EE is able to transmit more information per unit of energy consumed, resulting in a more rational and efficient utilization of the scarce energetic resources. A second issue is relative to the distribution of the capacity/QoS gains over the whole cell, i.e, which users will be able to take advantage of the higher capacity and QoS. In urban macrocellular environments, the path-loss can reach several tens of decibels in relatively short distances, in addition to natural obstacles, such as land relief, or artificial, such as buildings, which further limits the development of energetically efficient systems. In traditional approaches, such problems require the use of high transmission power, generally greater than the power that the devices can use, or else require increased density of base-stations (BSs), which generally results in unviable costs from the operators point of view. Thus, in 4G systems it is sought to emulate the increase in the density of BSs through the concept of heterogeneous networks, which are cells with smaller coverage area installed in critical points of the original macrocell coverage, as for example the cell-edge area, serving efficiently the users. In the heterogeneous networks scenario, one of the main paradigms is the concept of cooperative networks, in which relay stations (RSs) retransmit the signal received from the source station to the destination station, reducing the power consumed with the mobile wireless channel. As the RSs use a wireless connection to the BS, they can be installed in places with poor infrastructure without requiring major modifications, resulting in very flexible deployments. Thus, this PhD work aims to investigate resource allocation strategies based on the improvement of the energy efficiency for fourth and fifty generation cellular systems using the cooperative networks paradigm, determining potentialities and also items that need to be modified, optimized or even redefined, aiming to a substantial increase in the overall energy efficiency of the wireless communication network. It is sought during the development of the system model to capture and quantify the main features of important cellular systems currently in use, i.e., LTE-A and WiMAX, so that the design decisions consider the standardization efforts, but do not be limited by them. Since the EE-based resource allocation approach can impact the performance metrics of the system, it will be investigated also the tradeoff between energy and spectral (SE) efficiencies, so that the increase in energy efficiency is not caused by degradation of the SE and also to be possible to obtain a higher EE for a same SE and QoS.

Grâce aux avancées technologiques dans le domaine des réseaux cellulaires et des équipements mobiles, le nombre d'applications multimédia à haut débit dans les réseaux mobiles ne cesse d'augmenter. On prévoit que le trafic de données dans les réseaux mobiles en 2017 sera 13 fois plus important que celui en 2012. Pour satisfaire aux besoins des équipements mobiles, de nouvelles approches pour la gestion des ressources radio et des puissances de transmission sont requises.Dans le cadre de cette thèse, on s'intéresse à proposer des solutions pour remédier aux problèmes des interférences intercellulaires dans les réseaux mobiles de dernière génération. Nous enquêtons d'une manière exhaustive les différentes techniques de coordination des interférences intercellulaires existantes. Ces techniques sont qualitativement comparées, puis classées selon le taux de coopération requis entre les différentes stations de base, mais aussi selon leurs principes de fonctionnement. Nous abordons également le problème multicellulaire d'allocation des ressources et des puissances de transmission d'une manière centralisée. Nous formulons ce problème d'optimisation centralisé, puis nous le décomposons en deux sous-problèmes indépendants : l'allocation de ressources et l'allocation des puissances de transmission. De plus, une approche distribuée basée sur la théorie des jeux est proposée pour l'allocation des puissances de transmission. Les techniques centralisées de minimisation des interférences intercellulaires offrent la solution optimale au prix d'une grande charge de signalisation. Par contre, les solutions décentralisées réduisent le trafic de signalisation sans garantir l'optimalité de la solution obtenue. Nous proposons ensuite une heuristique de contrôle de puissance qui modifie localement l'allocation des puissances de transmission de manière à éviter le gaspillage d'énergie et pour réduire les interférences ressenties par les utilisateurs des stations de base voisines. Nous proposons également une technique autonome qui gère la distribution des ressources radio entre les différentes zones de chaque cellule. Cette technique répond aux besoins des utilisateurs dans chaque zone en adaptant la distribution des ressources d'une manière dynamique. Nous abordons aussi le compromis entre les techniques de gestion d'interférences intercellulaires centralisées et décentralisées. Nous proposons une approche hybride où l'allocation des ressources radio et des puissances de transmission est faite d'une manière coopérative entre les différentes cellules. Dans un premier lieu, les cellules voisines collaborent afin d'ajuster les puissances de transmission allouées aux ressources radio. Ensuite, la distribution des ressources entre les différentes zones de chaque cellule est modifiée localement, selon les besoins des utilisateurs dans chaque zone. / The exponentially increasing demand for mobile broadband communications have led to the dense deployment of cellular networks with aggressive frequency reuse patterns. The future Fifth Generation (5G) networks are expected to overcome capacity and throughput challenges by adopting a multi-tier architecture where several low-power Base Stations (BSs) are deployed within the coverage area of the macro cell. However, Inter-Cell Interference (ICI) caused by the simultaneous usage of the same spectrum in different cells, creates severe problems. ICI reduces system throughput and network capacity, and has a negative impact on cell-edge User Equipment (UE) performance. Therefore, Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (ICIC) techniques are required to mitigate the impact of ICI on system performance. In this thesis, we address the resource and power allocation problem in multiuser Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) networks such as LTE/LTE-A networks and dense small cell networks. We start by overviewing the state-of-the-art schemes, and provide an exhaustive classification of the existing ICIC approaches. This qualitative classification is followed by a quantitative investigation of several interference mitigation techniques. Then, we formulate a centralized multi-cell joint resource and power allocation problem, and prove that this problem is separable into two independent convex optimization problems. The objective function of the formulated problem consists in maximizing system throughput while guaranteeing throughput fairness between UEs. ICI is taken into account, and resource and power allocation is managed accordingly in a centralized manner. Furthermore, we introduce a decentralized game-theoretical method to solve the power allocation problem without the need to exchange signaling messages between the different cells. We also propose a decentralized heuristic power control algorithm based on the received Channel Quality Indication (CQI) feedbacks. The intuition behind this algorithm is to avoid power wastage for UEs that are close to the serving cell, and reducing ICI for UEs in the neighboring cells. An autonomous ICIC scheme that aims at satisfying throughput demands in each cell zone is also introduced. The obtained results show that this technique improves UE throughput fairness, and it reduces the percentage of unsatisfied UEs without generating additional signaling messages. Lastly, we provide a hybrid ICIC scheme as a compromise between the centralized and the decentralized approaches. For a cluster of adjacent cells, resource and power allocation decisions are made in a collaborative manner. First, the transmission power is adjusted after receiving the necessary information from the neighboring cells. Second, resource allocation between cell zones is locally modified, according to throughput demands in each zone.

Abstract This thesis considers data transmission in a full-duplex (FD) multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) system, where a FD capable base station (BS) bidirectionally communicates with multiple half-duplex (HD) users in downlink (DL) and uplink (UL) channels using the same radio resources. The main challenge in FD communications is how to deal with the self-interference (SI) between transmit and receive antennas at the BS. The work carried out in the thesis is motivated by recent advanced techniques in hardware design demonstrating that the SI can be suppressed to a degree that possibly allows for FD transmission in cellular networks. In particular, this thesis attempts to explore the potential gains in terms of the spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE) that can be brought by the FD MU-MIMO model. As the first of its kinds, the thesis aims to present a solid mathematical framework and report interesting results that foster research on wireless communications in general and FD communications in particular. For the FD system of interest the major challenge is due to the SI and co-channel interference from users in the UL channel to the ones in the DL channel, resulting in the coupling between the two channels. As a result we are concerned with the problem of joint transmit processing design to maximize the SE and EE subject to certain power constraints. Since the design problems are natually non-convex, it is difficult to find the globally optimal solutions or even when possible it is not practically appealing. Our contributions to solving these design problems are on the development of several iterative algorithms that can obtain locally optimal solutions. The proposed algorithms are built upon a framework of local optimization strategies such as the sequential parametric convex approximation and the Frank-Wolfe methods. In special cases closed-form designs are also presented. The reported results show that when the SI is sufficiently suppressed the considered FD MU-MIMO system with the proposed SE designs achieves a significantly better SE but consumes more energy, compared to the HD counterpart. In terms of EE the proposed EE scheme is superior to the proposed SE design. Moreover, in the low transmit power region, the EE design achieves a worse EE than the HD system but a better one in the high trasmit power regime when the SI power is low. / Tiivistelmä Tämä väitöskirja käsittelee datansiirtoa samanaikaisesti kaksisuuntaisessa (full-duplex, FD) usean käyttäjän moniantennijärjestelmässä (MU-MIMO), jossa FD-kykyinen tukiasema on yhtä aikaa yhteydessä vuorosuuntaisten (half-duplex, HD) käyttäjien kanssa laskevalla (DL) ja nousevalla (UL) siirtotiellä käyttäen samoja radioresursseja. FD-kommunikaation suurin haaste liittyy lähetys- ja vastaanottoantennien välisen omahäiriön (SI) hallintaan. Tässä työssä hyödynnetään tuoreita tutkimustuloksia, joissa edistyneillä häiriönvaimennustekniikoilla on kyetty vaimentamaan omahäiriö tasolle, jolla FD-lähetys solukkoverkoissa on toteutuskelpoista. Tässä työssä tutkitaan etenkin mahdollisia FD MU-MIMO –järjestelmän tuomia suorituskykyparannuksia spektrinkäytön tehokkuudessa (SE) ja energiatehokkuudessa (EE). Väitöskirjalla on uutuusarvoa matemaattisessa suorituskykyarvioinnissa ja työn mielenkiintoiset tulokset edistävät jatkotutkimusta aiheen ympärillä. Tutkittavan FD-järjestelmän merkittävänä haasteena on omahäiriön ja muiden käyttäjien siirtosuuntien välisen samankanavan häiriön yhteisvaikutus, jonka johdosta siirtosuunnat kytkeytyvät toisiinsa. Tämä johtaa lähetysprosessoinnin yhteisoptimointiin, jossa spektri- ja energiatehokkuus pyritään maksimoimaan määritetyillä tehorajoituksilla. Nämä suunnitteluongelmat eivät ole luonteeltaan konvekseja, joten niihin on vaikeaa löytää globaalisti optimaalisia ratkaisuja ja vaikka onnistuisikin niin ne eivät yleensä ole käytännöllisiä. Työssä esitetään useita iteratiivisia algoritmejä, joilla saavutetaan paikallisesti optimaalisia ratkaisuja. Ehdotetut algoritmit pohjautuvat paikallisten optimointistrategioiden viitekehykseen, jossa käytetään esimerkiksi peräkkäistä parametristä konveksiapproksimaatiota ja Frank-Wolfe –menetelmiä. Erityistapauksissa suljetun muodon ratkaisut on myös esitetty. Raportoidut tulokset osoittavat, että omahäiriön ollessa riittävästi vaimennettu mallinnetulla järjestelmällä saavutetaan spektrinkäytön optimointimielessä huomattavaa etua HD-verrokkiin lisääntyneen energian kulutuksen kustannuksella. Energiatehokkuuden optimointiin pohjautuvalla strategialla puolestaan päästään suurempiin suorituskykyetuihin. Pienillä lähetystehoilla energiatehokkuus voi kuitenkin olla HD-järjestelmää alempi, mutta vastaavasti suurten lähetystehojen alueella tilanne on päinvastainen kunhan omahäiriön teho on tarpeeksi alhainen.

Cooperative relay systems have emerged as promising techniques to boost the performance of wireless systems. Recent studies have confirmed that interferences, co-channel interferences (CCIs) and self-interferences, have a huge impact on cooperative relay systems and can cause significant performance degradation. Two problems were observed in this research. Firstly, previous studies on performance analysis of Amplify-and-Forward (AF) relay systems in presence of CCIs have only focused on a specific interference channel model. However, in practical design scenarios, such an assumption is not a realistic proposition. Secondly, analyses of overheads introduced by a time-based relay selection protocol in distributed cooperative systems have been based on an over-pessimistic assumption where all packets involved in a collision are destroyed. Nevertheless, collisions due to the protocol overheads cause the system performance to be degraded but this does not mean that the failure of end-to-end transmission certainly occurs. The thesis aims to analyse the performance of practical cooperative relay systems in the presence of CCIs and self-interferences, by developing exact mathematical methods. A new unified mathematical method for AF relay systems in presence of a random number of arbitrary non-identical CCIs was developed. The obtained new approach derived in terms of a moment generating function of the aggregate interferences' power led to the derivation of new explicit expressions. The new results greatly simplify evaluation of average error rates over diverse practical interference scenarios. Moreover, a new exact mathematical analysis for distributed cooperative relay systems employing a time-based relay selection protocol based on an accurate interference model was presented. This approach led to the derivation of new exact expressions for the spectral efficiency which accounts for both self-interferences and the protocol overheads as well as for different fading scenarios and arbitrary relay locations. This approach provided several advantages over direct approaches, one of which is that it significantly simplified averaging-out the joint random variables involved.

[EN] Next-generation terrestrial broadcasting targets at enhancing spectral efficiency to overcome the challenges derived from the spectrum shortage as a result of the progressive allocation of frequencies - the so-called Digital Dividend - to satisfy the growing demands for wireless broadband capacity. Advances in both transmission standards and video coding are paramount to enable the progressive roll-out of high video quality services such as HDTV (High Definition Televison) or Ultra HDTV. The transition to the second generation European terrestrial standard DVB-T2 and the introduction of MPEG-4/AVC video coding already enables the transmission of 4-5 HDTV services per RF (Radio Frequency) channel. However, the impossibility to allocate higher bit-rate within the remaining spectrum could jeopardize the evolution of the DTT platforms in favour of other high-capacity systems such as the satellite or cable distribution platforms. Next steps are focused on the deployment of the recently released High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard, which provides more than 50% coding gain with respect to AVC, with the next-generation terrestrial standards. This could ensure the competitiveness of the DTT. This dissertation addresses the use of multi-RF channel aggregation technologies to increase the spectral efficiency of future DTT networks. The core of the Thesis are two technologies: Time Frequency Slicing (TFS) and Channel Bonding (CB). TFS and CB consist in the transmission of the data of a TV service across multiple RF channels instead of using a single channel. CB spreads data of a service over multiple classical RF channels (RF-Mux). TFS spreads the data by time-slicing (slot-by-slot) across multiple RF channels which are sequentially recovered at the receiver by frequency hopping. Transmissions using these features can benefit from capacity and coverage gains. The first one comes from a more efficient statistical multiplexing (StatMux) for Variable Bit Rate (VBR) services due to a StatMux pool over a higher number of services. Furthermore, CB allows increasing service data rate with the number of bonded RF channels and also advantages when combined with SVC (Scalable Video Coding). The coverage gain comes from the increased RF performance due to the reception of the data of a service from different RF channels rather that a single one that could be, eventually, degraded. Robustness against interferences is also improved since the received signal does not depend on a unique potentially interfered RF channel. TFS was firstly introduced as an informative annex in DVB-T2 (not normative) and adopted in DVB-NGH (Next Generation Handheld). TFS and CB are proposed for inclusion in ATSC 3.0. However, they have never been implemented. The investigations carried out in this dissertation employ an information-theoretical approach to obtain their upper bounds, physical layer simulations to evaluate the performance in real systems and the analysis of field measurements that approach realistic conditions of the network deployments. The analysis report coverage gains about 4-5 dB with 4 RF channels and high capacity gains already with 2 RF channels. This dissertation also focuses on implementation aspects. Channel bonding receivers require one tuner per bonded RF channel. The implementation of TFS with a single tuner demands the fulfilment of several timing requirements. However, the use of just two tuners would still allow for a good performance with a cost-effective implementation by the reuse of existing chipsets or the sharing of existing architectures with dual tuner operation such as MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output). / [ES] La televisión digital terrestre (TDT) de última generación está orientada a una necesaria mejora de la eficiencia espectral con el fin de abordar los desafíos derivados de la escasez de espectro como resultado de la progresiva asignación de frecuencias - el llamado Dividendo Digital - para satisfacer la creciente demanda de capacidad para la banda ancha inalámbrica. Los avances tanto en los estándares de transmisión como de codificación de vídeo son de suma importancia para la progresiva puesta en marcha de servicios de alta calidad como la televisión de Ultra AD (Alta Definición). La transición al estándar europeo de segunda generación DVB-T2 y la introducción de la codificación de vídeo MPEG-4 / AVC ya permite la transmisión de 4-5 servicios de televisión de AD por canal RF (Radiofrecuencia). Sin embargo, la imposibilidad de asignar una mayor tasa de bit sobre el espectro restante podría poner en peligro la evolución de las plataformas de TDT en favor de otros sistemas de alta capacidad tales como el satélite o las distribuidoras de cable. El siguiente paso se centra en el despliegue del reciente estándar HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding), que ofrece un 50% de ganancia de codificación con respecto a AVC, junto con los estándares terrestres de próxima generación, lo que podría garantizar la competitividad de la TDT en un futuro cercano. Esta tesis aborda el uso de tecnologías de agregación de canales RF que permitan incrementar la eficiencia espectral de las futuras redes. La tesis se centra en torno a dos tecnologías: Time Frequency Slicing (TFS) y Channel Bonding (CB). TFS y CB consisten en la transmisión de los datos de un servicio de televisión a través de múltiples canales RF en lugar de utilizar un solo canal. CB difunde los datos de un servicio a través de varios canales RF convencionales formando un RF-Mux. TFS difunde los datos a través de ranuras temporales en diferentes canales RF. Los datos son recuperados de forma secuencial en el receptor mediante saltos en frecuencia. La implementación de estas técnicas permite obtener ganancias en capacidad y cobertura. La primera de ellas proviene de una multiplexación estadística (StatMux) de servicios de tasa variable (VBR) más eficiente. Además, CB permite aumentar la tasa de pico de un servicio de forma proporcional al número de canales así como ventajas al combinarla con codificación de vídeo escalable. La ganancia en cobertura proviene de un mejor rendimiento RF debido a la recepción de los datos de un servicio desde diferentes canales en lugar uno sólo que podría estar degradado. Del mismo modo, es posible obtener una mayor robustez frente a interferencias ya que la recepción o no de un servicio no depende de si el canal que lo alberga está o no interferido. TFS fue introducido en primer lugar como un anexo informativo en DVB-T2 (no normativo) y posteriormente fue adoptado en DVB-NGH (Next Generation Handheld). TFS y CB han sido propuestos para su inclusión en ATSC 3.0. Aún así, nunca han sido implementados. Las investigaciones llevadas a cabo en esta Tesis emplean diversos enfoques basados en teoría de la información para obtener los límites de ganancia, en simulaciones de capa física para evaluar el rendimiento en sistemas reales y en el análisis de medidas de campo. Estos estudios reportan ganancias en cobertura en torno a 4-5 dB con 4 canales e importantes ganancias en capacidad aún con sólo 2 canales RF. Esta tesis también se centra en los aspectos de implementación. Los receptores para CB requieren un sintonizador por canal RF agregado. La implementación de TFS con un solo sintonizador exige el cumplimiento de varios requisito temporales. Sin embargo, el uso de dos sintonizadores permitiría un buen rendimiento con una implementación más rentable con la reutilización de los actuales chips o su introducción junto con las arquitecturas existentes que operan con un doble sintonizador tales como / [CAT] La televisió digital terrestre (TDT) d'última generació està orientada a una necessària millora de l'eficiència espectral a fi d'abordar els desafiaments derivats de l'escassetat d'espectre com a resultat de la progressiva assignació de freqüències - l'anomenat Dividend Digital - per a satisfer la creixent demanda de capacitat per a la banda ampla sense fil. Els avanços tant en els estàndards de transmissió com de codificació de vídeo són de la màxima importància per a la progressiva posada en marxa de serveis d'alta qualitat com la televisió d'Ultra AD (Alta Definició). La transició a l'estàndard europeu de segona generació DVB-T2 i la introducció de la codificació de vídeo MPEG-4/AVC ja permet la transmissió de 4-5 serveis de televisió d'AD per canal RF (Radiofreqüència). No obstant això, la impossibilitat d'assignar una major taxa de bit sobre l'espectre restant podria posar en perill l'evolució de les plataformes de TDT en favor d'altres sistemes d'alta capacitat com ara el satèl·lit o les distribuïdores de cable. El següent pas se centra en el desplegament del recent estàndard HEVC (High Efficiency Vídeo Coding), que oferix un 50% de guany de codificació respecte a AVC, junt amb els estàndards terrestres de pròxima generació, la qual cosa podria garantir la competitivitat de la TDT en un futur pròxim. Aquesta tesi aborda l'ús de tecnologies d'agregació de canals RF que permeten incrementar l'eficiència espectral de les futures xarxes. La tesi se centra entorn de dues tecnologies: Time Frequency Slicing (TFS) i Channel Bonding (CB). TFS i CB consistixen en la transmissió de les dades d'un servei de televisió a través de múltiples canals RF en compte d'utilitzar un sol canal. CB difon les dades d'un servei a través d'uns quants canals RF convencionals formant un RF-Mux. TFS difon les dades a través de ranures temporals en diferents canals RF. Les dades són recuperades de forma seqüencial en el receptor per mitjà de salts en freqüència. La implementació d'aquestes tècniques permet obtindre guanys en capacitat i cobertura. La primera d'elles prové d'una multiplexació estadística (StatMux) de serveis de taxa variable (VBR) més eficient. A més, CB permet augmentar la taxa de pic d'un servei de forma proporcional al nombre de canals així com avantatges al combinar-la amb codificació de vídeo escalable. El guany en cobertura prové d'un millor rendiment RF a causa de la recepció de les dades d'un servei des de diferents canals en lloc de només un que podria estar degradat. De la mateixa manera, és possible obtindre una major robustesa enfront d'interferències ja que la recepció o no d'un servei no depén de si el canal que l'allotja està o no interferit. TFS va ser introduït en primer lloc com un annex informatiu en DVB-T2 (no normatiu) i posteriorment va ser adoptat en DVB-NGH (Next Generation Handheld). TFS i CB han sigut proposades per a la seva inclusió en ATSC 3.0. Encara així, mai han sigut implementades. Les investigacions dutes a terme en esta Tesi empren diverses vessants basades en teoria de la informació per a obtindre els límits de guany, en simulacions de capa física per a avaluar el rendiment en sistemes reals i en l'anàlisi de mesures de camp. Aquestos estudis reporten guanys en cobertura entorn als 4-5 dB amb 4 canals i importants guanys en capacitat encara amb només 2 canals RF. Esta tesi també se centra en els aspectes d'implementació. Els receptors per a CB requerixen un sintonitzador per canal RF agregat. La implementació de TFS amb un sol sintonitzador exigix el compliment de diversos requisit temporals. No obstant això, l'ús de dos sintonitzadors permetria un bon rendiment amb una implementació més rendible amb la reutilització dels actuals xips o la seua introducció junt amb les arquitectures existents que operen amb un doble sintonitzador com ara MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output). / Giménez Gandia, JJ. (2015). Improved Spectrum Usage with Multi-RF Channel Aggregation Technologies for the Next-Generation Terrestrial Broadcasting [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/52520 / TESIS

Les années récentes ont vu l’explosion du trafic sur les réseaux mobiles depuis l’apparition de nouveaux terminaux (smartphones, tablettes) et des usages qu’ils permettent, en particulier les données multimédia, le trafic voix restant sensiblement constant. Une conséquence est le besoin de plus de spectre, ou la nécessité de mieux utiliser le spectre déjà alloué. Comme il n’y a pas de coordination entre les utilisateurs secondaire(s) et primaire, avant toute transmission les premiers doivent mettre en œuvre des traitements pour détecter les périodes dans lesquelles l’utilisateur primaire transmet, ce qui est le scénario considéré dans cette thèse. Nous considérons donc une autre approche, reposant sur l’utilisation de codes correcteurs d’effacements en mode paquet. La dernière partie de la thèse aborde un scénario dans lequel il n’y a plus d’utilisateur primaire, tous les utilisateurs ayant le même droit à transmettre dans le canal. Nous décrivons une modification de la couche MAC du 802.11 consistant à réduire les différents temps consacrés à attendre (SIFS, DIFS, backoff, . . .) afin d’accéder plus souvent au canal, au prix de quelques collisions supplémentaires qu’il est possible de récupérer en mettant en œuvre des codes correcteurs d’effacements. / The emergence of new devices especially the smartphones and tablets having a lot of new applications have rocketed the wireless traffic in recent years and this is the cause of main surge in the demand of radio spectrum. There is a need of either more spectrum or to use existing spectrum more efficiently due to dramatic increase in the demand of limited spectrum. Among the new dynamic access schemes designed to use the spectrum more efficiently opportunistic spectrum access (OSA) is currently addressed when one or more secondary users (SU) are allowed to access the channel when the PU is not transmitting. The erasure correcting codes are therefore envisioned to recover the lost data due to sensing impairments. We define the parameter efficiency of SU and optimize it in-terms of spectrum utilization keeping into account sensing impairments, code parameters and the activity of PU. Finally, the spectrum access for multiple secondary users is addressed when there is no primary and each user has equal right to access the channel. The interesting scenarios are Cognitive radio networks and WiFi where 802.11 protocol gives the specification for MAC layer. The throughput curvesachieved by retransmission and using various erasure correcting codes are compared. This modification in MAC layer will reduce the long waiting time to access the channel, as the number of users are increased.

Dans cette thèse, les techniques de coopération ont été étudiées pour un canal multi-accès multi-relais composé d'au moins deux sources qui communiquent avec une seule destination à l'aide d'au moins deux nœuds de relayage en mode semi-duplex. Le multiplexage par répartition dans le temps est supposé. Tout d'abord, l’algorithme d’adaptation de lien est exécuté par l'ordonnanceur centralisé. Durant la première phase de transmission, les sources transmettent chacune à leur tour leur message respectif pendant des intervalles de temps consécutifs. Dans chaque intervalle de temps dans la deuxième phase, la destination planifie un nœud pour transmettre les redondances, mettant en œuvre un protocole coopératif d'Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ), où les canaux de contrôle limités bidirectionnels sont disponibles depuis les sources et les relais vers la destination. Dans la première partie de la thèse, les stratégies de sélection des nœuds centralisé sont proposées pour la deuxième phase de transmission. Les décisions d’ordonnancement sont prises en fonction de la connaissance des ensembles de sources correctement décodées par chaque noeud et ayant comme objectif de maximiser l’efficacité spectrale moyenne. L'analyse de la probabilité de coupure de l'information ainsi que les simulations Monte-Carlo (MC) sont effectués afin de valider ces stratégies. Dans la seconde partie, un algorithme d’adaptation de lien lent est proposé afin de maximiser l’efficacité spectrale moyenne sous contrainte de vérification d'une qualité de service individuelle cible pour une famille donnée de schémas de modulation et de codage, réposant sur l'information sur la distribution des canaux signalée. Les débits des sources discrets sont déterminés en utilisant l’approche "Genie-Aided" suivie d’un algorithme itératif de correction de débit. Les simulations MC montrent que l’algorithme d’adaptation de lien proposé offre des performances proches de celles de la recherche exhaustive. Dans la troisième partie, les performances de protocole HARQ à redondance incrémentale (IR) avec codage mono et multi-utilisateur, ainsi que l'HARQ de type Chase Combining avec codage mono-utilisateur sont comparées. Les simulations MC montrent que l'IR-HARQ avec codage mono-utilisateur offre le meilleur compromis entre performance et complexité pour le scénario de petit nombre de sources. Un schéma de codage pratique est proposé et validé à l'aide de simulations MC. / In this thesis, cooperation techniques have been studied for Multiple Access Multiple Relay Channel, consisted of at least two sources which communicate with a single destination with the help of at least two half-duplex relaying nodes. Time Division Multiplexing is assumed. First, the link adaptation algorithm is performed at the centralised scheduler. Sources transmit in turns in consecutive time slots during the first transmission phase. In each time slot of the second phase, the destination schedules a node to transmit redundancies, implementing a cooperative Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) protocol, where bidirectional limited control channels are available from sources and relays towards the destination. In the first part of the thesis, centralized node selection strategies are proposed for the second phase. The scheduling decisions are made based on the knowledge of the correctly decoded source sets of each node, with the goal to maximize the average spectral efficiency. An information outage analysis is conducted and Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations are performed to evaluate their performance. In the second part, a slow-link adaptation algorithm is proposed which aims at maximizing the average spectral efficiency under individual QoS targets for a given modulation and coding scheme family relying on the reported Channel Distribution Information of all channels. Discrete source rates are first determined using the "Genie-Aided" assumption, which is followed by an iterative rate correction algorithm. The resulting link adaptation algorithm yields performance close to the exhaustive search approach as demonstrated by MC simulations. In the third part, performances of Incremental Redundancy (IR) HARQ with Single and Multi User encoding, as well as the Chase Combining HARQ with Single User encoding are compared. MC simulations demonstrate that IR-HARQ with Single User encoding offers the best trade-off between performance and complexity for a small number of sources in our setting. Practical coding scheme is proposed and validated using MC simulations.