Leonard J. Cimini

Robust channel estimation for OFDM systems with rapid dispersive fading channels

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation is a promising technique for achieving the high bit rates required for a wireless multimedia service. Without channel estimation and tracking, OFDM systems have to use differential phase-shift keying (DPSK), which has a 3-dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) loss compared with coherent phase-shift keying (PSK). To improve the performance of OFDM systems by using coherent PSK, we investigate robust channel estimation for OFDM systems. We derive a minimum mean-square-error (MMSE) channel estimator, which makes full use of the time- and frequency-domain correlations of the frequency response of time-varying dispersive fading channels. Since the channel statistics are usually unknown, we also analyze the mismatch of the estimator-to-channel statistics and propose a robust channel estimator that is insensitive to the channel statistics. The robust channel estimator can significantly improve the performance of OFDM systems in a rapid dispersive fading channel.

Effects of clipping and filtering on the performance of OFDM

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is an attractive technique for wireless communication applications. However, an OFDM signal has a large peak-to-mean envelope power ratio, which can result in significant distortion when passed through a nonlinear device, such as a transmitter power amplifier. We investigate, through extensive computer simulations, the effects of clipping and filtering on the performance of OFDM, including the power spectral density, the crest factor, and the bit-error rate. Our results show that clipping and filtering is a promising technique for the transmission of OFDM signals using realistic linear amplifiers.

Bounds on the interchannel interference of OFDM in time-varying impairments

In this article, tight and universal bounds have been derived for the interchannel interference (ICI) of an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) signal resulting from Doppler spread. The universal bound depends only on the product of the maximum Doppler frequency and the OFDM symbol duration. The tight bound also depends on the variance of the Doppler spectrum. Compared with the exact ICI expressions derived by other researchers, these bounds are easier to evaluate and can provide useful insight.

On the spectral and power requirements for ultra-wideband transmission

UWB systems based on impulse radio have the potential to provide very high data rates over short distances. In this paper, a new pulse shape is presented that satisfies the FCC spectral mask. Using this pulse, the link budget is calculated to quantify the relationship between data rate and distance. It is shown that UWB can be a good candidate for reliably transmitting 100 Mbps over distances at about 10 meters.

Decode-and-Forward Cooperative Diversity with Power Allocation in Wireless Networks

We study power allocation for the decode-and-forward cooperative diversity protocol in a wireless network under the assumption that only mean channel gains are available at the transmitters. In a Rayleigh fading channel with uniformly distributed node locations, we aim to find the power allocation that minimizes the outage probability under a short-term power constraint, wherein the total power for all nodes is less than a prescribed value during each two-stage transmission. Due to the computational and implementation complexity of the optimal solution, we derived a simple near-optimal solution. In this near-optimal scheme, a fixed fraction of the total power is allocated to the source node in stage I. In stage II, the remaining power is split equally among a set of selected nodes if the selected set is not empty, and otherwise is allocated to the source node. A node is selected if it can decode the message from the source and its mean channel gain to the destination is above a threshold. In this scheme, each node only needs to know its own mean channel gain to the destination and the number of selected nodes. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme achieves an outage probability close to that for the optimal scheme obtained by numerical search, and achieves significant performance gain over other schemes in the literature

Opportunistic Beamforming and Scheduling for OFDMA Systems

Orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) is an attractive technique for exploiting multiuser diversity in the downlink of a cellular system. This paper addresses three problems in multiuser diversity for OFDMA systems. First, we propose a way to significantly reduce the amount of channel state information (CSI) feedback without sacrificing performance too much, by selective and adaptive feedback. Second, we propose a way to increase the cell throughput and fairness by applying an opportunistic beamforming scheme to orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing. This beamforming scheme increases the frequency fading rate, which increases the multiuser diversity effect. Thirdly, we deal with the issue of fairness and quality-of-service (QoS) in opportunistic systems by proposing a modified proportional fair (PF) scheduler for OFDMA. Key features in the scheduler are that it incorporates QoS classes into the PF scheduler and that it has a tunable fairness level. Extensive simulation results are presented to evaluate the performance of the proposed schemes. The opportunistic beamforming scheme performed well in comparison with several other schemes. The modified PF scheduler was able to give users different QoS, based on their requirements, while still exploiting multiuser diversity

Joint channel-aware and queue-aware data scheduling in multiple shared wireless channels

This paper investigates multiuser downlink data scheduling with quality-of-service (QoS) provisioning over multiple shared fading channels, which, for a network point of view, provides line flexibility and granularity for resource allocation. A user-centric metric-a utility function with respect to mean waiting time-which is able to maintain fairness among users while providing delay QoS to individual users is used. This paper proposes scheduling algorithms that are aware of both channel and queue state information to achieve the maximum aggregate utility in the network. Simulation results confirm the significant performance and stability improvement provided by the utility-based scheduling scheme balancing multiuser diversity and queueing delay.

Adaptive modulation for variable-rate OFDM systems with imperfect channel information

Adaptive modulation has been shown to have significant benefits for high-speed wireless data transmission when orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is employed. However, accurate channel state information (CSI) is required at the transmitter to achieve the benefits. Imperfect CSI arises from noisy channel estimates, which may also be outdated due to a delay in getting the CSI to the transmitter. We study adaptive OFDM with both perfect and imperfect CSI for the variable bit rate case, where a target bit error rate is set. Performance results are provided for adaptive OFDM with imperfect CSI. The use of multiple estimates is shown to mitigate the effect of CSI delay. In addition, the fundamental error mechanisms which result in performance degradation are studied. Robust approaches are then proposed that are less sensitive to CSI errors.

Selective Relaying in OFDM Multihop Cooperative Networks

There has been growing interest in the integration of multihop (or relaying) capability into conventional wireless networks. In this paper, we propose an OFDM-based selective relaying scheme, where the relay selection at each hop is performed on a per-subcarrier basis and joint selection is adopted at the last two hops. The outage analysis clearly shows that full spatial diversity gain can be achieved with this proposed selective OFDMA relaying. In contrast, no diversity gain can be obtained if the entire OFDM block chooses the same relay with the highest combined SNR. It is also demonstrated that with coding among the subcarriers, superior performance can be achieved by selective OFDMA relaying with only symbol detection at each relay. This is highly attractive as the processing complexity and decoding delay incurred are very small.

Power allocation in a transmit diversity system with mean channel gain information

We study the power allocation problem in a transmit diversity wireless system with mean channel gain information. In Rayleigh fading for a given set of mean channel gains and nodes, we seek to find the power allocation that minimizes the outage probability subject to a total power constraint. The optimal solution is shown to be computationally intensive when the number of channels is large. Instead, we derive a simple solution based on the upper bound to the outage probability which can be summarized as equal power allocation with channel selection. Numerical results show that the proposed solution is near-optimal over a wide range of parameter values. The problem addressed and the solution are relevant to a decode-and-forward cooperative relaying system with only partial channel information available to the relays.