Studies On The Performance And Impact Of Channel Estimation In Mimo And Ofdm Systems

The second part of this dissertation uses the CRB once again, this time as a tool for evaluating the potential performance of MIMO-OFDM channel estimation and prediction. Bounds are found for several parametric time-varying wideband MIMO-OFDM channel models, and numerical evaluations of these bounds are used to illuminate several interesting features regarding the estimation and prediction of MIMO-OFDM channels.

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) techniques have been considered as a strong candidate for the next-generation - wireless communication systems, due to their well-known advantages in high data-rate wireless transmission as well as high frequency spectrum efficiency. In the mean time, channel state information (CSI) is required for precise detection and recovery of signals. Therefore, channel estimation plays a significant role in MIMO-OFDM systems. On the other hand, due to the high mobility of wireless terminals, Doppler shift (DS) can be one of the major side-effects of utilizing MIMO-OFDM techniques, which may lead to severe performance loss. Many schemes on DS estimation have been developed for broadband single-input single-output (SISO) systems. A commonly used method is to exploit the auto-correlation property of the channel impulse response (CIR) estimated by well-developed channel estimation approaches, which not only has high accuracy but also moderate computational complexity. Hence, we first investigate an efficient channel estimation method in this thesis. We will then focus on Jakes' model based DS estimation schemes, and further extend to independently identically distributed (i.i.d.) MIMO-OFDM fading channels with both Rayleigh and Rician distributions. In the first part of the thesis, a training-sequence (TS) based least square (LS) channel estimation scheme is presented for MIMO-OFDM systems along with plenty of computer simulations and corresponding analyses. Experimental study shows that the CIR estimates obtained by the LS method are reliable under moderate channel conditions, and can efficiently be utilized for DS estimation. The second part of the thesis first studies the auto-correlation function (ACF) based DS estimation schemes for SISO-OFOM systems in Rayleigh fading channels, and then extends it to Rician fading channels by developing a new approach along with the analysis of its accuracy and complexity. Thereafter, we apply those approaches to MIMO-OFOM systems and present a few enhanced methods by using non-linear interpolation under certain circumstances. Detailed computer simulations and comparisons are performed, confirming that the proposed ACF based schemes give satisfactory estimation performance over i.i.d. Rayleigh or Rician fading channels with various channel conditions.

This dissertation, "A Study of Channel Estimation for OFDM Systems and System Capacity for MIMO-OFDM Systems" by Wen, Zhou, 周雯, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. DOI: 10.5353/th_b4555585 Subjects: Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing - Mathematical models MIMO systems - Mathematical models

Massive MIMO (multiple-input–multiple-output) is a multi-antenna technology for cellular wireless communication, where the base station uses a large number of individually controllable antennas to multiplex users spatially. This technology can provide a high spectral efficiency. One of its main challenges is the immense hardware complexity and cost of all the radio chains in the base station. To make massive MIMO commercially viable, inexpensive, low-complexity hardware with low linearity has to be used, which inherently leads to more signal distortion. This thesis investigates how the degenerated linearity of some of the main components—power amplifiers, analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and low-noise amplifiers—affects the performance of the system, with respect to data rate, power consumption and out-of-band radiation. The main results are: Spatial processing can reduce PAR (peak-to-average ratio) of the transmit signals in the downlink to as low as 0B; this, however, does not necessarily reduce power consumption. In environments with isotropic fading, one-bit ADCs lead to a reduction in effective signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) of 4dB in the uplink and four-bit ADCs give a performance close to that of an unquantized system. An analytical expression for the radiation pattern of the distortion from nonlinear power amplifiers is derived. It shows how the distortion is beamformed to some extent, that its gain never is greater than that of the desired signal, and that the gain of the distortion is reduced with a higher number of served users and a higher number of channel taps. Nonlinear low-noise amplifiers give rise to distortion that partly combines coherently and limits the possible SINR. It is concluded that spatial processing with a large number of antennas reduces the impact of hardware distortion in most cases. As long as proper attention is paid to the few sources of coherent distortion, the hardware complexity can be reduced in massive MIMO base stations to overcome the hardware challenge and make massive MIMO commercial reality. Massiv MIMO (eng: multiple-input–multiple-output) är en flerantennsteknologi för cellulär trådlös kommunikation, där basstationen använder ett stort antal individuellt styrbara antenner för att multiplexa användare i rummet. Denna teknologi kan tillhandahålla en hög spektral effektivitet. En av dess främsta utmaningar är den enorma hårdvarukomplexiteten och kostnaden hos basstationens alla radiokedjor. För att massiv MIMO skall bli kommersiellt attraktivt, måste billiga, enkla hårdvarukomponenter med låg linjäritet användas, vilket oundvikligen leder till mer signaldistorsion. Denna avhandling undersöker hur den försämrade linjäriteten hos några av huvudkomponenterna – effektförstärkare, analog-digital-omvandlare (AD-omvandlare) och lågbrusförstärkare – påverkar systemets prestanda, i termer av datatakt, effektförbrukning och utombandsstrålning. Huvudresultaten är: Rumslig signalbehandling kan reducera sändsignalernas toppvärde i nerlänken ända ner till 0dB, vilket dock inte nödvändigtvis minskar effektförbrukningen. I miljöer med isotrop fädning leder enbits-AD-omvandlare till 4dB lägre signal-till-interferens-och-brus-förhållande i upplänken, och fyrabits-AD-omvandlare ger en prestanda nära den ett system utan kvantisering kan uppnå. Ett analytiskt uttryck för strålningsmönstret för distorsionen från icke-linjära effektförstärkare härleds. Det visar hur distorsionen till viss del lobformas, att dess förstärkning aldrig är starkare än förstärkningen för den önskade signalen och att distorsionens förstärkning minskar med ett högre antal betjänade användare och ett högre antal kanaltappar. Icke-linjära lågbrusförstärkare ger upphov distorsion som delvis kombinerar koherent och begränsar det möjliga signal-till-brus-och-interferens-förhållandet. Slutsatsen är att rumslig signalbehandling med ett stort antal antenner reducerar hårdvarudistorsionens inverkan i de flesta fall. Så länge som de få källorna till koherent distorsion ges tillbörlig uppmärksamhet, kan hårdvarukomplexiteten minskas i basstationer för massiv MIMO för att övervinna hårdvaruutmaningen och göra massiv MIMO kommersiell verklighet. ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????——???????????????——?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Designing spectral efficient, high-speed wireless links that offer high quality- of-service and range capability has been a critical research and engineering challenge. In this thesis, we mainly address the complexity and performance issues of channel estimation and data detection in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems over time-varying channels. We derive the probability density function (pdf) expressions of the condition number (i.e., the maximum-to-minimum-singular-value ratio, MMSVR) of the channel state information matrix of MIMO OFDM systems. It is shown that this ratio is directly related to the noise enhancement in open-loop systems and provides a significant insight on the system capacity. A decision-directed (DD) maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) channel estimation scheme of MIMO systems is derived. Error performance of a zero- forcing receiver with the DD MAP and perfect channel estimates is provided and compared. This scheme has a low complexity and can be applied to time-varying Rayleigh fading channels with an arbitrary spaced-time correlation function. We propose an iterative channel estimation and data detection scheme for MIMO OFDM systems in the presence of inter-carrier-interference (ICI) due to the nature of time-varying channels. An ICI-based minimum-mean-square error (MMSE) detection scheme is derived. An expectation-maximization (EM) based least square (LS) channel estimator is proposed to minimize the mean-square error (MSE) of the channel estimates and to reduce the complexity of the implementation. With the estimate of the channel and initially detected symbols, ICI is estimated and removed from the received signal. Thus more accurate estimation of the channel and data detection can be obtained in the next iteration. An EM-based MAP channel estimator is derived by exploiting the frequency/time correlation of the pilot and data sub-carriers. Performance comparison is made between the proposed schemes and the ideal case - time-invariant channels and perfect channel estimation. We optimize the data transmission by exploiting the long term correlation characteristics. The transmitted data is successively detected without an error floor in spatially correlated channels. The algorithms proposed in this thesis allow low-complexity implementation of channel estimation and data detection for MIMO OFDM systems over time-varying fading channels, while providing good error performance.

This thesis is concerned with channel estimation and data detection of MIMO-OFDM communication systems using Space-Time Block Coding (STBC) and Space-Frequency Block Coding (SFBC) under frequency selective channels. A new iterative joint channel estimation and signal detection technique for both STBC-OFDM and SFBC-OFDM systems is proposed. The proposed algorithm is based on a processive sequence of events for space time and space frequency coding schemes where pilot subcarriers are used for channel estimation in the first time instant, and then in the second time instant, the estimated channel is used to decode the data symbols in the adjacent data subcarriers. Once data symbols are recovered, the system recursively performs a new channel estimation using the decoded data symbols as pilots. The iterative process is repeated until all MIMO-OFDM symbols are recovered. In addition, the proposed channel estimation technique is based on the maximum likelihood (ML) approach which offers linearity and simplicity of implementation. Due to the orthogonality of STBC and SFBC, high computation efficiency is achieved since the method does not require any matrix inversion for estimation and detection at the receiver. Another major novel contribution of the thesis is the proposal of a new group decoding method that reduces the processing time significantly via the use of sub-carrier grouping for transmitted data recovery. The OFDM symbols are divided into groups to which a set of pilot subcarriers are assigned and used to initiate the channel estimation process. Designated data symbols contained within each group of the OFDM symbols are decoded simultaneously in order to improve the decoding duration. Finally, a new mixed STBC and SFBC channel estimation and data detection technique with a joint iterative scheme and a group decoding method is proposed. In this technique, STBC and SFBC are used for pilot and data subcarriers alternatively, forming the different combinations of STBC/SFBC and SFBC/STBC. All channel estimation and data detection methods for different MIMO-OFDM systems proposed in the thesis have been simulated extensively in many different scenarios and their performances have been verified fully.