Preamble Sequence Research Articles

Robust Symbol and Frequency Synchronization Method for Burst OFDM Systems in UAV Communication

This paper introduces a robust synchronization method for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) in multi-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication systems, focusing on minimizing overhead while achieving reliable synchronization. The proposed synchronization scheme enhances both frame efficiency and implementation simplicity. Initially, a high-efficiency frame structure is designed without a guard time interval, utilizing a preamble sequence to simultaneously achieve both symbol synchronization and automatic gain control (AGC) before demodulation. Subsequently, a novel 2-bit non-uniform quantization method for the Zadoff–Chu sequences is developed, enabling the correlation operations in the traditional symbol synchronization algorithm to be implemented via bitwise exclusive OR (XOR) and addition operations. The complexity of hardware implementation and the energy consumption for symbol synchronization can be reduced significantly. Furthermore, the impact of AGC on frequency synchronization performance is examined, and an improved frequency synchronization method based on AGC gain compensation is proposed. Finally, the performance of the proposed method is rigorously analyzed and compared with that of the traditional method through computer simulations, demonstrating the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed approach.

Radio Frequency Fingerprint Identification for 5G Mobile Devices Using DCTF and Deep Learning.

The fifth-generation (5G) mobile cellular network is vulnerable to various security threats. Radio frequency fingerprint (RFF) identification is an emerging physical layer authentication technique which can be used to detect spoofing and distributed denial of service attacks. In this paper, the performance of RFF identification is studied for 5G mobile phones. The differential constellation trace figure (DCTF) is extracted from the physical random access channel (PRACH) preamble. When the database of all 64 PRACH preambles is available at the gNodeB (gNB), an index-based DCTF identification scheme is proposed, and the classification accuracy reaches 92.78% with a signal-to-noise ratio of 25 dB. Moreover, due to the randomness in the selection of preamble sequences in the random access procedure, when only a portion of the preamble sequences can be trained, a group-based DCTF identification scheme is proposed. The preamble sequences generated from the same root value are grouped together, and the untrained sequences can be identified based on the trained sequences within the same group. The classification accuracy of the group-based scheme is 89.59%. An experimental system has been set up using six 5G mobile phones of three models. The 5G gNB is implemented on the OpenAirInterface platform.

An Efficient NB-IoT Compatible GF-NOMA PHY Mechanism for mMTC

The third generation partnership project (3GPP) has proposed the narrowband Internet of things (NB-IoT) standard for serving IoT users. Improvements to the NB-IoT standard are being considered to efficiently support massive machine-type communication (mMTC) IoT applications. Subsequent releases of the NB-IoT standard envision to support mMTC using different access mechanisms. In this work, a grant-free (GF) non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system compatible with the current NB-IoT standard is proposed, where the resources are divided into transmission opportunities (TOs). The TOs are further divided into multiple groups based on the repetitions adopted by the users in the system. Physical (PHY) layer procedures for preamble transmission/detection, channel estimation, data transmission/decoding, and acknowledgment (ACK) transmission/reception are described in detail for the proposed GF-NOMA system. Specifically, the preamble sequences are also used as spreading sequences for data transmission and three types of sequences -Zadoff-Chu, random Gaussian and Golay sequences are explored. Results are presented for per-user success probability, latency and energy consumption considering two NB-IoT compatible settings along with repetitions and retransmissions. It is demonstrated that the proposed GF-NOMA scheme meets the mMTC requirement recommended by the 3GPP with more than 99% per-user success probability and with the energy consumption reduced by at least 80% compared to NB-IoT, while being readily compatible with the current NB-IoT standard.

Timing‐deviation and frequency‐offset estimations for multicarrier transmission in high mobility environments using deep neural network

SummaryThe multicarrier technology used in fourth‐generation (4G) and fifth‐generation (5G) communications is quite susceptible to multipath fading and Doppler frequency shift, which is more prominent in high mobility environments. Therefore, the accuracy of timing and frequency synchronization impacts the overall system performance significantly. Existing synchronization methods rely on the correlation of the preamble sequences and are, hence, vulnerable to severe multipath effect and Doppler effect. In this article, we propose a novel scheme leveraging deep neural network (DNN) to achieve high‐precision synchronization in high mobility environments. Concretely, a convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture is proposed to extract the hidden features of received signals for timing deviation estimation. In the following, a fully connected (FC) model is demonstrated to classify the optimal carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimate from several CFO candidates. The proposed synchronization scheme is assessed under extended vehicular A (EVA) channel with various Doppler frequency shifts. Simulation results corroborate that the proposed DNN‐based scheme achieves a significant performance gain over the conventional correlation methods, and the proposed timing deviation estimation scheme exhibits an excellent complexity reduction; wherefore, it is extremely promising for multicarrier transmission systems in high mobility environments.

Deep Learning-Based User Activity Detection and Channel Estimation in Grant-Free NOMA

In the uplink machine-type communication (MTC) system, a combination of grant-free transmission and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) emerges to reduce the control overhead and transmission latency. In the grant-free scenario, the base station needs to identify the active devices and estimate the channel state information before the data detection. However, due to the lack of a scheduling process, the user activity detection (UAD) and channel estimation (CE) are both challenging, especially when short non-orthogonal preambles are adopted. In this paper, by exploiting the framework of the compressive sensing-based algorithm, we propose a novel deep learning architecture, namely UAD and CE Neural Network (UAD-CE-NN), to effectively solve the joint UAD and CE problem for grant-free NOMA. In the proposed scheme, the user activity and channel state information hidden in the received data signals are also exploited to aid the preamble for higher detection accuracy. Specifically, UAD-CE-NN is composed of two stages: we first build a preamble detection neural network for a tentative UAD-CE; a data detection neural network is then deployed to exploit the data signals. Compared with the conventional schemes, the proposed scheme obtains much higher accuracy for both the UAD and CE, especially when short preamble sequences are employed.

Exploiting Tensor-Based Bayesian Learning for Massive Grant-Free Random Access in LEO Satellite Internet of Things

With the rapid development of Internet of Things (IoT), low earth orbit (LEO) satellite IoT is expected to provide low power, massive connectivity and wide coverage IoT applications. In this context, this paper provides a massive grant-free random access (GF-RA) scheme for LEO satellite IoT. This scheme does not need to change the transceiver, but transforms the received signal to a tensor decomposition form. By exploiting the characteristics of the tensor structure, a Bayesian learning algorithm for joint active device detection and channel estimation during massive GF-RA is designed. Theoretical analysis shows that the proposed algorithm has fast convergence and low complexity. Finally, extensive simulation results confirm its better performance in terms of error probability for active device detection and normalized mean square error for channel estimation over baseline algorithms in LEO satellite IoT. Especially, it is found that the proposed algorithm requires short preamble sequences and support massive connectivity with a low power, which is appealing to LEO satellite IoT.

New Preamble Sequence for WiMAX System with Improved Synchronization Accuracy

Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) trusts Multiple Input Multiple Output-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) combination for the deployment of physical layer functions and for connecting the medium access control to the wireless media. Even though Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) facilitates reliable digital broadband transmission in the fading wireless channels, the presence of synchronization errors in the form of Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO) and Time Offset (TO) adversely affect the performance of OFDM based physical layers. The objective of this work is to improve the accuracy of the frequency and the time offset estimation in the WiMAX physical layer. A method to enhance the synchronization accuracy by fine-tuning the merit factor of the preamble sequence is suggested in this paper. Also, a new preamble with improved synchronization accuracy is proposed for the WiMAX system. The performance of the proposed preamble is evaluated in a Rayleigh fading channel and the results of simulations show that the Mean Square Error (MSE) in offset estimation is significantly reduced and it outperforms the standard WiMAX preamble.

A High Capacity Preamble Sequence for Random Access in 5G IoT Networks: Design and Analysis

A High Capacity Preamble Sequence for Random Access in 5G IoT Networks: Design and Analysis

Algorithm Unrolling for Massive Access via Deep Neural Networks With Theoretical Guarantee

Massive access is a critical design challenge of Internet of Things (IoT) networks. In this paper, we consider the grant-free uplink transmission of an IoT network with a multiple-antenna base station (BS) and a large number of single-antenna IoT devices. Taking into account the sporadic nature of IoT devices, we formulate the joint activity detection and channel estimation (JADCE) problem as a group-sparse matrix estimation problem. This problem can be solved by applying the existing compressed sensing techniques, which however either suffer from high computational complexities or lack of algorithm robustness. To this end, we propose a novel algorithm unrolling framework based on the deep neural network to simultaneously achieve low computational complexity and high robustness for solving the JADCE problem. Specifically, we map the original iterative shrinkage thresholding algorithm (ISTA) into an unrolled recurrent neural network (RNN), thereby improving the convergence rate and computational efficiency through end-to-end training. Moreover, the proposed algorithm unrolling approach inherits the structure and domain knowledge of the ISTA, thereby maintaining the algorithm robustness, which can handle non-Gaussian preamble sequence matrix in massive access. With rigorous theoretical analysis, we further simplify the unrolled network structure by reducing the redundant training parameters. Furthermore, we prove that the simplified unrolled deep neural network structures enjoy a linear convergence rate. Extensive simulations based on various preamble signatures show that the proposed unrolled networks outperform the existing methods in terms of the convergence rate, robustness and estimation accuracy.

Covariance-Based Joint Device Activity and Delay Detection in Asynchronous mMTC

In this letter, we study the joint device activity and delay detection problem in asynchronous massive machine-type communications (mMTC), where all active devices asynchronously transmit their preassigned preamble sequences to the base station (BS) for device identification and delay detection. We first formulate this joint detection problem as a maximum likelihood estimation problem, which depends on the received signal only through its sample covariance, and then propose efficient coordinate descent type of algorithms to solve the formulated problem. Our proposed covariance-based approach is sharply different from the existing compressed sensing (CS) approach for the same problem. Numerical results show that our proposed covariance-based approach significantly outperforms the CS approach in terms of the detection performance since our proposed approach can make better use of the BS antennas than the CS approach.

A low-complexity channel training method for efficient SVD beamforming over MIMO channels

Singular value decomposition (SVD) beamforming is an attractive tool for reducing the energy consumption of data transmissions in wireless sensor networks whose nodes are equipped with multiple antennas. However, this method is often not practical due to two important shortcomings: it requires channel state information at the transmitter and the computation of the SVD of the channel matrix is generally too complex. To deal with these issues, we propose a method for establishing an SVD beamforming link without requiring feedback of actual channel or SVD coefficients to the transmitter. Concretely, our method takes advantage of channel reciprocity and a power iteration algorithm (PIA) for determining the precoding and decoding singular vectors from received preamble sequences. A low-complexity version that performs no iterations is proposed and shown to have a signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) loss within 1 dB of the bit error rate of SVD beamforming with least squares channel estimates. The low-complexity method significantly outperforms maximum ratio combining diversity and Alamouti coding. We also show that the computational cost of the proposed PIA-based method is less than the one of using the Golub–Reinsch algorithm for obtaining the SVD. The number of computations of the low-complexity version is an order of magnitude smaller than with Golub–Reinsch. This difference grows further with antenna array size.

Joint Channel Estimation and Synchronization Techniques for Time-Interleaved Block-Windowed Burst OFDM

From a conceptual perspective, beyond-5G technologies promise to deliver very low latency, even higher data rates, and ultrareliable connections for future generations of communication systems. Modulation schemes based on orthogonal frequency-domain multiplexing (OFDM) can accommodate these requirements for wireless systems. Several hybrid OFDM-based systems, such as the time-interleaved block-windowed burst–OFDM (TIBWB–OFDM), are capable of achieving even better spectral confinement and power efficiency. This paper addresses the implementation of the TIBWB–OFDM system in more realistic and practical wireless link scenarios by addressing the challenges of proper and reliable channel estimation and frame synchronization. We propose to incorporate a preamble formed by optimal correlation training sequences such as the Zadoff–Chu (ZC) sequences. The added ZC preamble sequence is used to jointly estimate the frame beginning through signal-correlation strategies and a threshold decision device, and acquire channel-state information (CSI) by employing estimators on the basis of the preamble sequence and transmitted data. The employed receiver estimators show that it is possible to detect the TIBWB–OFDM frame beginning and highlight the robustness of the TIBWB–OFDM technique to imperfect channel estimations by showing that it can provide comparatively close BER performance to the one where the CSI is perfectly known.

Early Collision Detection for Massive Random Access in Satellite-Based Internet of Things

As a complementary solution for seamless and ubiquitous coverage, satellite communications will play crucial roles in future global Internet of Things (IoT). Focusing on enhancing access efficiency and resource utilization of massive machine-type devices (MTDs), we propose an efficient collision detection scheme at the first step of random access (RA) procedure for satellite-based IoT. By leveraging a single root Zadoff-Chu (ZC) sequence with an elaborate set of cyclic shift offsets to generate all the available preamble sequences, the proposed scheme can achieve rapid collision detection and load estimation in one-shot correlation operation, while having the robustness to the non-orthogonal interference. The preamble detection probability, collision detection probability, and load monitoring accuracy, are mathematically analyzed, and an optimal set of preamble selection probabilities is given to maximize the overall load monitoring accuracy. Simulation results exhibit the remarkable performance improvement of our scheme in typical satellite line-of-sight (LOS) scenario, by compared to the state-of-the-art collision detection schemes.

Energy-Efficient Random Access for LEO Satellite-Assisted 6G Internet of Remote Things

Satellite communication system is expected to play a vital role for realizing various remote Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications in sixth-generation vision. Due to unique characteristics of satellite environment, one of the main challenges in this system is to accommodate massive random access (RA) requests of IoT devices while minimizing their energy consumptions. In this article, we focus on the reliable design and detection of RA preamble to effectively enhance the access efficiency in high-dynamic low-earth-orbit (LEO) scenarios. To avoid additional signaling overhead and detection process, a long preamble sequence is constructed by concatenating the conjugated and circularly shifted replicas of a single root Zadoff-Chu (ZC) sequence in RA procedure. Moreover, we propose a novel impulse-like timing metric based on length-alterable differential cross-correlation (LDCC), that is immune to carrier frequency offset (CFO) and capable of mitigating the impact of noise on timing estimation. Statistical analysis of the proposed metric reveals that increasing correlation length can obviously promote the output signal-to-noise power ratio, and the first-path detection threshold is independent of noise statistics. Simulation results in different LEO scenarios validate the robustness of the proposed method to severe channel distortion, and show that our method can achieve significant performance enhancement in terms of timing estimation accuracy, success probability of first access, and mean normalized access energy, compared with the existing RA methods.

Aggregate Preamble Sequence Design and Detection for Massive IoT With Deep Learning

Massive Internet of Things (mIoT) is a major use case of the fifth generation (5G) wireless systems. mIoT aims to support a large number of connection requests from IoT devices. However, the conventional Long Term Evolution (LTE) random access procedure hinders the support of mIoT due to the limited number of available preambles. In this paper, we propose to aggregate two Zadoff-Chu preamble sequences from two different roots to obtain a larger set of preambles by considering all possible combinations of preamble sequence pairs. Decoding the aggregate preambles is challenging because the receiver needs to decode two preamble sequences where each one is allocated half of the transmit power. We propose two receiver architectures for preamble decoding. The first one is a threshold-based receiver which only requires minor changes to the LTE preamble receiver architecture. The second proposed preamble decoder architecture exploits a deep neural network. Simulations show that the proposed aggregate preamble design results in a lower service time for backlogged IoT devices compared to existing collision avoidance techniques. Moreover, the proposed receiver architectures can decode the aggregate preambles with low probabilities of misdetection and false alarm (less than 11%), especially in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime.

Efficient Cross-Correlation Algorithm for Correction of Common Phase Error Employing Preamble for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) Receivers

In this paper, we propose a cross-correlation algorithm for correction of common phase error (CPE) in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems with high implementation efficiency. CPE resulting from the impairment of orthogonality among subcarriers is due to phase noise. It leads to the offset of demodulated data and increases the bit error rate (BER) of the receivers. As a result, it significantly degrades the performance of wireless communication systems that use OFDM. Therefore, offset compensation algorithm must be adopted in the OFDM system. The phase offset is traditionally estimated and compensated by introducing pilots in each OFDM symbol. However, the BER performance of the traditional algorithm PCP is poor because it is limited by the quantity of the pilot constraints of the wireless communication standard. A novel CPE correction algorithm involved in time and frequency domain can be developed to solve this problem. The proposed algorithm takes advantage of preamble sequences to remove the limitation of the pilots and improve the BER performance. Numerical analyses show that the proposed algorithm presents better estimation performance in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. And the mean square error (MSE) is reduced to 10−3, which is lower than that of the traditional algorithm (10−2) at 10 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The BER is approximately down to10−5 at 12 dB SNR. The proposed algorithm can be easily implemented with low complexity of hardware for practical applications.

Parameter estimation and signal detection algorithm based on adaptive capture in non-cooperative communication

Aiming at the problem that the frequency offset in the non-cooperative communication system causes the received signal spectrum to shift, which exceeds the passband of the matched filter and affects the subsequent demodulation, a parameter estimation and signal detection algorithm based on adaptive capture is proposed by this paper, which is more convenient for hardware implementation and consumes less resources. The algorithm is divided into three parts. Firstly, use the correlation value between the signal and the preamble sequence as the basis for frequency capture. Secondly, the frequency is accurately estimated based on the interpolation algorithm. Finally, the phase-locked loop structure is used to track the frequency according to the characteristics of the frequency gradually changing and the signal frequency offset is eliminated in the Digital Down Converter stage. It provides necessary conditions for accurate signal detection and phase estimation. The simulation results show that the algorithm has high estimation accuracy, wide esti-mation range and low complexity. It can also achieve better estimation accuracy and detection performance under low signal-to-noise ratio.

Design of Downlink Synchronization for Millimeter Wave Cellular System Based on Multipath Division Multiple Access

This work focuses on the design of downlink receiver for future generation cellular systems. In the multipath division multiple access (MDMA) system, the initial synchronization process includes timing and carrier frequency synchronization as well as home cell search. For the proposed system, the user data is transmitted in time domain and the cell search is based on control signals transmitted in frequency domain simultaneously. Firstly, this paper presents a novel architecture for the joint detection and estimation of both the coarse symbol boundary and the fractional carrier frequency offset based on cyclic prefix in time domain. Secondly, a robust integer carrier frequency offset detection is performed with the primary control tone in frequency domain. Moreover, the position of the secondary control tones is used to obtain the cell ID. Finally, the preamble sequence carried by the secondary control tones is used to detect frame header through differential detection. The simulation results show the proposed synchronization algorithms can achieve detection failure rate less than 1% and the normalized residual carrier frequency offset is less than 5% under the interference of user data. Furthermore, a hardware design targeted at 200 Mbps per-user data rate is realized with memory arbiter to share memory.

New Satellite Random Access Preamble Design Based on Pruned DFT-Spread FBMC

Next generation satellite payload technology is expected to provide digital processing capabilities. This will pave the way to regard satellites as flying base stations. However, the initial access procedure must be improved. In this work we focus on non-geostationary earth orbit (NGEO) satellite networks. In this scenario, the random access preamble signal and the detection must be robust to large carrier frequency offsets (CFOs). Towards this end, we investigate the adoption of the pruned discrete Fourier transform spread filter bank multicarrier waveform. The proposed design is suitable for the access scheme of forthcoming 5G-based NGEO satellite communications. The reason is twofold. First, it improves the spectral confinement with respect to the standard single-carrier frequency-division multiplexing (SC-FDM) waveform. Second, it achieves a high level of commonality with 5G new radio, by keeping unchanged the subcarrier spacing, the slot duration and the preamble sequence. Remarkably, the new design allows the straightforward application of non-coherent post detection integration (NCPDI) techniques, which divide the correlation in blocks. Numerical results show that the proposed solution reduces out-of-band emissions and the missed detection probability in presence of CFO, with respect to the conventional approach based on SC-FDM and preamble detection with full-length correlation.

Low-PMEPR Preamble Sequence Design for Dynamic Spectrum Allocation in OFDMA Systems

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) with Dynamic spectrum allocation (DSA) is able to provide a wide range of data rate requirements. This paper is focused on the design of preamble sequences in OFDMA systems with low peak-to-mean envelope power ratio (PMEPR) property in the context of DSA. We propose a systematic preamble sequence design which gives rise to low PMEPR for possibly non-contiguous spectrum allocations. With the aid of Golay-Davis-Jedwab (GDJ) sequences, two classes of preamble sequences are presented. We prove that their PMEPRs are upper bounded by 4 for any DSA over a chunk of four contiguous resource blocks.