Software Radio Signal Research Articles

Peak power control in cognitive radio context

Transmitter non-linear components cause distortions when a signal with high Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR) is transmitted. High PAPR is a parameter commonly associated to the multi-carrier signals like Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and Software Radio (SWR). Since SWR is an enabling technology for Cognitive Radio (CR), the signals demonstrate high PAPR in CR context as well. Upon opportunistic spectrum access in CR, PAPR further increases as more carriers (secondary carriers) are added in an already large numbered multi-carrier signal (primary signal). This paper explores the PAPR variations on spectrum access in CR context. Also, the reduction of PAPR in SWR and CR is performed using Tone Reservation (TR). In TR, certain carriers of the data signal are reserved to create a peak reducing signal which on addition to the data signal reduces its peak power. These carriers are called peak reducing carriers (PRC). At first, PAPR is reduced for different SWR signal scenarios. Then the influence of bandwidth, position and power of PRC on he PAPR reduction performance is discussed. Finally, CR PAPR is reduced by presenting a joint pectrum access scheme which implies a part of secondary data carriers as PRC to reduce CR PAPR.

Frequency domain interpretation of power ratio metric for cognitive radio systems

SoftWare radio (SWR) is an enabling technology for cognitive radio (CR) systems which promises to (de) modulate any signal, at any frequency. SWR signal therefore is composed of different standard's signals, and each standard's signal is either multicarrier or multiplex of single carriers. This combination leads to high temporal fluctuations and thus SWR signal inherits high peak to average power ratio (PAPR) or simply high power ratio (PR). Nonlinear analogue components (amplifiers, converters etc.) cause distortions (in and out of band distortion) for high PR signals which result in system performance degradation. Usually PR problem is addressed in time domain, and here frequency domain interpretation of PR which is more appropriate in SWR context is presented. Gaussian equivalence between SWR signal and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal is proved first to accentuate high PR issue in SWR as OFDM suffers the same problem. Then frequency domain interpretation of PR metric is discussed which results in a PR upper bound. This PR upper bound depends only upon spectral values of the signal thus associates spectrum with PR. As a result this bound assists in spectrum access for CR systems by providing PR metric information related to any available bandwidth. Thus bandwidth allocation in a spectrum access scenario under PR constraint is simplified.