Wireless multi-hop relay systems are the newest amendment to the IEEE 802.16 standard for local and metropolitan area networks, else known as WiMAX. Relay systems come in different flavours, based on their capabilities and have the potential to offer many advantages over the single-hop technology. Upcoming broadband wireless technologies, that utilize multi-hop relays, need good network planning and design in order to achieve their full potential. There are two main types of multi-hop relay stations: transparent, which are not able to transmit control information and non-transparent, which have the capability to transmit such information. This study focuses mainly on non-transparent relay stations due to their complexity and ability to operate in a more than two hop environment. Currently, the latest IEEE amendment provides two different frame structures − single and multi-frame − for utilization in multi-hop relay networks, to allocate bandwidth. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the two proposed frame structures, in various network scenarios in terms of delay, throughput, rate, and user capacity. In addition, we will discuss some of the issues that need to be considered to cost effectively plan and design a multi-hop relay network. The evaluation methodology that we utilize is in accordance with the Multi-hop Relay System Evaluation Methodology developed by the IEEE 802.16 Broadband Wireless Access Working Group. To evaluate the above frame structures we developed an evaluation model for use in the network simulator 2 (ns2) from University of California Berkeley, by modifying the light WiMAX (LWX) add-on from Taiwan University. Unlike the original LWX module, which supports only transparent relay configurations, our module supports both multi-frame and single frame structures, as well as non-transparent multi-hop relay environments. To our knowledge there is no previous work, which analyzes the performance of the single frame and multi-frame system in multi-hope relay environments using the guidelines from the latest amendment to the standard (IEEE 802.16j-2009). Moreover, there is no publicly available software that will enable the study of such performance. The resulting source code of our work has been made publicly available and can be obtained from our website. / Thesis (Master, Electrical & Computer Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-09 23:55:00.995

Le réseau de radio communications mobiles professionnelles (PMR), qui est utilisé pour le fonctionnement de la sécurité publique, doit évoluer pour les solutions à large bande pour satisfaire les demandes des utilisateurs à l’avenir. Dans les technologies à large bande actuels, Long Term Evolution (LTE), développé par le 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), est considéré comme l’un des candidats potentiels pour la prochaine génération de PMR. Malgré le fait que la technologie LTE en charge la transmission de données à haute vitesse et prend en charge différentes tailles de paquets en utilisant la modulation et le codage adaptatifs (AMC), le LTE n’est pas encore optimisée pour la communication vocale à bas débit, en particulier en cas d’utilisation LTE pour la radio communications mobiles professionnelles (PMR ) contexte. Par conséquent, dans cette thèse, nous présentons des solutions pour renforcer la capacité de la voix de la technologie LTE dans le cadre PMR à la fois la liaison montante et la transmission de liaison descendante. Les nouvelles propositions, basées sur la technologie de norme LTE existant avec des adaptations, permettent la réduction de les frais généraux de données et les frais généraux de contrôle sur LTE (VoLTE) dans le contexte PMR / The Professional Mobile Radio (PMR) network, which is used for public safety operation, has to evolve to the broadband solutions to satisfy the user demands in the future. In the current broadband technologies, Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard, developed by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), is considered one of the potential candidates for the next generation of PMR. Despite the fact that LTE supports high-speed data transmission and supports different packet sizes by using Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC), LTE is not yet optimized for low bit rate voice communication, especially in case of using LTE in Professional Mobile Radio (PMR) context. Therefore, in this dissertation, we present several new solutions for enhancing the voice capacity of LTE in the PMR context for both uplink and downlink transmission. The new propositions, based on existent LTE standard technology with adaptations, allow reducing both control and data overhead issues of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) in PMR context