This doctoral thesis is focused into the area of multicarrier radio communications systems. These systems are perspective for current and incoming mobile communications and wireless networks. Advantages of multicarrier systems like better multipath propagation resistivity are redeemed by some disadvantages. The high peak to average power ratio of transmitted signal belongs to these disadvantages, for its inconvenience for high efficient power amplification. The thesis concerns with peak to average power ratio reduction methods for OFDM systems, that belongs to the most used multicarrier systems. One of the main objectives is the modification of the existing methods with the intention of complexity reduction. Following subject of interest is the analysis of suitable methods combinations possibilities for more significant peak to average power ratio reduction. One part of this thesis is research of influence of these methods on the OFDM signals with different parameters.

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) has become a very popular method for high-data-rate communication. However, it is well known that OFDM is plagued by a large peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) problem. This high PAPR results in overdesigned power amplifiers, which amongst other things leads to inefficient amplifier usage, which is undesirable. Various methods have been recommended to reduce the PAPR of an OFDM transmission; however, all these methods result in a number of drawbacks. In this thesis, a novel method called offset modulation (OM-OFDM) is proposed to control the PAPR of an OFDM signal. The proposed OM-OFDM method does not result in a number of the drawbacks being experienced by current methods in the field. The theoretical bandwidth occupancy and theoretical bit error rate (BER) expression for an OM-OFDM transmission is derived. A newly applied power performance decision metric is also introduced, which can be utilised throughout the PAPR field, in order to compare various methods. The proposed OM-OFDM method appears to be similar to a well-known constant envelope OFDM (CE-OFDM) transmission. The modulation, structural and performance differences between an OM-OFDM and a CE-OFDM method are discussed. By applying the power performance decision metric, the OM-OFDM method is shown to offer significant performance gains when compared to CE-OFDM and traditional OFDM transmissions. In addition, the OM-OFDM method is able to accurately control the PAPR of a transmission for a targeted BER. By applying the power performance decision metric and complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF), the proposed OM-OFDM method is shown to offer further performance gains when compared to existing PAPR methods, under frequency selective fading conditions. In this thesis, the OM-OFDM method has been combined with an existing active constellation extended (ACE) PAPR reduction method. To introduce a novel method called offset modulation with active constellation extension (OM-ACE), to control the PAPR of an OFDM signal. The theoretical BER expression for an OM-ACE transmission is presented and validated. Thereafter, by applying the decision metric and CCDF, the OM-ACE method is shown to offer performance improvements when compared to various PAPR methods. The use of OM-OFDM for cognitive radio applications is also investigated. Cognitive radio applications require transmissions that are easily detectable. The detection characteristics of an OM-OFDM and OFDM transmission are studied by using receiver operating characteristic curves. A derivation of a simplified theoretical closed-form expression, which relates the probability of a missed detection to the probability of a false alarm, for an unknown deterministic signal, at various signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values is derived and validated. Previous expressions have been derived, which relate the probability of a missed detection to the probability of a false alarm. However, they have not been presented in such a generic closed-form expression that can be used for any unknown deterministic signal (for instance OFDM and OM-OFDM). Thereafter, an examination of the spectrum characteristics of an OM-OFDM transmission indicates its attractive detection characteristics. The proposed OM-OFDM method is further shown to operate at a significantly lower SNR value than an OFDM transmission, while still offering better detection characteristics than that of an OFDM transmission under Rician, Rayleigh and frequency selective fading channel conditions. In addition to its attractive PAPR properties, OM-OFDM also offers good detection characteristics for cognitive radio applications. These aspects make OM-OFDM a promising candidate for future deployment. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted

Over the last decade, the number of mobile wireless devices on the market has increased substantially. New “multi-carrier” modulation schemes, such as OFDM, WCDMA, and WiMAX, have been developed to accommodate the increasing number of wireless subscribers and the demand for faster data rates within the limited commercial frequency spectrum. These complex modulation schemes create signals with high peak-to-average power ratios (PAPR), exhibiting rapid changes in the signal magnitude. To accommodate these high-PAPR signals, RF power amplifiers in mobile devices must operate under backed-off gain conditions, resulting in poor power efficiency. Various efficiency-enhancement solutions have been realized for backed-off devices to combat this issue. A brief overview of one of the more extensively researched solutions, the Doherty amplifier, is given, and its inherent limitations are discussed. A recently proposed amplifier topology that provides the efficiency benefits of the Doherty amplifier, while overcoming some of the fundamental problems that plague the standard Doherty architecture, is investigated. A step-by-step design methodology is presented and confirmed by extensive simulation in Agilent ADS. A design example, tuned for maximum efficiency at peak output power, is implemented on a PCB and tested to verify the validity of the proposed circuit configuration.

Employing an error control code is one of the techniques to reduce the Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) in an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing system; a well known class of such codes being the cosets of Reed-Muller codes. In this thesis, classes of such coset-codes of arbitrary linear codes are considered. It has been proved that the size of such a code can be doubled with marginal/no increase in the PAPR. Conditions for employing this method iteratively have been enunciated. In fact this method has enabled to get the optimal coset-codes. The PAPR of the coset-codes of the extended codes is obtained from the PAPR of the corresponding coset-codes of the parent code. Utility of a special type of lengthening is established in PAPR studies

Modern wireless mobile communication technology has made noticeable improvements from the technologies in the past but is still plagued by poor power efficiency of power amplifiers found in today’s base stations. One of the factors that affect the power efficiency adversely comes from modern modulation techniques like orthogonal frequency division multiplexing which result in signals with high peak to average power ratio, also known as the crest factor. Crest factor reduction algorithms are used to solve this problem. However, the dominant method of hardware description for synthesis has been to start with writing register transfer level code which gives a very fixed implementation that may not be the optimal solution. This thesis project is focused on developing a peak cancellation crest factor reduction system, using a high-level language as the system design language, and synthesizing it using high-level synthesis. The aim is to find out if highlevel synthesis design methodology can yield increased productivity and improved quality of results for such designs as compared to the design methodology that requires the system to be implemented at the register transfer level. Design space exploration is performed to find an optimal design with respect to area. Finally, a few parameters are presented to measure the performance of the system, which helps in tuning it. The results of design space exploration helped in choosing the best possible implementation out of four different configurations. The final implementation that resulted from high-level synthesis had an area comparable to the previous register transfer level implementation. It was also concluded that, for this design, the high-level synthesis design methodology increased productivity and decreased design time. / Användning av högnivåsyntes för reduktion av toppfaktor Det har gjorts noterbara framsteg inom modern trådlös kommunikationsteknik för mobiltelefoni, men tekniken plågas fortfarande av dålig energieffektivitet hos förstärkarna i dagens basstationer. En faktor som påverkar energieffektiviteten negativt är om signaler har en stor skillnad mellan maximal effekt och medeleffekt. Kvoten mellan maximal effekt och medeleffekt kallas för toppfaktor, och en egenskap hos moderna moduleringstekniker, såsom ortogonal frekvensdelningsmodulering, är att de har en hög toppfaktor. Algoritmer för reducering av toppfaktor kan lösa det problemet. Den dominerande metoden för design av hårdvara är att skriva kod i ett hårdvarubeskrivande språk med abstraktionsnivån Register Transfer Level och sedan använda verktyg för att syntetisera hårdvara från koden. Resultatet är en specifik implementation som inte nödvändigtvis är den optimala lösningen. Det här examensarbetet är inriktat på att utveckla ett system för reducering av toppfaktor, baserat på algoritmen Peak Cancellation, genom att skriva kod i ett högnivåspråk och använda verktyg för högnivåsyntes för att syntetisera designen. Syftet är att ta reda på om högnivåsyntes som designmetod kan ge ökad produktivitet och ökad kvalitet, för den här typen av design, jämfört med den klassiska designmetoden med abstraktionsnivån Register Transfer Level. Verktyget för högnivåsyntes användes för att på ett effektivt sätt undersöka olika designalternativ för att optimera kretsytan. I rapporten presenteras ett antal parametrar för att mäta prestandan hos systemet, vilket ger information som kan användas för finjustering. Resultatet av undersökningen av designalternativ gjorde det möjligt att välja den bästa implementationen bland fyra olika konfigurationer. Den slutgiltiga implementationen hade en kretsyta som är jämförbar med en tidigare design som implementerats med hårdvarubeskrivande språk med abstraktionsnivån Register Transfer Level. En annan slutsats är att, för den här designen, så gav designmetoden med högnivåsyntes ökad produktivitet och minskad designtid.