Cellular networks are becoming more common, this introduces new challenges in dealing with their error prone nature. To improve end-to-end performance when the first link in the connection is wireless, an adaptive timeout based on network conditions is constructed. Relevant network factors are identified by examining data collected by a device located in a vehicle moving around in southern Sweden. Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) is shown to be the primary predictor of errors in the connection. In our datasets, a CQI index of 2 is a very good predictor of an error prone state. The collected data is split into training and evaluation data, the training data is used to construct a model. An adaptive timeout mechanism which uses this model is proposed, the mechanism is shown to be superior in all tested cases in the dataset compared to the optimal static counterpart. Reducing timeouts allows for applications to make new decisions based on new information faster, increasing responsiveness and user satisfaction.

L'objectif de cette thèse est de souligner l'importance de l'abstraction de la couche physique (PHY abstraction) dans l'évaluation des systèmes LTE (Long Term Evolution). Cette thèse propose une approche pragmatique pour l'utilisation de PHY abstraction dans les simulateurs des systèmes LTE. PHY abstraction est un outil très important pour l'évaluation des systèmes LTE à grande échelle car il est efficace, pratique et à complexité réduite . Dans cette thèse, nous prouvons que, à part son objectif principal et qui consiste à fournir un indicateur instantané de la qualité de liaison pour l'évaluation du système, le PHY abstraction peut aussi: améliorer le feedback de l'indicateur sur la qualité de canal (CQI) en se basant sur les différentes configurations d'antennes, et la prédiction de la performance des réseaux LTE en se basant sur des mesures de canal réelles. Cette thèse est principalement divisée en deux parties: méthodologies et applications. La première partie présente la conception complète et la méthodologie de validation des systèmes de captage PHY pour différentes configurations d'antennes correspondant à des différentes modes de transmissions en LTE. La validation est effectuée en utilisant des simulateurs de niveau de liaison. Nous soulignons aussi les astuces de calibrage nécessaires pour que la production PHY soit précise dans la prédiction de la performance de capacité réalisant turbo-codes. / The main focus of this thesis is to highlight the importance of PHY abstraction for the system level evaluations in the framework of 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks. This thesis presents a pragmatic approach towards the use of PHY abstraction in LTE based system level simulators. PHY abstraction is an extremely valuable low complexity tool for efficient and realistic large scale system evaluations. This thesis shows that apart from the primary purpose of PHY abstraction of providing instantaneous link quality indicator for the purpose of system level evaluations, it can be further used for an improved channel quality indicator (CQI) feedback based on the different antenna configurations and for the performance prediction of LTE networks based on the real life channel measurements. This thesis is mainly divided into two parts; methodologies and applications. The first part presents the complete design and validation methodology of PHY abstraction schemes for various antennaconfigurations corresponding to different transmission modes in LTE. The validation is performed using link level simulators and it also highlights the calibration issues necessary for the PHY abstraction to be accurate in predicting the performance of capacity achieving turbo codes.

Frequency-domain scheduling, multiple antenna techniques, and rate adaptation enable next generation orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) cellular systems such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) to achieve significantly higher downlink spectral efficiencies. However, this comes at the expense of increased feedback overhead on the uplink. LTE uses a pragmatic combination of several techniques to reduce the channel state feedback required by a frequency-domain scheduler. In subband-level feedback scheme specified in LTE, the user reduces feedback by only reporting the channel quality indicator (CQI) computed over groups of resource blocks called subbands. LTE also specifies an alternate user selected subband feedback scheme, in which the feedback overhead is reduced even further by making each user feed back the indices of the best M subbands and only one CQI value averaged over all the M subbands. The coarse frequency granularity of the feedback in the above schemes leads to an occasional incorrect determination of rate by the scheduler for some resource blocks. The overall throughput of LTE depends on the method used to generate the CQI and the statistics of the channel, which depends on the multiple antenna technique used. In this thesis, we develop closed-form expressions for the throughput achieved by the user selected and subband-level CQI feedback schemes of LTE. The comprehensive analysis quantifies the joint effects of four critical components on the overall system throughput, namely, scheduler, multiple antenna mode, CQI feedback scheme, and CQI generation method. The performance of a wide range of schedulers, namely, round robin, greedy, and proportional fair schedulers and several multiple antenna diversity modes such as receive antenna diversity and open-and closed-loop transmit diversity is analyzed. The analysis clearly brings out the dependence of the overall system throughput on important parameters such as number of resource blocks per subband and the rate adaptation thresholds. The effect of the coarse subband-level frequency granularity of feedback is explicitly captured. The analysis provides an independent theoretical reference and a quick system parameter optimization tool to an LTE system designer. It also helps us theoretically understand the behavior of OFDMA feedback reduction techniques when operated under practical system constraints. Another contribution of this thesis is a new statistical model for the effective exponential SNR mapping (EESM), which is a highly non-linear mapping that is widely used in the design, analysis, and simulation of OFDMA systems. The statistical model is shown to be both accurate and analytically tractable, and plays a crucial role in facilitating the analysis of the throughput of LTE when EESM is used to generate the CQI.

Wireless communication networks have evolved continuously over the last four decades in order to meet the traffic and security requirements due to the ever-increasing amount of traffic. However this increase is projected to be massive for the fifth generation of wireless networks (5G), with a targeted capacity enhancement of 1000× w.r.t. 4G networks. This enhanced capacity is possible by a combination of major approaches (a) overhaul of some parts and (b) elimination of overhead and redundancies of the current 4G. In this work we focus on OFDM reference signal or pilot tones, which are used for channel estimation, link adaptation and other crucial functions in Long-Term Evolution (LTE). We investigate two aspects of pilot signals pertaining to its evolution - (a) impact of targeted interference on pilots and its mitigation and (b) adaptation of pilot patterns to match the channel conditions of the user. We develop theoretical models that accurately quantify the performance degradation at the user’s receiver in the presence of a multi-tone pilot jammer. We develop and evaluate mitigation algorithms to mitigate power constrained multi-tone pilot jammers in SISO- and full rank spatial multiplexing MIMO-OFDM systems. Our results show that the channel estimation performance can be restored even in the presence of a strong pilot jammer. We also show that full rank spatial multiplexing in the presence of a synchronized pilot jammer (transmitting on pilot locations only) is possible when the channel is flat between two pilot locations in either time or frequency. We also present experimental results of multi-tone broadcast pilot jamming (Jamming of Cell Specific Reference Signal) in the LTE downlink. Our results show that full-band jamming of pilots needs 5 dB less power than jamming the entire downlink signal, in order to cause Denial of Service (DoS) to the users. In addition to this, we have identified and demonstrated a previously unreported issue with LTE termed ‘Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) Spoofing’. In this scenario, the attacker tricks the user terminal into thinking that the channel quality is good, by transmitting interference transmission only on the data locations, while deliberately avoiding the pilots. This jamming strategy leverages the dependence of the adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) schemes on the CQI estimate in LTE. Lastly, we investigate the idea of pilot pattern adaptation for SISO- and spatial multiplexing MIMO-OFDM systems. We present a generic heuristic algorithm to predict the optimal pilot spacing and power in a nonstationary doubly selective channel (channel fading in both time and frequency). The algorithm fits estimated channel statistics to stored codebook channel profiles and uses it to maximize the upper bound on the constrained capacity. We demonstrate up to a 30% improvement in ergodic capacity using our algorithm and describe ways to minimize feedback requirements while adapting pilot patterns in multi-band carrier aggregation systems. We conclude this work by identifying scenarios where pilot adaptation can be implemented in current wireless networks and provide some guidelines to adapt pilots for 5G. / Master of Science / Wireless communications have evolved continuously over the last four decades in order to meet the ever-increasing number of users. The next generation of wireless networks, named 5G, is expected to interconnect a massive number of devices called the Internet of Things (IoT). Compared to the current generation of wireless networks (termed 4G), 5G is expected to provide a thousandfold increase in data rates. In addition to this, the security of these connected devices is also a challenging issue that needs to be addressed. Hence in the event of an attack, even if a tiny fraction of the total number of users are affected, this will still result in a large number of users who are impacted. The central theme of this thesis is the evolution of <i>Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) pilot signals</i> on the road from 4G to 5G wireless networks. In OFDM, pilot signals are sent in parallel to data in order to aid the receiver in mitigating the impairments of the wireless channel. In this thesis, we look at two perspectives of the evolution of pilots: a) targeted interference on pilot signals, termed as ‘Multi-tone pilot jamming’ and b) adapting pilot patterns to optimize throughput. In the first part of the thesis, we investigate the (a) impact of multi-tone pilot jamming and (b) propose and evaluate strategies to counter multi-tone pilot jamming. In particular, we propose methods that (a) have the potential to be implemented in the Third Generation Partnership Project Long-Term Evolution (3GPP LTE) standard, and (b) have the ability to maintain high data rates with a multi-antenna receiver, in the presence of a multi-tone pilot jammer. We also experiment and analyze the behavior of LTE in the presence of such targeted interference. In the second half of the thesis, we explore the idea of adapting the density of pilots to optimize throughput. Increasing the pilot density improves the signal reception capabilities, but reduces the resources available for data and hence, data rate. Hence we propose and evaluate strategies to balance between these two conflicting requirements in a wireless communication system. In summary, this thesis provides and evaluates ideas to mitigate interference on pilot signals, and design data rate-maximizing pilot patterns for future OFDM-based wireless networks.

Au cours de cette thèse, nous nous sommes d'abord intéressés à l'optimisation des ressources et à la modulation adaptative dans les systèmes SC-FDMA (Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access). Ce problème d'optimisation est combinatoire à complexité de calcul exponentielle. Afin de pallier à cette difficulté, nous avons utilisé la théorie de la dualité canonique, grâce à laquelle, la complexité du problème d'optimisation devient polynômiale et cela en constitue une amélioration remarquable. L'approche proposée est très proche de la solution optimale. Nous avons ensuite étudié la problématique complexe de l'allocation de ressources pour le "Streaming Vidéo" dans les réseaux sans fil, où il est nécessaire d'assurer une transmission vidéo de haute qualité en présence de canaux et de brouillages variables au cours du temps. Dans ce contexte, nous avons proposé une nouvelle méthode d'allocation de puissance conjointement à l'adaptation du débit vidéo. Pour ce faire, nous avons adopté une approche de la théorie de contrôle, intitulée "Risk-Sensitive Control". Nous avons dédié la troisième partie de la thèse à la conception d'une nouvelle stratégie "best-M" pour le renvoi du CQI (Channel Quality Indicator) pour les systèmes multi-utilisateurs et multi-porteuses. En générale, l'erreur d'estimation du CQI ainsi que son délai de renvoi sont gérés au niveau de la station de base. Notre nouvelle stratégie "best-M" suppose que la gestion de ces problèmes est confiée aux utilisateurs. De ce fait, la performance du système se trouve améliorée sans que son débit de signalisation ne soit augmenté en voix montante. / Adaptive resource allocation in wireless communication systems is crucial in order to support the diverse QoS needs of the services and optimize resource utilization. The design of resource allocation schemes should consider the service type for which it is intended. Moreover, due to feedback delay and channel estimation error, the Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) reported to the transmitter may not be a perfect measure of the channel quality and its use for resource allocation may severely degrade the systems performance. In this thesis, we study resource allocation and CQI reporting for wireless networks while taking the aforementioned factors into consideration. First, we consider resource allocation and adaptive modulation in uplink SC-FDMA systems. This is a combinatorial problem whose optimal solution is exponentially complex. We use canonical duality theory to derive a polynomial complexity resource allocation algorithm that provides a nearly optimal solution to the problem. Then, we focus on resource allocation for video streaming in wireless networks with time-varying interference. To this end, by using risk-sensitive control approach, we develop a cross-layer optimization framework that performs power control at the PHY/MAC layer and rate adaptation at the APPLICATION layer jointly and provides fairness among nodes. Finally, by using stochastic control and game theory, we design a robust best-M CQI reporting scheme for multi-carrier and multi-user systems which takes into account the impact of feedback delay and error in CQI computation. Performing resource allocation on the basis of the proposed CQI reporting can significantly improve the system performance.