Vincent Kin Nang Lau

An overview of limited feedback in wireless communication systems

It is now well known that employing channel adaptive signaling in wireless communication systems can yield large improvements in almost any performance metric. Unfortunately, many kinds of channel adaptive techniques have been deemed impractical in the past because of the problem of obtaining channel knowledge at the transmitter. The transmitter in many systems (such as those using frequency division duplexing) can not leverage techniques such as training to obtain channel state information. Over the last few years, research has repeatedly shown that allowing the receiver to send a small number of information bits about the channel conditions to the transmitter can allow near optimal channel adaptation. These practical systems, which are commonly referred to as limited or finite-rate feedback systems, supply benefits nearly identical to unrealizable perfect transmitter channel knowledge systems when they are judiciously designed. In this tutorial, we provide a broad look at the field of limited feedback wireless communications. We review work in systems using various combinations of single antenna, multiple antenna, narrowband, broadband, single-user, and multiuser technology. We also provide a synopsis of the role of limited feedback in the standardization of next generation wireless systems.

Enabling Wireless Power Transfer in Cellular Networks: Architecture, Modeling and Deployment

Microwave power transfer (MPT) delivers energy wirelessly from stations called power beacons (PBs) to mobile devices by microwave radiation. This provides mobiles practically infinite battery lives and eliminates the need of power cords and chargers. To enable MPT for mobile recharging, this paper proposes a new network architecture that overlays an uplink cellular network with randomly deployed PBs for powering mobiles, called a hybrid network. The deployment of the hybrid network under an outage constraint on data links is investigated based on a stochastic-geometry model where single-antenna base stations (BSs) and PBs form independent homogeneous Poisson point processes (PPPs) with densities λ_b and λ_p, respectively, and single-antenna mobiles are uniformly distributed in Voronoi cells generated by BSs. In this model, mobiles and PBs fix their transmission power at p and q, respectively; a PB either radiates isotropically, called isotropic MPT, or directs energy towards target mobiles by beamforming, called directed MPT. The model is used to derive the tradeoffs between the network parameters (p, λ_b, q, λ_p) under the outage constraint. First, consider the deployment of the cellular network. It is proved that the outage constraint is satisfied so long as the product pλ_b^α/2 is above a given threshold where α is the path-loss exponent. Next, consider the deployment of the hybrid network assuming infinite energy storage at mobiles. It is shown that for isotropic MPT, the product qλ_pλ_b^α/2 has to be above a given threshold so that PBs are sufficiently dense; for directed MPT, z_mqλ_pλ_b^α/2 with z_m denoting the array gain should exceed a different threshold to ensure short distances between PBs and their target mobiles. Furthermore, similar results are derived for the case of mobiles having small energy storage.

On the design of MIMO block-fading channels with feedback-link capacity constraint

In this paper, we propose a combined adaptive power control and beamforming framework for optimizing multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO) link capacity in the presence of feedback-link capacity constraint. The feedback channel is used to carry channel state information only. It is assumed to be noiseless and causal with a feedback capacity constraint in terms of maximum number of feedback bits per fading block. We show that the hybrid design could achieve the optimal MIMO link capacity, and we derive a computationally efficient algorithm to search for the optimal design under a specific average power constraint. Finally, we shall illustrate that a minimum mean-square error spatial processor with a successive interference canceller at the receiver could be used to realize the optimal capacity. We found that feedback effectively enhances the forward channel capacity for all signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values when the number of transmit antennas (n/sub T/) is larger than the number of receive antennas (n/sub R/). The SNR gain with feedback is contributed by focusing transmission power on active eigenchannel and temporal power waterfilling . The former factor contributed, at most, 10log/sub 10/(n/sub T//n/sub R/) dB SNR gain when n/sub T/>n/sub R/, while the latter factors SNR gain is significant only for low SNR values.

Spectrum sharing between cellular and mobile ad hoc networks: transmission-capacity trade-off

Spectrum sharing between wireless networks improves the efficiency of spectrum usage, and thereby alleviates spectrum scarcity due to growing demands for wireless broadband access. To improve the usual underutilization of the cellular uplink spectrum, this paper addresses spectrum sharing between a cellular uplink and a mobile ad hoc networks. These networks access either all frequency subchannels or their disjoint subsets, called spectrum underlay and spectrum overlay, respectively. Given these spectrum sharing methods, the capacity trade-off between the coexisting networks is analyzed based on the transmission capacity of a network with Poisson distributed transmitters. This metric is defined as the maximum density of transmitters subject to an outage constraint for a given signal-to-interference ratio (SIR). Using tools from stochastic geometry, the transmission-capacity trade-off between the coexisting networks is analyzed, where both spectrum overlay and underlay as well as successive interference cancellation (SIC) are considered. In particular, for small target outage probability, the transmission capacities of the coexisting networks are proved to satisfy a linear equation, whose coefficients depend on the spectrum sharing method and whether SIC is applied. This linear equation shows that spectrum overlay is more efficient than spectrum underlay. Furthermore, this result also provides insight into the effects of network parameters on transmission capacities, including link diversity gains, transmission distances, and the base station density. In particular, SIC is shown to increase the transmission capacities of both coexisting networks by a linear factor, which depends on the interference-power threshold for qualifying canceled interferers.

On the Performance of the MIMO Zero-Forcing Receiver in the Presence of Channel Estimation Error

By employing spatial multiplexing, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless antenna systems provide increases in capacity without the need for additional spectrum or power. Zero-forcing (ZF) detection is a simple and effective technique for retrieving multiple transmitted data streams at the receiver. However the detection requires knowledge of the channel state information (CSI) and in practice accurate CSI may not be available. In this letter, we investigate the effect of channel estimation error on the performance of MIMO ZF receivers in uncorrelated Rayleigh flat fading channels. By modeling the estimation error as independent complex Gaussian random variables, tight approximations for both the post-processing SNR distribution and bit error rate (BER) for MIMO ZF receivers with M-QAM and M-PSK modulated signals are derived in closed-form. Numerical results demonstrate the tightness of our analysis

Distributed Compressive CSIT Estimation and Feedback for FDD Multi-User Massive MIMO Systems

To fully utilize the spatial multiplexing gains or array gains of massive MIMO, the channel state information must be obtained at the transmitter side (CSIT). However, conventional CSIT estimation approaches are not suitable for FDD massive MIMO systems because of the overwhelming training and feedback overhead. In this paper, we consider multi-user massive MIMO systems and deploy the compressive sensing (CS) technique to reduce the training as well as the feedback overhead in the CSIT estimation. The multi-user massive MIMO systems exhibits a hidden joint sparsity structure in the user channel matrices due to the shared local scatterers in the physical propagation environment. As such, instead of naively applying the conventional CS to the CSIT estimation, we propose a distributed compressive CSIT estimation scheme so that the compressed measurements are observed at the users locally, while the CSIT recovery is performed at the base station jointly. A joint orthogonal matching pursuit recovery algorithm is proposed to perform the CSIT recovery, with the capability of exploiting the hidden joint sparsity in the user channel matrices. We analyze the obtained CSIT quality in terms of the normalized mean absolute error, and through the closed-form expressions, we obtain simple insights into how the joint channel sparsity can be exploited to improve the CSIT recovery performance.

Fronthaul-constrained cloud radio access networks: insights and challenges

As a promising paradigm for fifth generation wireless communication systems, cloud radio access networks (C-RANs) have been shown to reduce both capital and operating expenditures, as well as to provide high spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE). The fronthaul in such networks, defined as the transmission link between the baseband unit and the remote radio head, requires a high capacity, but is often constrained. This article comprehensively surveys recent advances in fronthaul-constrained CRANs, including system architectures and key techniques. Particularly, major issues relating to the impact of the constrained fronthaul on SE/EE and quality of service for users, including compression and quantization, large-scale coordinated processing and clustering, and resource allocation optimization, are discussed together with corresponding potential solutions. Open issues in terms of software-defined networking, network function virtualization, and partial centralization are also identified.

The evolution path of 4G networks: FDD or TDD?

Frequency-division duplexing and time-division duplexing are two common duplexing methods used in various wireless systems. However, there are advantages and technical issues associated with them. In this article we discuss in detail the features, and the design and implementation challenges of FDD and TDD systems for 4G wireless systems. In particular, we present a number of advantages and flexibilities an TDD system can bring to 4G systems that an FDD system cannot offer, and identify the major challenges, including cross-slot interference, in applying TDD in practice. Due to the fact that cross-slot interference is one of the critical challenges to employing TDD in cellular networks, we also provide a quantitative analysis on its impact on co-channel and adjacent channel interfering cells

Cross-Layer Design for OFDMA Wireless Systems With Heterogeneous Delay Requirements

This paper proposes a cross-layer scheduling scheme for OFDMA wireless systems with heterogeneous delay requirements. We shall focus on the cross-layer design which takes into account both queueing theory and information theory in modeling the system dynamics. We propose a delay-sensitive cross-layer design, which determines the optimal subcarrier allocation and power allocation policies to maximize the total system throughput, subject to the individual users delay constraint and total base station transmit power constraint. The delay-sensitive power allocation was found to be multilevel water-filling in which urgent users have higher water-filling levels. The delay-sensitive subcarrier allocation strategy has linear complexity with respect to number of users and number of subcarriers. Simulation results show that substantial throughput gain is obtained while satisfying the delay constraints when the delay-sensitive jointly optimal power and subcarrier allocation policy is adopted.

Joint cross-layer scheduling and spectrum sensing for OFDMA cognitive radio systems

In most of the existing works on cognitive radio (CR) systems, the spectrum sensing and the cross-layer scheduling are designed separately. Specifically, the sensing module first determines whether or not a channel resource is available for the CR system based on the sensing information. The scheduling module then schedules the data transmission of different users on the available channels based on the hard-decision sensing information (HSI). In this paper, we shall propose a joint crosslayer and sensing design and study its performance advantages over the aforementioned traditional decoupled approaches. We shall consider the downlink transmission of an OFDMA-based secondary system sharing the spectrum with primary users using cognitive radio technology. We shall rely on the joint design framework to optimize a system utility, which adapts the power allocation and the subcarrier assignment across the secondary users (under a average interference constraint to the primary users) based on both the channel state information (CSI) and the raw sensing information (RSI). In addition, we shall also propose a distributed implementation for the cross-layer sensing and scheduling design using primal-dual decomposition approach. Simulation results reveals the substantial performance gain of the proposed joint design over the conventional CR systems.