This thesis presents circuit-level techniques for soft error mitigation, low-power design with performance trade-off, and variation-tolerant low-power design. The proposed techniques are divided into two broad categories. First, error compensation techniques, which are used for soft error mitigation and also for low-power operation of linear and non-linear filters. Second, a framework for variation tolerant low-power operation of wireless devices is presented. This framework analyzes the effects of circuit "tuning knobs" such as voltage, frequency, wordlength precision, etc. on system performance, and power efficiency. Process variations are considered as well, and the best operating tuning knob levels are determined, which results in maximum system wide power savings while keeping the system performance within acceptable limits. Different methods are presented for variation-tolerant and power-efficient wireless communication. Techniques are also proposed for application driven low-power operation of the OFDM baseband receiver.

Software Defined Radio (SDR) and Cognitive Radio (CR) are entering mainstream. These high performance and high adaptability requiring devices with agile frequency operations hold promise to :1. address the inconsistency between hardware and software advancements, 2. real time mode switching from one radio configuration to another and3. efficient spectrum management in under-utilized spectrum bands. Framed within this statement, in this thesis we have implemented a SDR waveform on 16 Processing Element (PE) Network on chip (NoC) based general purpose Multiprocessors System on chip (MPSoC), with access to four external DDR2 memory banks, which is implemented on a single chip Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGA. We shifted short term development of a waveform into software domain by designing an efficient parallelization and synchronization strategy for each waveform component, individually. We enhance our designed waveform functionality by proposing and implementing three Artificial Neural Networks Schemes : Self Organizing Maps, Linear Vector Quantization and Multi-Layer Perceptrons as effective techniques for reconfiguring CR Transceiver after recognizing the specific standard based on input parameters, pertaining to different layers, extracted from the signal. Our proposed adaptive solution switches to appropriate Artificial Neural Network, based on the features of input signal sensed. We designed an efficient synchronization and parallelization strategy to implement the Artificial Neural Networks based CR Transceiver Algorithms on the aforementioned MPSoC chip. The speed up we obtained for our SDR waveform and CR Transceiver algorithms demonstrated that the general purpose MPSoC devices are the most efficient answer to the acquisition challenge for major organizations that invest or plan to invest in SDR and CR based devices, thereby allowing us to avoid expensive hardware accelerators. We address the case of a complex signal composed of many modulated carriers by dividing the PEs in individual groups, thus received signal with more than one Standard is processed efficiently. We add further functionality in our designed Multi-standard CR Transceiver possessing SDR Waveform by proposing a new approach for radio spectrum management, perhaps the most important aspect of CR. We make our designed waveform Spectrum efficient by modelling the primary user signal Radio Frequency features as a multivariate time series, which is then given as input to Elman Recurrent Neural Network that predicts the evolution of Radio Frequency Time Series to decide if the secondary user can exploit the Spectrum band. We exploit the inherent cyclostationary in primary signals for Non-linear Autoregressive Exogenous Time Series Modeling of Radio Frequency features, as predicting one RF feature needs the previous knowledge of other relevant RF features. We observe a similar trend between predicted and actual values. Ensemble, our designed Spectrum Efficient SDR waveform with a Universal Multi-standard Transceiver answers the SDR and CR performance requirements under resource constraints by efficient algorithm design and implementation using lateral thinking that seeks a greater cross-domain interaction

Recent advancements in silicon technology have paved the way for the development of integrated transceivers operating well inside the mm-wave frequency range (30 - 300 GHz). This band offers opportunities for new applications such as remote sensing, short range radar, active imaging and multi-Gb/s radios. This thesis presents new ideas at the circuit and system level for a variety of such applications, up to 145 GHz and in both state-of-the-art nanoscale CMOS and SiGe BiCMOS technologies. After reviewing the theory of operation behind linear and power amplifiers, a purely digital, scalable solution for power amplification that takes advantage of the significant ft/fmax improvement in pFETs as a result of strain engineering in nanoscale CMOS is presented. The proposed Class-D power amplifier, features a stacked, cascode CMOS inverter output stage, which facilitates high voltage operation while employing only thin-oxide devices in a 45 nm SOI CMOS process. Next, a single-chip, 70-80 GHz wireless transceiver for last-mile point-to-point links is described. The transceiver was fabricated in a 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology and can operate at data rates in excess of 18 Gbps. The high bitrate is accomplished by taking advantage of the ample bandwidth available at the W-band frequency range, as well as by employing a direct QPSK modulator, which eliminates the need for separate upconversion and power amplification. Lastly, the system and circuit level implementation of a mm-wave precision distance and velocity sensor at 122 and 145 GHz is presented. Both systems feature a heterodyne architecture to mitigate the receiver 1/f noise, as well as self-test and calibration capabilities along with simple packaging techniques to reduce the overall system cost.

Recent advancements in silicon technology have paved the way for the development of integrated transceivers operating well inside the mm-wave frequency range (30 - 300 GHz). This band offers opportunities for new applications such as remote sensing, short range radar, active imaging and multi-Gb/s radios. This thesis presents new ideas at the circuit and system level for a variety of such applications, up to 145 GHz and in both state-of-the-art nanoscale CMOS and SiGe BiCMOS technologies. After reviewing the theory of operation behind linear and power amplifiers, a purely digital, scalable solution for power amplification that takes advantage of the significant ft/fmax improvement in pFETs as a result of strain engineering in nanoscale CMOS is presented. The proposed Class-D power amplifier, features a stacked, cascode CMOS inverter output stage, which facilitates high voltage operation while employing only thin-oxide devices in a 45 nm SOI CMOS process. Next, a single-chip, 70-80 GHz wireless transceiver for last-mile point-to-point links is described. The transceiver was fabricated in a 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology and can operate at data rates in excess of 18 Gbps. The high bitrate is accomplished by taking advantage of the ample bandwidth available at the W-band frequency range, as well as by employing a direct QPSK modulator, which eliminates the need for separate upconversion and power amplification. Lastly, the system and circuit level implementation of a mm-wave precision distance and velocity sensor at 122 and 145 GHz is presented. Both systems feature a heterodyne architecture to mitigate the receiver 1/f noise, as well as self-test and calibration capabilities along with simple packaging techniques to reduce the overall system cost.

La bande de fréquence non-licensée autour de 60 GHz est une alternative prometteuse pour couvrir les besoins en bande passante des futurs systèmes de communication. L'utilisation de modulations complexes (comme OFDM ou 64-QAM) à ces fréquences permet d'atteindre, en utilisant une technologie CMOS standard, des débits de plusieurs gigabits par seconde sur quelques mètres voire quelques dizaines de mètres. Pour atteindre ces performances, la tête d'émission-réception RF (front-end RF) doit être dotée d'une référence de fréquence haute performance. Dans ce travail, une architecture originale est proposée pour générer cette référence de fréquence haute performance. Elle repose sur la multiplication de fréquence d'ordre élevé (plusieurs dizaines) d'un signal de référence basse fréquence (moins de quelques GHz), tout en recopiant les propriétés spectrales du signal basse fréquence. Cette multiplication est réalisée en combinant la production d'un signal multi-harmonique dont la puissance est concentrée autour de la fréquence à synthétiser. L'harmonique d'intérêt est ensuite extraite au moyen d'un filtrage. Ces deux étapes reposent sur l'utilisation d'oscillateurs dans des configurations spécifiques. Ce travail porte à la fois sur la mise en équation et l'étude du fonctionnement de ce système, et sur la conception de circuits dans des technologies CMOS avancées (CMOS 40 nm, BiCMOS 55 nm). Les mesures sur les circuits fabriqués permettent de valider la preuve de concept ainsi que de montrer des performances à l'état de l'art. L'étude du fonctionnement de ce système a conduit à la découverte d'une forme particulière de synchronisation des oscillateurs ainsi qu'à l'expression de solutions approchées de l'équation de Van der Pol dans deux cas pratiques particuliers. Les perspectives de ce travail sont notamment l'intégration de cette synthèse innovante dans un émetteur-récepteur complet. / The 60-GHz unlicensed band is a promising alternative to perform the high data rate required in the next generation of wireless communication systems. Complex modulations such as OFDM or 64-QAM allow reaching multi-gigabits per second throughput over up to several tens of meters in standard CMOS technologies. This performance rely on the use of high performance millimeter-wave frequency synthesizer in the RF front-end. In this work, an original architecture is proposed to generate this high performance millimeter-wave frequency synthesizer. It is based on a high order (several tens) multiplication of a low frequency reference (few GHz), that is capable of copying the low frequency reference spectral properties. This high order frequency multiplication is performed in two steps. Firstly, a multi-harmonic signal which power is located around the harmonic of interest is generated from the low frequency reference signal. Secondly, the harmonic of interest is filtered out from this multi-harmonic signal. Both steps rely on the specific use of oscillators. This work deals with the circuit design on advanced CMOS technologies (40 nm CMOS, 55 nm BiCMOS) for the proof of concept and on the theoretical study of this system. This novel technique is experimentally validated by measurements on the fabricated circuits and exhibit state-of-the-art performance. The analytical study of this high order frequency multiplication led to the discovery of a particular kind of synchronization in oscillators and to approximated solutions of the Van der Pol equation in two different practical cases. The perspectives of this work include the design of the low frequency reference and the integration of this frequency synthesizer in a complete RF front-end architecture.

The main purpose of this thesis is to test a communications solution for the second to largest refugee settlement in the world, Bidi Bidi. A solution where it is possible to inform the refugees with necessary information, for example that the water at a specific location is currently contaminated or that food is provided at another location. The idea is to use nRF24L01+ modules which operate in the 2.4 GHz frequency band and send information through various ways. This includes turning LEDs' on and off, sending text Strings and streaming audio. The results showed that the modules are too unreliable for a refugee settlement. They also showed that it is not possible to send other types' of data while streaming audio, but there could be workarounds. It is clear that more knowledge and further investigations are needed.

Abstract Radio resource management techniques for broadband wireless systems beyond the existing cellular systems are developed while considering their special characteristics such as multi-carrier techniques, adaptive radio links and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna techniques. Special focus is put on the design of linear transmission strategies in a cooperative cellular system where signal processing can be performed in a centralised manner across distributed base station (BS) antenna heads. A time-division duplex cellular system based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) with adaptive MIMO transmission is considered in the case where the received signals are corrupted by non-reciprocal inter-cell interference. A bandwidth efficient closed-loop compensation algorithm combined with interference suppression at the receiver is proposed to compensate for the interference and to guarantee the desired Quality of Service (QoS) when the interference structure is known solely at the receiver. A greedy beam ordering and selection algorithm is proposed to maximise the sum rate of a multiuser MIMO downlink (DL) with a block zero forcing (ZF) transmission. The performance of the block-ZF transmission combined with the greedy scheduling is shown to approach the sum capacity as the number of users increases. The maximum sum rate is often found to be achieved by transmitting to a smaller number of users or beams than the spatial dimensions allow. In addition, a low complexity algorithm for joint user, bit and power allocation with a low signalling overhead is proposed. Different linear transmission schemes, including the ZF as a special case, are developed for the scenario where the cooperative processing of the transmitted signal is applied to users located within a soft handover (SHO) region. The considered optimisation criteria include minimum power beamformer design; balancing the weighted signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) values per data stream; weighted sum rate maximisation; and balancing the weighted rate per user with additional QoS constraints such as guaranteed bit rate per user. The method can accommodate supplementary constraints, e.g., per antenna or per BS power constraints, and upper/lower bounds for the SINR values of the data streams. The proposed iterative algorithms are shown to provide powerful solutions for difficult non-convex transceiver optimisation problems. System level evaluation is performed in order to assess the impact of a realistic multi-cell environment on the performance of a cellular MIMO-OFDM system. The users located in the SHO region are shown to benefit from greatly increased transmission rates. Consequently, significant overall system level gains result from cooperative SHO processing. The proposed SHO scheme can be used for providing a more evenly distributed service over the entire cellular network.

Ce mémoire présente l’étude et la conception d’électroniques d’interrogation de capteurs passifs de grandeurs physiques à base d’ondes élastiques se propageant à la surface de matériaux (SAW) piézoélectriques mono-cristallins. L’objectif consiste à réaliser une électronique d’interrogation capable de sonder la réponse d’un résonateur SAW au travers d’une liaison radiofréquence (RF) sans fils pour en extraire une information de température. [...] Les électroniques présentées dans ce manuscrit fonctionnent sur l’analyse de la puissance rétro-diffusée par le capteur en s’inspirant de l’architecture d’un analyseur de réseau à balayage de fréquence. Deux électroniques d’interrogation sont présentées. La première utilise une synthèse de fréquence directe. La souplesse de générer un signal RF pour exciter le résonateur a donnée naissance à divers algorithmes pour optimiser les performances de la mesure. La vitesse à laquelle le lecteur est capable de sonder le capteur permet l’interrogation de capteurs placés sur un support mobile (axe de moteur). La résolution de mesure obtenue atteint le dixième de degré Celsius. La seconde électronique vise à réaliser une électronique compacte dans le but de réduire le nombre et la consommation des composants en intégrant les chaînes d’émission et de réception. Cette électronique est construite autour d’un radio-modem : ce composant combinant fonctionnalités RF et numériques est détourné de sa fonction principale de communication numérique dansle but d’interroger un résonateur SAW. Les contraintes associées aux constantes de temps,à l’isolation nécessaire et à l’accès à l’étage de réception d’un radio-modem nécessitent une étude préalable approfondie. L’algorithme développé pour ce composant a nécessité l’utilisation de techniques de traitement RADAR pour obtenir la température résultante d’un capteur différentiel bi -résonateurs. Cette électronique a permis de mesurer une température / This report deals with the study and design of interrogation electronics for probing surface acoustic wave (SAW) transducers used as passive wireless sensors of physical quantities.The basic principle is to develop hardware aimed at probing the response of SAW resonators through a radiofrequency wireless link in order to extract a temperature information. Resonators whose operating frequency is centered on the 433.92 MHz ISM band are developed as part oft he SAWHOT project aimed at measuring high (650 oC) temperatures. SAW resonators load energy when stimulated at resonance frequency. Upon stopping emission, this power is returned as a radiofrequency signal. The presented electronic systems operate on the analysis of thepower returned by the sensor, based on a frequency-sweep network analyzer architecture. Twointerrogation units are presented. The former is based on a Direct Digital Synthesis frequency source : the flexibility of this digital approach allows for probing resonating sensors followings everal algorithms meeting various constraints including measurement speed and resolution.Sub-millisecond interrogation resonance frequency identification is compatible with probingthe response of sensors located on mobile targets such as a rotating motor axis. The achieved resolution lies in the 0.1 oC range. The latter approach aims at designing a compact readerwith a reduced number of components, including all the elements of the interrogation chain,and hence a lower power consumption. This approach is based around integrated, single chip,radiomodems : this components combines radiofrequency and digital functionalities and is diverted from its original digital communication purpose for probing SAW sensors. Timing andisolation constraints as well as accessing the analog receiver stage require a dedicated analysis of the functionalities of the various available chips[...]

The thesis deals with the influence of telecommunication transmitters on the aesthetic value of landscape. It uses both environmental and sociological approach. Subject of investigation is the relationship between the aesthetic stimulus (landscape) and the recipient (man). For the analysis, Scenic Beauty Estimation Method is used as a psychological procedure which measures aesthetic preferences and allows adequately assess how society perceives the presence of various types of telecommunication transmitters in the landscape, including the so-called camouflage. Analysis also includes a comparison of affected and unaffected groups. The aim of the thesis is to assess whether the perception of the presence of telecommunication transmitters in the landscape is negative. The thesis deals with hypothesis that "camouflages" reduce the negative perception of telecommunication transmitters in the landscape.

This master thesis report details the process of developing a simulation platform for radio transceivers with a focus on analog receiver front end system design. The platform was implemented in the National Instruments VSS environment for the company Ericsson AB.