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Accelerated growth in wireless communications in recent years has led to the emergence of portable devices that employ several wireless communication standards to provide multiple functionality such as cellular communication, wireless data communication and connectivity, entertainment and navigation, within the same device. Industry drive is towards reduction of the number of radio frequency (RF) front-end receivers required to cater to the various standards/bands within a single device to reduce cost, size and power consumption. The current trend is to use broadband/multi-standard or reconfigurable RF front-ends to cater to two or three standards at a time for cost-effective RF front-end solutions. The direct conversion receiver architecture has become attractive as it offers a full on-chip front-end solution without the need for expensive external components. Passive current-mode mixers are used in these receivers to eliminate mixer flicker noise. The in-band current signals are typically in the micro-amp range after mixer downconversion. Transimpedance amplifiers are used to convert the downconverted current signals to voltage, and they provide amplification in the process. Because of the co-existence of multiple-radios within each device, large blocker currents downconvert close to the channel bandwidth after the mixer. Conventionally, single-pole transimpedance amplifier (TIA) filters are used to provide out-of-band (OOB) signal filtering. This requires high resolution analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) later in the receiver chain for signal processing. Providing higher order filtering before the ADC relaxes its specifications and this reduces the ADC and ADC calibration cost and complexity. Typically, an extra filtering stage is provided in the form of a cascaded filtering block after the single-pole TIA. In this work, higher order filtering is embedded within the TIA in the form of active feedback. In addition to relaxing the ADC specifications, this proposed TIA provides improved large signal linearity such as P1dB compression point. Furthermore, since the extra-circuitry is not in the signal path, in-band flicker noise and linearity are not degraded. The proposed TIA filter has been designed in IBM 90nm technology with a supply voltage of 1.2V. It can tolerate close-in blocker magnitudes of 4.5mA at 60MHz and higher before in-band 1dB compression is reached.

Noise shaping is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the sigma-delta modulation technique that separates it from other types of pulse-width modulation schemes. In sigma-delta modulation, unwanted noise and harmonics caused by quantization are intentionally pushed toward the high-frequency band in order to achieve high resolution data conversion within the signal bandwidth. Due to its robust, high in-band linearity, the sigma-delta modulation technique finds numerous applications in industry. Generally speaking, as the order of a sigma-delta modulator increases, the modulator performance becomes better, which unfortunately comes along with a decrease in the modulator¡¦s stable input range. This thesis presents a novel adaptive law which is capable of on-line tuning the loop filter of a sigma-delta modulator and reducing the out of band gain of the resulting noise transfer function when the modulator input is large, thereby widening the stable input range of the modulator without significant sacrifice of the performance. The simulation and experimental results prove the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive sigma-delta modulator.

In Multi-Standard receivers, multiple radios co-exist in close proximity. A desired signal can be accompanied by significantly stronger out-of band interferers or blockers, which can severely degrade a receiver's sensitivity through gain compression of the blocks in the receiver chain. This work presents a new Transimpedance Amplifier (TIA) low-pass filter architecture which seeks to solve the out-of-band blocker problem of the existing architectures. A higher order filtering is embedded within the TIA in the form of an active feedback to provide more attenuation to out-of-band blockers. The active feedback circuitry feeds back an equivalent amount of current to the input node to cancel out incoming out-of-band blockers while maintaining an acceptable voltage swing at the output of the TIA. The proposed TIA filter has a channel bandwidth of 20MHz, and can processes interferers of +/- 10mA fully differential without saturating the opamps. The maximum single ended voltage swing at all the nodes is +/- 200mV. All the circuits were designed in IBM 180nm CMOS process with a supply voltage of 1.8V.

Intel’s Active Management Technology (AMT) is, a hardware-based platform for remotely managing and securing personal computers out of band. AMT is available in most desktop and notebooks PCs equipped with an Intel Core 2, Centrino, or Centrino 2 processors with support for vPro technology. AMT operates independently of the platform processor and operating system. Remote platform management applications can access AMT securely, even when the platform is turned off, as long as the platform is connected to power supply and to a network. Developers can build applications that utilize AMT using the application programming interface (API) provided by Intel. While this might seem to enable creation of a powerful management tool, a secure infrastructure that is secure against insider and outsider attacks on an enterprise network is difficult. Unfortunately this technology can also potentially be used to create a powerful backdoor that is easily deployed and offers numerous features due to its almost unlimited permissions since the platform can be managed even though it is powered off. / Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) är en hårdvarubaserad plattform för avlägset att hantera och säkra datorer utanför bandet. AMT är tillgänglig de flesta stationära och bärbara dator utrustad med en Intel Core 2, Centrino, eller Centrino 2 processorer med stöd för vPro-teknik. AMT driver oberoende av plattform processor och operativsystem. Remote optimera hanteringen ansökningar kan komma åt AMT säkert, även om Plattformen är avstängd, så länge som plattform är ansluten till linjen makt och till ett nätverk. Utvecklare kan bygga applikationer som utnyttjar AMT använder Application Programming Interface från Intel. Även detta kan verkar för att möjliggöra skapandet av ett kraftfullt verktyg i förvaltningen, faktiskt skapar en säker infrastruktur som är säkert mot insider och outsider angrepp på företagets nätverk är svårt. Tyvärr har denna teknik kan komma i används för att skapa en kraftfull rootkit som är lätt att iordningställas och erbjuder flera egenskaper på grund av dess nästan obegränsade tillstånd eftersom plattformen kan lyckades även om den är avstängd.

Massive MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) base stations have proven, both in theory and in practice, to possess many of the qualities that future wireless communication systems will require.  They can provide equally high data rates throughout their coverage area and can concurrently serve multiple low-end handsets without requiring wider spectrum, denser base station deployment or significantly more power than current base stations.  The main challenge of massive MIMO is the immense hardware complexity and cost of the base station—each element in the large antenna array needs to be individually controllable and therefore requires its own radio chain.  To make massive MIMO commercially viable, the base station has to be built from inexpensive simple hardware.  In this thesis, it is investigated how the use of low-end power amplifiers and analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) affects the performance of massive MIMO.  In the study of the signal distortion from low-end amplifiers, it is shown that in-band distortion is negligible in massive MIMO and that out-of-band radiation is the limiting factor that decides what power efficiency the amplifiers can be operated at.  A precoder that produces transmit signals for the downlink with constant envelope in continuous time is presented to allow for highly power efficient low-end amplifiers.  Further, it is found that the out-of-band radiation is isotropic when the channel is frequency selective and when multiple users are served; and that it can be beamformed when the channel is frequency flat and when few users are served.  Since a massive MIMO base station radiates less power than today's base stations, isotropic out-of-band radiation means that low-end hardware with poorer linearity than required today can be used in massive MIMO.  It is also shown that using one-bit ADCs—the simplest and least power-hungry ADCs—at the base station only degrades the signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio of the system by approximately 4 dB when proper power allocation among users is done, which indicates that massive MIMO is resistant against coarse quantization and that low-end ADCs can be used. / Massiv-MIMO-basstationer (eng: Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) har visats, både i teori och praktik, besitta många av de egenskaper som framtida trådlösa kommunikationssystem kommer att behöva.  De kan tillhandahålla enhetligt höga datatakter i hela täckningsområdet och simultant betjäna flera enkla mobilenheter utan att använda bredare spektrum, tätare basstationsplacering eller betydligt mer effekt än dagens basstationer.  Huvudutmaningen med massiv MIMO är basstationens enorma hårdvarukomplexitet och -kostnad – varje element i den stora gruppantennen skall kunna kontrolleras individuellt och kräver sålunda sin egen radiokedja.  För att massiv MIMO skall bli kommersiellt attraktiv, måste basstationen byggas av billig, enkel hårdvara.  I denna avhandling undersöks hur enkla effektförstärkare och analog-till-digital-omvandlare (AD-omvandlare) påverkar massiv-MIMO-systemets prestanda.  I studien av signaldistorsionen från enkla förstärkare visas det att inband-distorsionen är försumbar i massiv MIMO och att utombandsstrålningen är den begränsande faktorn som bestämmer vid vilken verkningsgrad förstärkarna kan arbeta.  En förkodare som åstadkommer nerlänks-sändsignaler som har konstant envelopp i kontinuerlig tid presenteras för att möjliggöra användandet av enkla förstärkare med hög verkningsgrad.  Vidare konstateras det att utombandsstrålningen är isotrop när kanalen är frekvensselektiv och när flera användare betjänas; och att den kan lobformas när kanalen är frekvensflat och när få användare betjänas.  Eftersom en massiv-MIMO-basstation utstrålar mindre effekt än dagens basstationer, betyder isotrop utombandsstrålning att enkel hårdvara med sämre linearitet än vad som krävs idag kan användas i massiv MIMO.  Det visas även att användandet av enbits-AD-omvandlare – de enklaste och mest strömsnåla AD-omvandlarna – i basstationen endast minskar signal-till-interferens-och-brus-förhållandet med 4 dB när tillbörlig effektallokering mellan användarna utförs, vilket indikerar att massiv MIMO är motståndskraftig mot grov kvantisering och att enkla AD-omvandlare kan användas. / 大規模多輸入多輸出基站，無論從理論上或實際上，皆已經證明具有許多未來無線通訊系統所需的特質。比如：在其整個覆蓋區域均一地提供高數據傳輸速率、在同一時間頻率資源上服務多個簡單的終端設備，而無需佔用更多頻譜資源或更密集地部署基站，亦無需提高基站的功耗。實現大規模多入多出系统的主要挑戰在於硬件複雜度及基站成本——大規模天線陣列中的每一個天線元必須單獨可控，因此需要其自身的射頻鏈路。爲使大規模多入多出基站有商業吸引力，基站必須以簡單低成本的硬件來建造。本論文探討簡單的功率放大器與模擬數字轉換器對大規模多入多出性能的影響。對低端功放信號失真的研究表明，帶內失真對大規模多入多出的性能影響幾乎可以忽略，而帶外泄露是限制功放效率的決定因素。爲使用高功率效率低端功放，本文提出能產生具有恆定包絡連續時間信號的預編碼。本文指出，在頻率選擇性衰落信道上服務多個用戶時，帶外泄露呈現各向同性；而在平坦衰落信道上服務少數用戶時，帶外泄露可呈現波束賦形。由於大規模多入多出基站比現用基站輻射較少功率，帶外泄露各向同性意味著大規模多入多出基站可使用低端硬件，其線性要求不比現有基站的高。另外表明，如果進行合理的多用戶功率分配，基站使用單比特模擬數字轉換器——最簡單低耗的轉換器——僅使系統的信干噪比降低約４分貝。以此可見，大規模多入多出系統對非精確量比較穩定，低端模擬數字轉換器可於此類系統中使用。

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Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a multi-carrier transmission scheme used in most of the existing wireless standards such as LTE, WiFi and WiMAX. The popularity of OFDM stems from the multitude of benefits it offers in terms of providing high data rate transmission, robustness against multipath fading and ease of implementation. Additionally, OFDM signals are agile in the sense that any subcarrier can be switched on or off to fit the available transmission bandwidth, which makes it well suited for systems with dynamic spectrum access such as cognitive radio systems. Nonetheless, and despite all the aforementioned advantages, OFDM signals have high spectral sidelobes outside the designated band of transmission, that can create severe interference to users in adjacent transmission bands, particularly when there is no synchronization between users. The focus of this dissertation is to propose baseband solutions at the Physical Layer (PHY) of the communications system to address the interference resulting from the high out-of-band (OOB) emissions of OFDM. In the first part of this dissertation, we propose a precoder capable of generating mask compliant OFDM signals with low OOB emissions that are always contained under a given spectrum emission mask (SEM) specified by the OFDM standard. The proposed precoder generates transmitted signals with bit error rate (BER) performance similar to that of classical OFDM and does not reduce the spectral efficiency of the system. In the second part of this dissertation, we introduce a novel and elegant approach, called suppressing alignment (SA), to jointly reduce the OOB interference and peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of OFDM systems. SA exploits the unavoidable redundancy provided by the CP as well as the wireless communications channel to generate an OOB/PAPR suppressing signal at the OFDM transmitter. Furthermore, after passing through the wireless channel, the suppressing signal is aligned with the CP duration at the OFDM receiver, essentially causing no interference to the data portion of the OFDM symbol. The proposed approach improves the PAPR of the transmitted OFDM signal and reduces the OOB interference by tens of decibels. Additionally, the proposed approach maintains an error performance similar to that of plain OFDM without requiring any change in the receiver structure of legacy OFDM. In order to reduce the spectral emissions of OFDM, additional blocks, such as linear precoders, are usually introduced in the transmitter leading to a transmitted signal that is drastically different than that of a classical OFDM signal. This distortion is typically quantified by the error vector magnitude (EVM), a widely used metric specified by the wireless standard and is directly related to the BER performance of the system. The receiver can usually decode the information data with acceptable error probabilities if the distortion introduced to the transmitted signal is below the EVM values specified in the OFDM standard. Linear precoders, while capable of achieving significant reduction in the OOB interference, they typically introduce large distortion to the transmitted signal. As such, the receiver needs to know the precoding done at the transmitter to be able to recover the data which usually entails sending large amount of side information that can greatly reduce the spectral efficiency of the system. In the last part of this dissertation, we target the design of precoders for the purpose reducing the OOB interference, in a transparent manner where the receiver does not need to know the changes introduced in the transmitter. We present two precoders capable of significantly reducing the OOB emissions while producing transmitted signals with EVM values below those specified by the wireless standard, thereby guaranteeing acceptable error performance.

The nodes in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) utilize the radio frequency (RF) channel to communicate. Given that the RF channel is the primary communication channel, many researchers have developed techniques for securing that channel. However, the RF channel is not the only interface into a sensor. The sensing components, which are primarily designed to sense characteristics about the outside world, can also be used (or misused) as a communication (side) channel. In our work, we aim to characterize the side channels for various sensory components (i.e., light sensor, acoustic sensor, and accelerometer). While previous work has focused on the use of these side channels to improve the security and performance of a WSN, we seek to determine if the side channels have enough capacity to potentially be used for malicious activity. Specifically, we evaluate the feasibility and practicality of the side channels using today's sensor technology and illustrate that these channels have enough capacity to enable the transfer of common, well-known malware. Given that a significant number of modern robotic systems depend on the external side channels for navigation and environment-sensing, they become potential targets for side-channel attacks. Therefore, we demonstrate this relatively new form of attack which exploits the uninvestigated but predominantly used side channels to trigger malware residing in real-time robotic systems such as the iRobot Create. The ultimate goal of our work is to show the impact of this new class of attack and also to motivate the need for an intrusion detection system (IDS) that not only monitors the RF channel, but also monitors the values returned by the sensory components.