Tony Ottosson

A generalized RAKE receiver for interference suppression

Currently, a global third-generation cellular system based on code-division multiple-access (CDMA) is being developed with a wider bandwidth than existing second-generation systems. The wider bandwidth provides increased multipath resolution in a time-dispersive channel, leading to higher frequency-selectivity. A generalized RAKE receiver for interference suppression and multipath mitigation is proposed. The receiver exploits the fact that time dispersion significantly distorts the interference spectrum from each base station in the downlink of a wideband CDMA system. Compared to the conventional RAKE receiver, this generalized RAKE receiver may have more fingers and different combining weights. The weights are derived from a maximum likelihood formulation, modeling the intracell interference as colored Gaussian noise. This low-complexity detector is especially useful for systems with orthogonal downlink spreading codes, as orthogonality between own cell signals cannot be maintained in a frequency-selective channel. The performance of the proposed receiver is quantified via analysis and simulation for different dispersive channels, including Rayleigh fading channels. Gains on the order of 1-3.5 dB are achieved, depending on the dispersiveness of the channel, with only a modest increase in the number of fingers. For a wideband CDMA (WCDMA) system and a realistic mobile radio channel, this translates to capacity gains of the order of 100%.

Cell search in W-CDMA

In a CDMA cellular system, the process of the mobile station searching for a cell and achieving code and time synchronization to its downlink scrambling code is referred to as cell search. Cell search is performed in three scenarios: initial cell search when a mobile station is switched on, idle mode search when inactive, and active mode search during a call. The latter two are also called target cell search. This paper presents algorithms and results for both initial and target cell search scenarios for the wideband CDMA (W-CDMA) standard. In W-CDMA, the cell search itself is divided into five acquisition stages: slot synchronization, frame synchronization and scrambling code group identification, scrambling code identification, frequency acquisition, and cell identification. Initial cell search needs all five stages, while target cell search in general does not need the last two stages. A pipelined process of the first three stages that minimizes the average code and time acquisition time, while keeping the complexity at a reasonable level, is considered. The frequency error in initial cell search, which may be as large as 20 kHz, is taken care of by partial symbol despreading and noncoherent combining. Optimization of key system parameters such as the loading factors for primary synchronization channel, synchronization channel, and common pilot channel for achieving the smallest average code and time acquisition time is studied. After code and time synchronization (the first three stages), a maximum likelihood (ML)-based frequency acquisition method is used to bring down the frequency error to about 200 Hz. The gain of this method is more than 10 dB compared to an alternative scheme that obtains a frequency error estimate using differential detection.

Attaining both coverage and high spectral efficiency with adaptive OFDM downlinks

A downlink radio interface is proposed for cellular packet data systems with wide area coverage and high spectral efficiency. A slotted OFDM radio interface is used, in which time-frequency bins are allocated adaptively to different users within a downlink beam, based on their channel quality. Fading channels generated by vehicular 100 km/h users may be accommodated. Frequency division duplex (FDD) is assumed, which requires channel prediction in the terminals and feedback of that information to a packet scheduler at the base station. To attain both high spectral efficiency and good coverage within sectors/beams, a scheme based on coordinated scheduling between sectors of the same site, and the employment of frequency reuse factor above 1 only in outer parts of the sector, is proposed and evaluated. The resulting sector throughput increases with the number of active users. When terminals have one antenna and channels are Rayleigh fading, it results in a sector payload capacity between 1.2 (one user) and 2.1 bits/s/Hz/sector (for 30 users) in an interference-limited environment.

Multi-rate schemes in DS/CDMA systems

Different modulation schemes supporting multiple data rates in a direct sequence code division multiple access (DS/CDMA) system are studied, focusing on how to support personal communication services. Both AWGN and multipath Rayleigh fading channels are considered. It is shown that the multi processing-gain scheme and the multi-channel scheme have almost the same performance. However, the multi-channel scheme has some advantages due to near-far resistance, easier code design and easier multi-user receiver construction. The drawback though, is the need for linear amplifiers. A multi-modulation scheme is also possible, but the performance for the users with the high data rates is significantly worse than for the other schemes.

Convolutional codes with optimum distance spectrum

New convolutional codes with rates 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4 are presented for constraint lengths ranging from 3 to 15. These new codes are maximum free-distance codes. Furthermore, the codes have optimized information error weights, resulting in a low bit-error rate for binary communication on both additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and Rayleigh fading channels. Improved coding gains of as much as 0.6 dB compared to previously published codes have been observed for coherent BPSK over a Rayleigh fading channel and a wide range of signal-to-noise ratios.

On the optimality of the binary reflected Gray code

This paper concerns the problem of selecting a binary labeling for the signal constellation in M-PSK, M-PAM, and M-QAM communication systems. Gray labelings are discussed and the original work by Frank Gray is analyzed. As is noted, the number of distinct Gray labelings that result in different bit-error probability grows rapidly with increasing constellation size. By introducing a recursive Gray labeling construction method called expansion, the paper answers the natural question of what labeling, among all possible constellation labelings, will give the lowest possible average probability of bit errors for the considered constellations. Under certain assumptions on the channel, the answer is that the labeling proposed by Gray, the binary reflected Gray code, is the optimal labeling for all three constellations, which has, surprisingly, never been proved before.

Towards Systems Beyond 3G Based on Adaptive OFDMA Transmission

High data rates, high spectral efficiency, flexibility, and low delays over the air interface will be important features in next-generation wireless systems. The overall challenge will be packet scheduling and adaptive radio transmission for multiple users, via multiple antennas and over frequency-selective wideband channels. This problem needs to be structured to obtain feasible solutions. The basic simplifying assumptions used here are clustering of antennas into cells, orthogonal transmission by use of cyclic-prefix orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) and a time-scale separation view of the total link adaptation, scheduling and intercell coordination problem. Based on these assumptions, we survey techniques that adapt the transmission to the temporal, frequency, and spatial channel properties. We provide a systematic overview of the design problems, such as the dimensioning of the allocated time-frequency resources, the influence of duplexing schemes, adaptation control issues for downlinks and uplinks, timing issues, and their relation to the required performance of channel predictors. Specific design choices are illustrated by recent research within the Swedish Wireless IP program and the EU IST-WINNER project. The presented results indicate that high-performance adaptive OFDM transmission systems are indeed feasible, also for challenging scenarios that involve vehicular velocities, high carrier frequencies, and high bandwidths.

Code-spread CDMA using maximum free distance low-rate convolutional codes

In code division multiple-access (CDMA) systems, maximum total throughput assuming a matched filter receiver can be obtained by spreading with low-rate error control codes. Previously, orthogonal, bi-orthogonal and super-orthogonal codes have been proposed for this purpose. We present in this paper a family of rate-compatible low-rate convolutional codes with maximum free distance. The performance of these codes for spectrum spreading in a CDMA system is evaluated and shown to outperform that of orthogonal and super-orthogonal codes as well as conventionally coded and spread systems. We also show that the proposed low rate codes will give simple encoder and decoder implementations. With these codes, any rate 1/n, n/spl les/512, are obtained for constraint lengths up to 11, resulting in a more flexible and powerful scheme than those previously proposed.

On Schemes for Multriate Support in DS-CDMA Systems

Different modulation schemes supporting multiple data rates in a Direct Sequence Code Division Multiple Access (DS-CDMA) system are studied. Both AWGN and multipath Rayleigh fading channels are considered. It is shown that the multi processing-gain scheme and the multi-channel scheme have almost the same performance. However, the multi-channel scheme may have some advantages due to easier code design and multiuser receiver construction. The drawback though, is the need for linear amplifiers also in mobile terminals. A multi-modulation scheme is also possible, but the performance for the users with the high data rates are significantly worse than for the other schemes. Furthermore multi chip-rate, parallel combinatory spread spectrum (PC/SS), pulse position modulation (PPM) and variable duty cycle schemes are discussed briefly.

Rate-compatible convolutional codes for multirate DS-CDMA systems

New rate-compatible convolutional (RCC) codes with high constraint lengths and a wide range of code rates are presented. These new codes originate from rate 1/4 optimum distance spectrum (ODS) convolutional parent encoders with constraint lengths 7-10. Low rate encoders (rates 115 down to 1/10) are found by a nested search, and high rate encoders (rates above 1/4) are found by rate-compatible puncturing. The new codes form rate-compatible code families more powerful and flexible than those previously presented. It is shown that these codes are almost as good as the existing optimum convolutional codes of the same fates. The effects of varying the design parameters of the rate-compatible punctured convolutional (RCPC) codes, i.e., the parent encoder rate, the puncturing period, and the constraint length, are also examined. The new codes are then applied to a multicode direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) system and are shown to provide good performance and rate-matching capabilities. The results, which are evaluated in terms of the efficiency for Gaussian and Rayleigh fading channels, show that the system efficiency increases with decreasing code rate.