Space-time Block Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Research Articles

MIMO OFDM receivers for Systems with IQ imbalances

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a widely recognized modulation scheme for high data rate communications. However, the implementation of OFDM-based systems suffers from in-phase and quadrature-phase (IQ) imbalances in the front-end analog processing. Such imbalances are caused by the analog processing of the received radio frequency (RF) signal, and they cannot be efficiently or entirely eliminated in the analog domain. The resulting IQ distortion limits the achievable operating SNR at the receiver and, consequently, the achievable data rates. The issue of IQ imbalances is even more severe at higher SNR and higher carrier frequencies. In this paper, the effect of IQ imbalances on multi-input multioutput (MIMO) OFDM systems is studied, and a framework for combating such distortions through digital signal processing is developed. An input-output relation governing MIMO OFDM systems is derived. The framework is used to design receiver algorithms with compensation for IQ imbalances. It is shown that the complexity of the system at the receiver grows from dimension (n/sub R//spl times/n/sub T/) for ideal IQ branches to (2n/sub R//spl times/2n/sub T/) in the presence of IQ imbalances. However, by exploiting the structure of space-time block codes along with the distortion models, one can obtain efficient receivers that are robust to IQ imbalances. Simulation results show significant improvement in the achievable BER of the proposed MIMO receivers for space-time block-coded OFDM systems in the presence of IQ imbalances.

Estimation of channel statistics for iterative detection of OFDM signals

Maximum likelihood sequence estimation for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmissions over unknown multipath fading channels is analytically infeasible for lack of efficient methods to maximize the likelihood function. A practical solution to this problem has been recently proposed in the context of space-time block-coded OFDM by resorting to the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. The resulting detector operates iteratively, exploiting knowledge of the channel statistics and the operating signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In this work, we address the problem of estimating the above quantities and propose a recursive solution based on ad hoc reasoning. Simulations indicate that the EM detector employing the estimated SNR and channel statistics has better performance than other schemes operating in a mismatched mode. Also, the performance loss with respect to a system with perfect channel knowledge is negligible at SNR values of practical interest.

Iterative cyclic prefix reconstruction and channel estimation for a STBC OFDM system

In order to prevent a loss of spectral efficiency due to the use of a cyclic prefix (CP), a CP reconstruction (CPR) method, such as residual intersymbol interference cancellation (RISIC), has recently been developed. In this letter, we apply the RISIC method to an Alamouti space-time block coded (STBC) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system with insufficient CP. It is shown that in the STBC OFDM, tail cancellation as well as cyclic restoration of the RISIC should be repeated. An iterative channel estimation method for the STBC OFDM system with CPR is proposed. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated by computer simulation in a multipath fading environment.

An MMSE Multiuser Detector for Space-Time Block Coded OFDM

In this paper, we propose a multiuser detection (MUD) scheme for space-time block coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (STBC-OFDM) systems. We derive the optimum weight matrix used to decouple simultaneously signals from active multiple access users using the minimum mean square error (MMSE) multiuser detection method. The proposed scheme provides good performance over different models of the frequency selective fading channel. It is also to show that if the length of the cyclic prefix is larger than that of the channel, the performance of the detector depends on only the total energy extracted from multipath components but not the employed channel model, the number of multipath components or the delay of each multipath component.

Performance Analysis of Two-Branch Transmit Diversity Block-Coded OFDM Systems in Time-Varying Multipath Rayleigh-Fading Channels

Based on Alamouti code, Lee and Williams proposed two-branch transmit diversity block-coded orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (TDBC-OFDM) systems, namely, space-time block-coded OFDM (STBC-OFDM) and space-frequency block-coded OFDM (SFBC-OFDM). However, they employed the simple maximum-likelihood (SML) detector, which was designed under the assumption that the channel is static over the duration of a space-time/frequency codeword. Therefore, STBC-OFDM/SFBC-OFDM suffers from the high time/frequency selectivity of the wireless mobile fading channel. In this paper, besides the original SML detector, three detectors proposed by Vielmon et al. are applied to improve the two-branch TDBC-OFDM systems. Additionally, assuming sufficient cyclic prefix, the performances of all systems in spatially uncorrelated time-varying multipath Rayleigh-fading channels are evaluated by theoretical derivation and computer simulation, as well. According to the derived bit-error rate (BER), we further derive the bit-error outage (BEO) to provide a more object judgment on the transmission quality within a fading environment. Numerical results have revealed that significant performance improvement can be achieved even when the systems are operated in highly selective channels.

Space-time block-coded OFDM systems with RF beamformers for high-speed indoor wireless communications

A beamforming network is considered for a space-time block-coded orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing system in a high-speed indoor wireless network. We find that choosing the most powerful beams for transmission provide the best performance in the absence of interference. In the presence of interference, an iterative two-metric beam-selection method is proposed.

Iterative receivers for space-time block-coded OFDM systems in dispersive fading channels

We consider the design of iterative receivers for space-time block-coded orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (STBC-OFDM) systems in unknown wireless dispersive fading channels, with or without outer channel coding. First, we propose a maximum-likelihood (ML) receiver for STBC-OFDM systems based on the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. By assuming that the fading processes remain constant over the duration of one STBC code word and by exploiting the orthogonality property of the STBC as well as the OFDM modulation, we show that the EM-based receiver has a very low computational complexity and that the initialization of the EM receiver is based on the linear minimum mean square error (MMSE) channel estimate for both the pilot and the data transmission. Since the actual fading processes may vary within one STBC code word, we also analyze the effect of a modeling mismatch on the receiver performance and show both analytically and through simulations that the performance degradation due to such a mismatch is negligible for practical Doppler frequencies. We further propose a turbo receiver based on the maximum a posteriori-EM algorithm for STBC-OFDM systems with outer channel coding. Compared with the previous noniterative receiver employing a decision-directed linear channel estimator, the iterative receivers proposed here significantly improve the receiver performance and can approach the ML performance in typical wireless channels with very fast fading, at a reasonable computational complexity well suited for real-time implementations.

A space-time block-coded OFDM scheme for unknown frequency-selective fading channels

We introduce a space-time block-coded orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (STBC-OFDM) selective fading channels which does not require channel knowledge either at the transmitter or at the receiver. The decoding algorithm is based on generalized maximum-likelihood sequence estimation. We investigate the performance of the proposed scheme over two-tap Rayleigh fading channels. Simulation results show the performance to be near optimum.