P. Takis Mathiopoulos

Nonregenerative dual-hop cooperative links with selection diversity

The end-to-end performance of dual-hop cooperative diversity systems equipped with nonregenerative relays and a selection combining receiver at the destination terminal over independent and nonidentical Nakagami- fading channels is studied. Closed-form expressions for the cumulative distribution function and the probability density function of the end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio () are presented, while analytical formulae are derived for the moments and the moment generating function. Using these statistical results, closed-form expressions for the outage probability are presented for both channel state information and fixed gain relays. Furthermore, for the case of fixed gain relay, the average end-to-end, the amount of fading, and the average bit error rate can be numerically evaluated. The proposed mathematical analysis is complemented by numerical examples, including the effects on the overall performance of thes unbalancing as well as the fading severity.

Analytical level crossing rates and average fade durations for diversity techniques in Nakagami fading channels

The level crossing rates (LCRs) and average fade durations (AFDs) of a fading channel find diverse applications in the evaluation and design of wireless communication systems. Analytical expressions for these quantities are available in the literature for certain diversity reception techniques, but are generally limited to the Rayleigh fading channel, with few exceptions. Moreover, the methods employed are usually specific to a certain channel/diversity pair, and thus cannot be applied to all cases of interest. Using a unified methodology, we derive analytical expressions for the LCRs and AFDs for three diversity reception techniques and a general Nakagami (1960) fading channel. We provide novel analytical expressions for selection combining (SC) and equal-gain combining (EGC), and rederive in a more general manner the case of maximal-ratio combining (MRC). It is shown that our general results reduce to some specific cases previously published. These results are used to examine the effects of the diversity technique, the number of receiving branches and severity of the fading on the concerned quantities. It is observed that as the Nakagami m-parameter and the diversity order increase, the behavior of the combined received envelope for EGC follows closely the one for MRC, and distances itself from SC.

A Multiscale and Hierarchical Feature Extraction Method for Terrestrial Laser Scanning Point Cloud Classification

The effective extraction of shape features is an important requirement for the accurate and efficient classification of terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) point clouds. However, the challenge of how to obtain robust and discriminative features from noisy and varying density TLS point clouds remains. This paper introduces a novel multiscale and hierarchical framework, which describes the classification of TLS point clouds of cluttered urban scenes. In this framework, we propose multiscale and hierarchical point clusters (MHPCs). In MHPCs, point clouds are first resampled into different scales. Then, the resampled data set of each scale is aggregated into several hierarchical point clusters, where the point cloud of all scales in each level is termed a point-cluster set. This representation not only accounts for the multiscale properties of point clouds but also well captures their hierarchical structures. Based on the MHPCs, novel features of point clusters are constructed by employing the latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA). An LDA model is trained according to a training set. The LDA model then extracts a set of latent topics, i.e., a feature of topics, for a point cluster. Finally, to apply the introduced features for point-cluster classification, we train an AdaBoost classifier in each point-cluster set and obtain the corresponding classifiers to separate the TLS point clouds with varying point density and data missing into semantic regions. Compared with other methods, our features achieve the best classification results for buildings, trees, people, and cars from TLS point clouds, particularly for small and moving objects, such as people and cars.

Switched diversity receivers over generalized gamma fading channels

A versatile envelope distribution which generalizes several commonly used fading models is the generalized Gamma (GG) distribution. This letter deals with the performance analysis of switch and stay combining (SSC) receivers operating over not necessarily identical GG fading channels. For these receivers, novel analytical expressions for the moments of the output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (including average SNR and amount of fading), outage probability, average bit error probability (ABEP), and Shannon average spectral efficiency (ASE) are derived. Moreover, closed-form expressions are obtained for the optimal average SNR, ABEP, and ASE switching thresholds. Special cases of the derived expressions agree with known results.

A terabit/second satellite system for European broadband access: a feasibility study

This paper presents a feasibility study for a fixed broadband access High Throughput Satellite terabit/second system by considering appropriate state‐of‐the‐art communication technologies. For the investigated system model, DVB‐S2 and DVB‐RCS2 are assumed as the air interfaces for the forward and return link, respectively. The performance of DVB‐S2 and DVB‐RCS2 Adaptive Coding and Modulation is examined along with potential extensions of these standards. For example, the performance of very low rate DVB‐RCS turbo codes are investigated and their performance is evaluated. In addition, a performance comparison for M‐ary (M=16, 32, 64) constellations in the presence of a linear and a high power amplifier non‐linear channel is carried out. Various frequency reuse schemes and different antenna models are also considered, and their performance is analyzed and evaluated. It is demonstrated that, by using the Q/V (40/50 GHz) bands for the gateways and the Ka (20–30 GHz) band for the user terminals, around 20 gateways and 200 beams are required to provide with the proposed satellite system terabit/second capacity. The obtained performance evaluation results have shown that the forward link is limited by noise rather than interference, whereas the return link is interference limited. Additionally, some further aspects of the system design in relation with the total number of gateways and the payload are discussed.

Performance analysis of SSC diversity receivers over correlated Ricean fading satellite channels

This paper studies the performance of switch and stay combining (SSC) diversity receivers operating over correlated Ricean fading satellite channels. Using an infinite series representation for the bivariate Ricean probability density function (PDF), the PDF of the SSC output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is derived. Capitalizing on this PDF, analytical expressions for the corresponding cumulative distribution function (CDF), the moments of the output SNR, the moments generating function (MGF), and the average channel capacity (CC) are derived. Furthermore, by considering several families of modulated signals, analytical expressions for the average symbol error probability (ASEP) for the diversity receivers under consideration are obtained. The theoretical analysis is accompanied by representative performance evaluation results, including average output SNR (ASNR), amount of fading (AoF), outage probability, average bit error probability (ABEP), and average CC, which have been obtained by numerical techniques. The validity of some of these performance evaluation results has been verified by comparing them with previously known results obtained for uncorrelated Ricean fading channels.

Performance Analysis of Dual-Hop AF Relaying Systems over Mixed

This paper investigates the end-to-end performance of a dual-hop amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying communication system where the source-to-relay and the relay-to-destination channels are subject to different fading conditions. The relay is assumed to either possess perfect channel state information (CSI) or have a fixed gain. We consider the case where the one hops channel is subject to η - μ fading, whereas the other hops channel is subject to κ- μ fading. This mixed fading propagation channel is capable of accurately modeling various practical dual-hop transmissions. Examples of such environments are encountered in micro-/macrocellular systems and/or hybrid satellite/terrestrial wireless communication systems, where typically, only the one hops channel has a line-of-sight (LOS) component. For both CSI-assisted and fixed-gain relaying and for integer-valued fading parameters, exact analytical expressions in the form of rapidly convergent infinite series for the outage probability (OP) and average bit error probability (ABEP) of several modulation schemes are derived. Moreover, for CSI-assisted relaying and arbitrary-valued fading parameters, closed-form lower bounds [tight for high values of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)] for the OP and ABEP performance are obtained. The analysis is also substantiated by obtaining previously published equivalent performance expressions as special cases of our generic fading models, namely, those available for Nakagami- m and Rice fading channels. In addition, the derived analytical expressions have been numerically evaluated, and the performance evaluation results have been further validated by comparing them with equivalent results that have been obtained by means of Monte Carlo computer simulations.

\eta{-}\mu

In this paper, a methodology which allows automated and efficient reconstruction of three-dimensional (3-D) geometric building models from an Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) point cloud is introduced and its performance is analyzed and evaluated. The proposed method avoids abnormal and/or infinite solutions which are typically encountered in previously published methods that use the rooftop primitive adjacency matrix to solve the critical rooftop vertices. In particular, first, an improved random sample consensus (RANSAC) algorithm is proposed to segment the rooftop primitives, i.e., the planar patches that constitute rooftops, of each building or group of connected buildings. The algorithm successfully maintains topological consistency among primitives and avoids under- and over-segmentation with high efficiency. Second, a novel Voronoi-based primitive boundary extraction algorithm under constraints of outer and inner building boundaries is introduced in order to extract each primitive boundary. In this algorithm, the adjacent segmented primitive relationships among the various primitives are preserved by a subgraph of the Voronoi diagram so that the reconstructed neighbor primitives are seamlessly connected. Third, in order to refine the boundary shapes of primitives with irregular geometry, various criteria for making the boundary adjustments more effective are proposed. In this way, more regular 3-D buildings can be produced. Finally, the primitive boundary simplification criteria are formally introduced to generate compact 3-D building models. By using the simplification criteria, nonadjacency between neighbor primitives, intersection between boundaries, and self-intersections are, to a great extent, avoided. Numerous experimental results obtained using multiple data sets, including data from the cities of Toronto and Enschede as well as from the Niagara area, have shown that the proposed methodology has excellent performance and it can produce watertight 3-D polyhedral building models.

and

The performance of switch-and-examine diversity (SED) over L arbitrarily correlated and not necessarily identically distributed Nakagami-m fading channels is studied. Analytical expressions for the distribution of the SED output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) are obtained for the constant correlation model. For the most general case of arbitrary correlation, by assuming half-integer or integer values for the fading parameter m, analytical expressions for the distribution of the output SNR with L ¿ 3 are derived. Moreover, for L > 3, analytical approximations for the output SNR are presented. The derived expressions are used to study the outage and average symbol error probability of SED receivers. Performance results obtained by numerical evaluation and verified by means of computer simulations show that the performance of the receivers under consideration is degraded with increasing branch correlation. Nevertheless, SED receivers outperform uncorrelated switch-and-stay diversity receivers, even when they operate under high branch correlation.

\kappa{-} \mu

A unified analytical framework for evaluating the performance of maximal ratio combining (MRC) and orthogonal space-time block coding (OSTBC) over generalized fading channels is presented. The basic motivation for developing such a framework pertains to analyzing the distribution of a sum of squared random variables (RVs) belonging to different families of fading distributions. Following a novel analytical approach stemming from the definition of a common moment generating function (MGF) model for these families of distributions, the probability density function (PDF) and the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of a general sum of squared RVs are expressed by simple infinite Gamma series expansions. Based on these expressions, the capacity and error probability of MRC/OSTBC over generalized fading channels is thoroughly studied. The developed theory is used to evaluate the performance of OSTBC for a mixed Nakagami-m/Rice fading model and novel analytical results are presented. The accuracy of the derived expressions is validated by extensive Monte Carlo simulations.