Multiuser and cooperative orthogonal frequency division multiplexing(OFDM) systems are being actively researched and adopted in wireless standards, owing to their advantages of robustness to multipath fading, modularity, and ability to achieve high data rates. In OFDM based systems, perfect frequency and timing synchronization is essential to maintain orthogonality among the subcarriers at the receiver. In multiuser OFDM on the uplink, timing offsets (TOs) and/or carrier frequency offsets (CFOs) of different users, caused due to path delay differences between different users, Doppler and/or poor oscillator alignment, can destroy orthogonality among subcarriers at the receiver. This results in multiuser interference (MUI)and consequent performance degradation. In this thesis, we are concerned with the analysis and mitigation of the effect of large CFOs and TOs in multiuser OFDM systems, including uplink orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA),uplink single-carrier frequency division multiple access(SC-FDMA), and cooperative OFDM. Uplink OFDMA: In the first part of this thesis, we analytically quantify the effect of large CFOs and TOs on the signal-to-interference plus noise ratio(SINR) and uncoded bit error rate(BER) performance of uplink OFDMA on Rayleigh and Rician fading channels, and show analytical results to closely match with simulation results. Such an SINR/BER analysis for uplink OFDMA in the presence of both large CFOs as well as TOs has not been reported before. We also propose interference cancelling(IC) receivers to mitigate the performance degradation caused due to large CFOs and TOs of different users. SC-FDMA versus OFDMA: An issue with uplink OFDMA is its high peak-to-average power ratio(PAPR).Uplink SC-FDMA is proposed in the standards as a good low-PAPR alternative to uplink OFDMA; e.g., SC-FDMA has been adopted in the uplink of 3GPP LTE. A comparative investigation of uplink SC-FDMA and OFDMA from a sensitivity to large CFOs and TOs view point has not been reported in the literature. Consequently, in the second part of the thesis, we carry out a comparative study of the sensitivity of SC-FDMA and OFDMA schemes to large CFOs and TOs of different users on the uplink. Our results show that while SC-FDMA achieves better performance due to its inherent frequency diversity advantage compared to OFDMA in the case of perfect synchronization, its performance can get worse than that of OFDMA in the presence of large CFOs and TOs. We further show that use of low-complexity multistage IC techniques, with the knowledge of CFOs and TOs of different users at the receiver, can restore the performance advantage of SC-FDMA over OFDMA. Cooperative OFDM: Cooperative OFDM is becoming popular because of its ability to provide spatial diversity in systems where each node has only one antenna. In most studies on cooperative communications, perfect time synchronization among cooperating nodes is assumed. This implies that the transmissions from different cooperating nodes reach the destination receiver in orthogonal time slots. In practice, however, due to imperfect time synchronization, orthogonality among different nodes’ signals at the destination receiver can be lost, causing inter-symbol interference(ISI).In the third part of the thesis, we investigate cooperative OFDM communications using amplify-and-forward(AF) protocol at the relay, in the presence of imperfect timing synchronization. We derive analytical expressions for the ISI as function of timing offset for cooperative OFDM with AF protocol, and propose an IC receiver to mitigate the effects of timing offset induced ISI.

Wireless communication systems require high spectral efficiency and throughput in order to be cost-effective. Link adaptation schemes are known to be a good solution to achieve this goal. However, the necessity of additional information or increased complexity prevents these schemes from being implemented. In this context, research on resource allocation based on different constraints, such as complexity or feedback, is important. The major contribution of this dissertation is the development of three novel techniques to enhance performance in practical implementations of the adaptive OFDM systems. This dissertation first introduces a new multiuser OFDM system to enhance performance in the low SNR regime. In this scheme, multiuser diversity can be efficiently amplified from random power allocation and opportunistic scheduling. Higher spectral efficiency can be achieved without an increase of complexity or feedback amount compared to conventional multiuser OFDM systems using equal power allocation. This dissertation also presents a modified multi-mode power loading scheme. A modified multi-mode power loading scheme can circumvent the limit of current multi-mode power loading schemes by significantly reducing search amount from 2N - 1 to N, where N is the number of subcarriers. Finally, this dissertation has introduced adaptive OFDM systems using channel gain order information in limited feedback environments. Adaptive OFDM systems using the order mapping technique achieve comparable performance to conventional adaptive OFDM systems in terms of bit error rate and average spectral efficiency, while the amount of feedback is significantly reduced. Furthermore, by simply exploiting order mapping and interpolation, the analyzing technique circumvents the practical shortcomings of previous limited feedback techniques for OFDM systems. / text

The objective of this research work is to investigate, design and measurement of a digital predistortion linearizer that is able to compensate the dynamic nonlinear distortion of a High Power Amplifier (PA). The effectiveness of the proposed baseband predistorter (PD) on the performance of a WLAN OFDM transmitter utilizing a nonlinear PA with memory effect is observed and discussed. For this purpose, a 10W Class-A/B power amplifier with a gain of 22 dB, operated over the 3.5 GHz frequency band was designed and implemented. The proposed baseband PD is independent of the operating RF frequency and can be used in multiband applications. Its operation is based on the Hammerstein system, taking into account PA memory effect compensation, and demonstrates a noticeable improvement compared to memoryless predistorters. Different types of modelling procedures and linearizers were introduced and investigated, in which accurate behavioural models of Radio Frequency (RF) PAs exhibiting linear and nonlinear memory effects were presented and considered, based on the Wiener approach employing a linear parametric estimation technique. Three new linear methods of parameter estimation were investigated, with the aim of reducing the complexity of the required filtering process in linear memory compensation. Moreover, an improved wiener model is represented to include the nonlinear memory effect in the system. The validity of the PA modelling approaches and predistortion techniques for compensation of nonlinearities of a PA were verified by several tests and measurements. The approaches presented, based on the Wiener system, have the capacity to deal with the existing trade-off between accuracy and convergence speed compared to more computationally complex behavioural modelling algorithms considering memory effects, such as those based on Volterra series and Neural Networks. In addition, nonlinear and linear crosstalks introduced by the power amplifier nonlinear behaviour and antennas mutual coupling due to the compact size of a MIMO OFDM transmitter have been investigated.

In today's digital world, information and communication technology accounts for 3% and 2% of the global power consumption and CO2 emissions respectively. This alarming figure is on an upward trend, as future telecommunications systems and handsets will become even more power hungry since new services with higher bandwidth requirements emerge as part of the so called 'future internet' paradigm. In addition, the mobile handset industry is tightly coupled to the consumer need for more sophisticated handsets with greater battery lifetime. If we cannot make any significant step to reducing the energy gap between the power hungry requirements of future handsets, and what battery technology can deliver, then market penetration for 4G handsets can be at risk. Therefore, energy conservation must be a design objective at the forefront of any system design from the network layer, to the physical and the microelectronic counterparts. In fact, the energy distribution of a handset device is dominated by the energy consumption of the RF hardware, and in particular the power amplifier design. Power amplifier design is a traditional topic that addresses the design challenge of how to obtain a trade-off between linearity and efficiency in order to avoid the introduction of signal distortion, whilst making best use of the available power resources for amplification. However, the present work goes beyond this by investigating a new line of amplifiers that address the green initiatives, namely green power amplifiers. This research work explores how to use the Doherty technique to promote efficiency enhancement and thus energy saving. Five different topologies of RF power amplifiers have been designed with custom-made signal splitters. The design core of the Doherty technique is based on the combination of a class B, class AB and a class C power amplifier working in synergy; which includes 90-degree 2-way power splitter at the input, quarter wavelength transformer at the output, and a new output power combiner. The frequency range for the amplifiers was designed to operate in the 3.4 - 3.6 GHz frequency band of Europe mobile WiMAX. The experimental results show that 30dBm output power can be achieved with 67% power added efficiency (PAE) for the user terminal, and 45dBm with 66% power added efficiency (PAE) for base stations which marks a 14% and 11% respective improvement over current stateof- the-art, while meeting the power output requirements for mobile WiMAX applications.

Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 2011

La radio intelligente (RI) a été proposée pour améliorer l’utilisation du spectre radiofréquence. Pour cela, il s’agit de donner un accès opportuniste aux utilisateurs non licenciés (nommés utilisateurs secondaires) au spectre alloué à l’utilisateur licencié (nommé utilisateur primaire). Dans cette thèse, notre but est de proposer un scénario spécifique à la RI et de présenter des solutions à certains problèmes connexes. Pour cela, nous considérons une RI émettant ses informations en “sur-couche” des utilisateurs primaires (technique overlay). Le système étudié est constitué d’une macro-cellule primaire et de petites cellules cognitives secondaires équipées de stations de base coopérant ensemble. Nous suggérons l’étude d’un schéma de communication hybride où une modulation “FilterBanc Multi Carrier” (FBMC) est utilisée pour les utilisateurs secondaires, alors que dans le cas des utilisateurs primaires, une modulation “Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing”(OFDM) est adoptée. Ce choix est motivé par les raisons suivantes: l’OFDM est utilisée dans de nombreux systèmes primaires actuels large bande; ainsi lorsque l’OFDM est considérée au niveau de l’utilisateur primaire, une bande passante importante peut être réutilisée. Concernant le système secondaire, bien que l’OFDM ait été reconnue comme forme d’onde éligible aux systèmes de la RI, la modulation FBMC peut être une autre candidate capable de palier certains défauts de l’OFDM. En effet, comparée à l’OFDM,la modulation FBMC a l’avantage de réduire le niveau d’interférences de l’utilisateur secondairequi est induit par la différence de fréquence des oscillateurs locaux équipant les stations de base secondaires et les utilisateurs primaires. Pour annuler ces interférences,un précodage peut être inséré au niveau des stations de base secondaires. Par conséquent,nous proposons de calculer l’expression des interférences dues au systéme secondaire au niveau du récepteur primaire. A partir de ce résultat nous proposons d’annuler les interférences en utilisant la méthode “Zero Forcing Beamforming” (ZFBF) . Afin de confirmer l’efficacité du système proposé, nous le comparons avec un système fondé sur une RIutilisant une modulation OFDM à la fois au primaire et au secondaire.Toutefois, l’application de la méthode ZFBF dépend des canaux entre les stations de base secondaires et les utilisateurs primaires avec lesquels on souhaite s’orthogonaliser. Une estimation de canal est donc nécessaire. Pour ce faire, nous proposons de modéliser le canal par un processus autorégressif (AR) et d’aborder l’estimation du canal en utilisant une séquence d’apprentissage. Les signaux reçus, appelés aussi “observations”, sont perturbés par un bruit de mesure additif. / Cognitive radio (CR) has been proposed as a technolgy to improve the spectrum efficiency by giving an opportunistic access of the licensed-user spectra to unlicensed users. In this thesis, our purpose is to propose a specific scenario of CR and to present solutions to some related problems .or this purpose, we consider an overlay CR consisting of a primary macro-cell and cognitive small cells of cooperative secondary base stations (SBS). We suggst studying a hydbrid CR where a filter bank multicarrier (FBMC) is used for the secondary users (SU) whereas the primary users (PU) are based on orthogonal frequency diiision multiplexing (OFDM). This choice is motivated by the following reasons : as OFDM is used in many current wideband primary systems, an important bandwidth can be reused when OFDM is considered for the PU. Concerning the secondary system, although OFDM has been recognized as a condidate for CR systems, FBMC modulation can be another candidate that overcomes some OFDM drawbacks. Indeed, compared to OFDM, FBMC has the advantage of reducing the SU interference level tha is induced by the differences between the SBS and PU carrier frequency offsets (CFO). In order to cancel the interferences, a precoding can ben inserted at the SBS. Therefore, we propose to derive the interference expression due to SU at het PU receiver. Then, ero forcing beamforming (ZFBF) is considered to cancel the interferences. To confirm the efficiency of the proposed cheme, we make a comparative study with CR based on OFDM for both the PU and theSU. However, applying ZFBF depends on the channels between the SBS and the PU. A channel estimation is hence necessary. For this purpose, we propose to approximate the channel by an autoregressive process (AR) and to consider the channel estimation issue by using a training sequence. The received signals, also called the observations, are disturbed by an additive measurement noise. They can be : 1) additive and white. In that case, the AR paramters and the channel can be jointly estimated from the received noisy signal by using e recursive approache. Neverless, the corresponding state space representaion of the system is non-linear. In addition to existing methods that have been considered, we propose to carry out a complementary study by investigating the relevance of the quadrature Kalman filter (QKF) and the cubature Kalman filter (CKF). The, we compare them with other non-linear Kalman based approaches. 2) additive and colored. In that case, a parametric approach can be considered and based on a priori model of the noise. In our case, a moving average (MA) model is studie. Our approach operates as follows : firstly, the AR parameters are estimated by using the overdetermined high-order Yule-Walker (HOYN) equations. The variance of the AR-process driving process can be deduced by means of an orthogonal projection betweenn two types of etimates of AR-process correlation vectors. Then, the correlation sequence of th MA noise is estimated. Secondly, the MA parameters are obtained by using a new variant of the inner-outer factorization approache. We study the avantages and the limits of the proposed method. The, we compare it with existing algorithms such as the improved least square-colored noise (ILS-CN), the Yule-Walker ILS (YWILS) and the prediction error method (PEM). The proposed method is first evaluated with synthetic AR and MA processes and then is applied in the field of mobile communcation for channel estimation.

Timing offsets result from the use of real clocks that are non-ideal in sampling intervals. These offsets also known as timing jitter were shown to degrade the performance of the two forms of UWB systems impulse radio and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based UWB. It was shown that for impulse radio, timing jitter distorts the correlation property of the transmitted signal and the resulting performance loss is proportional to the root-mean-square (RMS) value of the timing jitter. For the OFDM-based UWB, timing jitter introduced inter-channel interference (ICI) and the performance loss was dependent on the product of the bandwidth and the RMS of the timing jitter. A number of techniques were proposed for mitigating the performance degradation in each form of UWB. Specifically, for impulse radio, the methods of pulse shaping and sample averaging were provided, whereas for OFDM-based UWB, oversampling and adaptive modulation were given. Through analysis and simulation, it was shown that substantial gain in signal power-to-noise ratio can be achieved using these jitter-reduction methods.

Wideband measurements of the mobile-to-mobile channel, especially of the harshest channels, are necessary for proper design and certification testing of mobile-to-mobile communications systems. A complete measurement implies that the Doppler and delay characteristics are measured jointly. However, such measurements have not previously been published. The main objective of the proposed research is to develop channel models for specific scenarios from data obtained in a wideband mobile-to-mobile measurement campaign in the 5.9 GHz frequency band. For this purpose we developed a channel sounding system including a novel combined waveform. In order to quantify and qualify either the recorded channel or the proposed generated channel, we developed a simulation test-bed that includes all the characteristics of the proposed digital short range communications (DSRC) standard. The resulting channel models needed to comply with the specifications required by hardware channel emulators or software channel simulators. From the obtained models, we selected one to be included in the IEEE 802.11p standard certification test. To further aid in the development of software radio based receivers, we also developed an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) synchronization algorithm to analyze and compensate synchronization errors produced by inaccessible system clocks.

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is the major technique for next generation wireless communication system because of its high spectral efficiency. In addition, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technique is usually used to further increase system capacity. There are two major coding schemes adopted in MIMO-OFDM systems, i.e. space-time block code (STBC) and space-frequency block code (SFBC). This thesis investigates the orthogonal-space-frequency block code OFDM (OSFBC-OFDM) system. In SFBC-OFDM systems, the channel frequency response is usually assumed to be the same for adjacent subcarriers. However, this assumption is not valid in frequency-selective fading environment. Therefore, the orthogonality of code structure is destroyed, leading to substantial increase in interference and significant decrease in system performance. This thesis proposes a receiver equalizer which adopts an interference cancellation (IC) mechanism to maximize the signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR). Both the Lagrange multiplier method and eigenvalue method are adopted in the interference cancellation. Simulation experiments are conducted to verify the system performance and results demonstrate that the SINR performance is dramatically improved.

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems with cyclic prefix (CP) can be used to protect signal from the time-variant multipath channel induced distortions. However, the presence of CP could greatly decrease the effective data rate, thus many recent research works have been focused on the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) OFDM systems without CP (CP-free), equipped with the space-time block codes (ST-BC). The constraint of the conventional MIMO-OFDM (without using the ST-BC) system is that the number of receive-antenna has to be greater than the transmit-antenna. In this thesis, we first consider the ST-BC MIMO-OFDM system and show that the above-mentioned constraint can be removed, such that the condition become that the receive antenna should be greater than one, that is the basic requirement for MIMO system. It is particular useful and confirm to the recently specification, e.g., 3GPP LTE (Long Term Evolution) where the system deploy the 2¡Ñ2 or 4¡Ñ4 antennas systems. This thesis also considers the effects of peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) in the transmitter and In-phase/ Quadrature-phase (IQ) imbalance in the receiver, and solves them by using the adaptive Volterra predistorter and blind adaptive filtering approach of the nonlinear parameters estimation and compensation, along with the power measurement, respectively. After the compensator of IQ imbalance in the receiver, an equalizer under the framework of generalized sidelobe canceller (GSC) is derived for interference suppression. To further reduce the complexity of receiver implementation, the partially adaptive (PA) scheme is applied by exploiting the structural information of the signal and interference signature matrices. As demonstrated from computer simulation results, the performance of the proposed CP-free ST-BC MIMO-OFDM receiver is very similar to that obtained by the conventional CP-based ST-BC MIMO-OFDM system under either the predistortion or compensation scenario.