Although there already exists a rich literature on cooperative diversity, current results are mainly restricted to the conventional assumption of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). AWGN model realistically represents the thermal noise at the receiver, but ignores the impulsive nature of atmospheric noise, electromagnetic interference, or man-made noise which might be dominant in many practical applications. In this thesis, we investigate the performance of cooperative communication over Rayleigh fading channels in the presence of impulsive noise modeled by Middleton Class A noise. We consider a multi-relay network with amplify-and-forward relaying and orthogonal cooperation protocol. As for the coding across the relays, we employ either space-time coding or repetition coding. For each scheme, we assume various scenarios based on relays’ location and quantify the diversity advantages through the derivation of the pairwise error probability. Based on the minimization of a union bound on the error rate performance, we further propose optimal power allocation schemes and demonstrate significant performance gains over their counterparts with equal power allocation. We finally present an extensive Monte Carlo simulation to confirm our analytical results and corroborate on our results.

The concept of cooperation in communications has drawn a lot of research attention in recent years due to its potential to improve the efficiency of wireless networks. This new form of communications allows some users to act as relays and assist the transmission of other users' information signals. The aim of this thesis is to apply optimization techniques in the design of multi-relay wireless networks employing cooperative communications. In general, the thesis is organized into two parts: ``Distributed space-time coding' (DSTC) and ``Distributed beamforming', which cover two main approaches in cooperative communications over multi-relay networks. <br><br> In Part I of the thesis, various aspects of distributed implementation of space-time coding in a wireless relay network are treated. First, the thesis proposes a new fully-diverse distributed code which allows noncoherent reception at the destination. Second, the problem of coordinating the power allocation (PA) between source and relays to achieve the optimal performance of DSTC is studied and a novel PA scheme is developed. It is shown that the proposed PA scheme can obtain the maximum diversity order of DSTC and significantly outperform other suboptimal PA schemes. Third, the thesis presents the optimal PA scheme to minimize the mean-square error (MSE) in channel estimation during training phase of DSTC. The effect of imperfect channel estimation to the performance of DSTC is also thoroughly studied. <br><br> In Part II of the thesis, optimal distributed beamforming designs are developed for a wireless multiuser multi-relay network. Two design criteria for the optimal distributed beamforming at the relays are considered: (i) minimizing the total relay power subject to a guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) measured in terms of signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) at the destinations, and (ii) jointly maximizing the SNR margin at the destinations subject to power constraints at the relays. Based on convex optimization techniques, it is shown that these problems can be formulated and solved via second-order conic programming (SOCP). In addition, this part also proposes simple and fast iterative algorithms to directly solve these optimization problems.

To achieve two main objectives, viz., to increase the system capacity and having higher data rates, of 3G system for individual users, it comes up to be the unprecedented demand on both communication bandwidth and powerful DSP processing techniques. In this thesis, a new space-time encoding scheme, referred to as the Virtual Constellation Mapping (VCM) scheme associated with the turbo encoder, is devised to enhance transmission data rate and spectral efficiency. It also alleviates the requirement of powerful signal processing technique. In fact, the proposed scheme is very simple and could be used to achieve full utilizing encoding efficiency. It means that the new scheme is easy in practical implementation. To verify the advantages of this new scheme, we apply it to both the 3GPP FDD of WCDMA system and OFDM based Wireless LAN system. First, by comparing the proposed scheme with the conventional standards 3GPP scheme, the information data rate is increased from 384 kbps information data rate to 450.4 kbps, that is 17 % improvement. It should be noted by using the new approach, other system components of 3GPP, e.g., modulation scheme, control bits and the data rate of the QPSK modulators outputs, are all the same. Moreover, this VCM scheme can be applied to the multicarrier modulation or the Wireless LAN with the OFDM modulation. Computer simulation results showed that with the same transmission data rate, our scheme is more robustness compare with the conventional space-time trellis coded OFDM scheme, in high Doppler fading channel. In addition, the proposed scheme required less decoding complexity as the standards, when it is implemented in the 3GPP system and the OFDM system with space-time trellis coding scheme.

ITC/USA 2014 Conference Proceedings / The Fiftieth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 20-23, 2014 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, CA / Typical airborne test platforms use multiple telemetry transmit antennas in a top and bottom configuration in order to mitigate signal shadowing during maneuvers on high dynamic platforms. While mitigating one problem, this also creates a co-channel interference problem as the same signal, time delayed with differing amplitude, is sent to both antennas. Space-Time Coding (STC) was developed with the intention of mitigating this co-channel interference problem, also known as the "two antenna problem". Lab testing and preliminary flight testing of developmental and pre-production hardware has been completed and documented. This is the first test dedicated to assessing the performance of a production STC system in a real-world test environment. This paper will briefly describe lab testing that preceded the flight testing, describes the airborne and ground station configurations used during the flight test, and provides detailed results of the performance of the space time coded telemetry link as compared against a reference telemetry link.

High data rate applications are the trend in today's wireless technology. W-CDMA standard was designed to support such high data rates of up to 3.84 Mcps. The main purpose of this research was to analyze the feasibility of a fixed-point implementation of the W-CDMA downlink receiver algorithm on a general-purpose digital signal processor (StarCore SC140 by Motorola). The very large instruction word architecture of SC140 core is utilized to generate optimal implementation, to meet the real time timing requirements of the algorithm. The other main aim of this work was to study and evaluate the performance of the W-CDMA downlink structure with incorporated space-time transmit diversity. The effect of the channel estimation algorithm used was extensively studied too.

abstract: Practical communication systems are subject to errors due to imperfect time alignment among the communicating nodes. Timing errors can occur in different forms depending on the underlying communication scenario. This doctoral study considers two different classes of asynchronous systems; point-to-point (P2P) communication systems with synchronization errors, and asynchronous cooperative systems. In particular, the focus is on an information theoretic analysis for P2P systems with synchronization errors and developing new signaling solutions for several asynchronous cooperative communication systems. The first part of the dissertation presents several bounds on the capacity of the P2P systems with synchronization errors. First, binary insertion and deletion channels are considered where lower bounds on the mutual information between the input and output sequences are computed for independent uniformly distributed (i.u.d.) inputs. Then, a channel suffering from both synchronization errors and additive noise is considered as a serial concatenation of a synchronization error-only channel and an additive noise channel. It is proved that the capacity of the original channel is lower bounded in terms of the synchronization error-only channel capacity and the parameters of both channels. On a different front, to better characterize the deletion channel capacity, the capacity of three independent deletion channels with different deletion probabilities are related through an inequality resulting in the tightest upper bound on the deletion channel capacity for deletion probabilities larger than 0.65. Furthermore, the first non-trivial upper bound on the 2K-ary input deletion channel capacity is provided by relating the 2K-ary input deletion channel capacity with the binary deletion channel capacity through an inequality. The second part of the dissertation develops two new relaying schemes to alleviate asynchronism issues in cooperative communications. The first one is a single carrier (SC)-based scheme providing a spectrally efficient Alamouti code structure at the receiver under flat fading channel conditions by reducing the overhead needed to overcome the asynchronism and obtain spatial diversity. The second one is an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based approach useful for asynchronous cooperative systems experiencing excessive relative delays among the relays under frequency-selective channel conditions to achieve a delay diversity structure at the receiver and extract spatial diversity. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Electrical Engineering 2013

FundaÃÃo Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Cientifico e TecnolÃgico / In this work, the performance of MIMO systems based on space-time coding is investigated through multilinear algebra, more speci&#64257;cally, by means of tensor decompositions, pulling away a bit from commonly used matrix models. We assume a system composed of P transmit and M receive antennas, consisting of a combination of a space-time block code (STBC) with a formatting &#64257;lter. This &#64257;lter is formed by a precoding matrix and a matrix that maps the precoded signal onto the transmit antennas. For the considered system, two contributions are presented to solve the problem of channel estimation. First, we propose a tensor-based channel estimation method for orthogonal STBCs in MIMO systems, by focusing on the speci&#64257;c case of the Alamouti scheme. We resort to a third order PARATUCK2 tensor model for the received signal, the third dimension of which is related to the presence of the formatting &#64257;lter. By capitalizing on this tensor model, a channel estimation method based on the alternating least squares (ALS) algorithm is proposed. As a second contribution, a generalization of this method to an arbitrary nonorthogonal STBC is made, where a generalized structure is proposed for the formatting &#64257;lter, introducing a fourth dimension into the tensor signal model. In this case, we make use of the PARATUCK(2-4) model followed by its reduction to a structured PARAFAC model, from which a closed-form solution to the channel estimation problem is established. The performance metrics considered for evaluating the proposed channel estimation method are: (I) the quality of the estimation in terms of NMSE and (II) the system reliability in terms of Bit Error Rate. / Neste trabalho, o desempenho de sistemas MIMO baseados em codi&#64257;caÃÃo espaÃo temporal à investigado via Ãlgebra multilinear, mais especi&#64257;camente, por meio de decomposiÃÃes tensoriais, afastando-se um pouco dos modelos matriciais comumente adotados. Assume-se um sistema composto de P antenas transmissoras e M receptoras, consistindo de uma combinaÃÃo de um cÃdigo espaÃo-temporal em bloco com um &#64257;ltro formatador. Esse &#64257;ltro à formado por uma matriz de prÃ-codi&#64257;caÃÃo e uma matriz que mapeia os sinais prÃ-codi&#64257;cados nas antenas transmissoras. Para o sistema considerado, duas contribuiÃÃes sÃo apresentadas para solucionar o problema de estimaÃÃo de canal. Primeiro, à proposto um mÃtodo tensorial de estimaÃÃo de canal para STBCs ortogonais em sistemas MIMO, tomando-se como exemplo o esquema de Alamouti. Tal mÃtodo faz uso de um modelo tensorial PARATUCK2 de terceira ordem para o sinal recebido, cuja terceira dimensÃo està associada à presenÃa do &#64257;ltro formatador. Aproveitando-se desse modelo tensorial, um mÃtodo de estimaÃÃo de canal baseado no algoritmo dos mÃnimos quadrados alternados à proposto. Como uma segunda contribuiÃÃo, uma generalizaÃÃo desse modelo para um STBC nÃo ortogonal arbitrÃrio à feita, em que uma estrutura generalizada à proposta para o &#64257;ltro formatador, introduzindo uma quarta dimensÃo no modelo tensorial de sinal. Neste caso, faz-se uso do modelo PARATUCK(2-4) seguido pela sua reduÃÃo a um modelo PARAFAC estruturado, a partir do qual uma soluÃÃo em forma fechada para o problema de estimaÃÃo de canal à estabelecida. As mÃtricas de desempenho consideradas para avaliaÃÃo dos mÃtodos de estimaÃÃo de canal propostos sÃo: (I) A qualidade da estimaÃÃo do canal em termos de NMSE e (II) a con&#64257;abilidade do sistema em termos de Taxa de Erro de Bit.

Abstract High computational complexity constrains truly exhaustive computer searches for good space-time (ST) coded modulations mostly to low constraint length space-time trellis codes (STTrCs). Such codes are primarily devised to achieve maximum transmit diversity gain. Due to their low memory order, optimization based on the design criterion of secondary importance typically results in rather modest coding gains. As another disadvantage of limited freedom, the different low memory order STTrCs are almost exclusively constructed for either slow or fast fading channels. Therefore in practical applications characterized by extremely variable Doppler frequencies, the codes typically fail to demonstrate desired robustness. On the other hand, the main drawback of eventually increased constraint lengths is the prohibitively large decoding complexity, which may increase exponentially if optimal maximum-likelihood decoding (MLD) is applied at the receiver. Therefore, robust ST coded modulation schemes with large equivalent memory orders structured as to allow sub-optimal, low complexity, iterative decoding are needed. To address the aforementioned issues, this thesis proposes parallel concatenated space-time turbo coded modulation (STTuCM). It is among the earliest multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) coded modulation designs built on the intersection of ST coding and turbo coding. The systematic procedure for building an equivalent recursive STTrC (Rec-STTrC) based on the trellis diagram of an arbitrary non-recursive STTrC is first introduced. The parallel concatenation of punctured constituent Rec-STTrCs designed upon the non-recursive Tarokh et al. STTrCs (Tarokh-STTrCs) is evaluated under different narrow-band frequency flat block fading channels. Combined with novel transceiver designs, the applications for future wide-band code division multiple access (WCDMA) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based broadband radio communication systems are considered. The distance spectrum (DS) interpretation of the STTuCM and union bound (UB) performance analysis over slow and fast fading channels reveal the importance of multiplicities in the ST coding design. The modified design criteria for space-time codes (STCs) are introduced that capture the joint effects of error coefficients and multiplicities in the two dimensional DS of a code. Applied to STTuCM, such DS optimization resulted in a new set of constituent codes (CCs) for improved and robust performance over both slow and fast fading channels. A recursive systematic form with a primitive equivalent feedback polynomial is assumed for CCs to assure good convergence in iterative decoding. To justify such assumptions, the iterative decoding convergence analysis based on the Gaussian approximation of the extrinsic information is performed. The DS interpretation, introduced with respect to an arbitrary defined effective Hamming distance (EHD) and effective product distance (EPD), is applicable to the general class of geometrically non-uniform (GNU) CCs. With no constrains on the implemented information interleaving, the STTuCM constructed from newly designed CCs achieves full spatial diversity over quasi-static fading channels, the condition commonly identified as the most restrictive for robust performance over a variety of Doppler spreads. Finally, the impact of bit-wise and symbol-wise information interleaving on the performance of STTuCM is studied.

The United States (U.S.) Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) conducted a series of rotary-wing flight tests for the sole purpose of checking out Telemetry data link instrumentation. Four flights were conducted at YPG in February 2016 that built upon an earlier test flight conducted in June 2015. The most recent iteration of testing examined the benefits of frequency diversity on aircraft and the spatial diversity of receiving sites using existing hardware at YPG. Quantitative analysis from those flight results will be presented and include discussion on how results will affect future mission operations at YPG.

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