Transceiver Imperfections Research Articles

Practical frequency-hopping MIMO joint radar communications: design and experiment

Joint Radar and Communications (JRC) can implement two Radio Frequency (RF) functions using a single of resources, providing significant hardware, power and spectrum savings for wireless systems requiring both functions. Frequency-Hopping (FH) MIMO radar is a popular candidate for JRC because the achieved communication symbol rate can greatly exceed the radar pulse repetition frequency. However, practical transceiver imperfections can cause many existing theoretical designs to fail. In this work, we reveal for the first time the non-trivial impact of hardware imperfections on FH-MIMO JRC and model the impact analytically. We also design new waveforms and correspondingly develop a low-complexity algorithm to jointly estimate the hardware imperfections of unsynchronized receiver. In addition, using low-cost software-defined radios and Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products, we build the first FH-MIMO JRC experimental platform with simultaneous over-the-air radar and communication validation. Confirmed by simulation and experimental results, the proposed designs achieve high performance for both radar and communications.

Towards a photonic integrated all-optical phase regenerator.

All-optical phase regeneration aims at restoring the phase information of coherently encoded data signals directly in the optical domain so as to compensate for phase distortions caused by transceiver imperfections and nonlinear impairments along the transmission link. Although it was proposed two decades ago, all-optical phase regeneration has not been seen in realistic networks to date, mainly because this technique entails complex bulk modules and relies on high-precision phase sensitive nonlinear dynamics, both of which are adverse to field deployment. Here, we demonstrate a new, to the best of our knowledge, architecture to implement all-optical phase regeneration using integrated photonic devices. In particular, we realize quadrature phase quantization by exploring the phase-sensitive parametric wave mixing within on-chip silicon waveguides, while multiple coherent pump laser tones are provided by a chip-scale micro-cavity Kerr frequency comb. Multi-channel all-optical phase regeneration is experimentally demonstrated for 40 Gbps QPSK data, achieving the best SNR improvement of more than 6 dB. Our study showcases a promising avenue to enable the practical implementation of all-optical phase regeneration in realistic long-distance fiber transmission networks.

Characterization, Measurement and Specification of Device Imperfections in Optical Coherent Transceivers

Transceiver imperfections become the primary source of impairment as baud rate and modulation order grow in advanced optical coherent communications. Thus, transceiver imperfections, both linear and nonlinear, need to be appropriately characterized, measured, and specified. Treatments for linear imperfections are relatively mature. This study reviews the transceiver's linear imperfection modeling, characterization, and measurement technologies. In practical applications, in-field measurement using the transceiver and a few low speed additional devices is preferred. In the case of nonlinear imperfections, the situation is complex. One important task is to estimate the nonlinear system performance from the nonlinear characteristics of the devices. In this study, we attempt to establish a connection between them by examining different technologies. Although the orthogonal component has a good correlation with nonlinear system performance, its measurement is prohibitively complex. In the nonlinear noise to power ratio measurement, a certain frequency component of the input signal is notched, and the re-growth component at the notch frequency is measured at the nonlinear device output. The ratio between the re-growth component power and the output signal power is the noise to power ratio. While this method is easy to carry out, it does not correctly estimate nonlinear impairment in general. The reason for this is that the signal incurs different nonlinear responses in two conditions, i.e., with or without a notch. This method accurately estimates the nonlinear impairment in some special but useful cases, such as Gaussian input signals and nonlinear systems whose dominant nonlinear term is the even order term.

Optimal Filter Length and Zero Padding Length Design for Universal Filtered Multi-Carrier (UFMC) System

Universal filtered multi-carrier (UFMC) systems offer a flexibility of filtering arbitrary number of subcarriers to suppress out of band (OoB) emission, while keeping the orthogonality between subcarriers and robustness to transceiver imperfections. Such properties enable it as a promising candidate waveform for Internet of Things (IoT) communications. However, subband filtering may affect system performance and capacity in a number of ways. In this paper, we first propose the conditions for interference-free one-tap equalization and corresponding signal model in the frequency domain for UFMC system. The impact of subband filtering on the system performance is analyzed in terms of average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), capacity and bit error rate (BER) and compared with the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system. This is followed by filter length selection strategies to provide guidelines for system design. Next, by taking carrier frequency offset (CFO), timing offset (TO), insufficient guard interval between symbols and filter tail cutting (TC) into consideration, an analytical system model is established. In addition, a set of optimization criteria in terms of filter length and guard interval/filter TC length subject to various constraints is formulated to maximize the system capacity. Numerical results show that the analytical and corresponding optimal approaches match the simulation results, and the proposed equalization algorithms can significantly improve the BER performance.

Subband Filtered Multi-Carrier Systems for Multi-Service Wireless Communications

Flexibly supporting multiple services, each with different communication requirements and frame structure, has been identified as one of the most significant and promising characteristics of next generation and beyond wireless communication systems. However, integrating multiple frame structures with different subcarrier spacing in one radio carrier may result in significant inter-service-band-interference (ISBI). In this paper, a framework for multi-service (MS) systems is established based on a subband filtered multi-carrier system. The subband filtering implementations and both asynchronous and generalized synchronous (GS) MS subband filtered multi-carrier (SFMC) systems have been proposed. Based on the GS-MS-SFMC system, the system model with ISBI is derived and a number of properties on ISBI are given. In addition, low-complexity ISBI cancelation algorithms are proposed by precoding the information symbols at the transmitter. For asynchronous MS-SFMC system in the presence of transceiver imperfections, including carrier frequency offset, timing offset, and phase noise, a complete analytical system model is established in terms of desired signal, inter-symbol-interference, inter-carrier-interference, ISBI, and noise. Thereafter, new channel equalization algorithms are proposed by considering the errors and imperfections. Numerical analysis shows that the analytical results match the simulation results, and the proposed ISBI cancelation and equalization algorithms can significantly improve the system performance in comparison with the existing algorithms.

Cyclic Prefix-Based Universal Filtered Multicarrier System and Performance Analysis

Recently proposed universal filtered multicarrier (UFMC) system is not an orthogonal system in multipath channel environments and might cause significant performance loss. In this paper, the authors propose a cyclic prefix (CP) based UFMC system and first analyze the conditions for interference-free one-tap equalization in the absence of transceiver imperfections. Then the corresponding signal model and output signal-to-noise ratio expression are derived. In the presence of carrier frequency offset, timing offset, and insufficient CP length, the authors establish an analytical system model as a summation of desired signal, intersymbol interference, intercarrier interference, and noise. New channel equalization algorithms are proposed based on the derived analytical signal model. Numerical results show that the derived model matches the simulation results precisely, and the proposed equalization algorithms improve the UFMC system performance in terms of bit error rate.

Enabling Massive IoT in 5G and Beyond Systems: PHY Radio Frame Design Considerations

The parameters of physical layer radio frame for 5th generation (5G) mobile cellular systems are expected to be flexibly configured to cope with diverse requirements of different scenarios and services. This paper presents a frame structure and design, which is specifically targeting Internet of Things (IoT) provision in 5G wireless communication systems. We design a suitable radio numerology to support the typical characteristics, that is, massive connection density and small and bursty packet transmissions with the constraint of low-cost and low complexity operation of IoT devices. We also elaborate on the design of parameters for random access channel enabling massive connection requests by IoT devices to support the required connection density. The proposed design is validated by link level simulation results to show that the proposed numerology can cope with transceiver imperfections and channel impairments. Furthermore, the results are also presented to show the impact of different values of guard band on system performance using different subcarrier spacing sizes for data and random access channels, which show the effectiveness of the selected waveform and guard bandwidth. Finally, we present system-level simulation results that validate the proposed design under realistic cell deployments and inter-cell interference conditions.

Novel Scalable MIMO Channel Sounding Technique and Measurement Accuracy Evaluation With Transceiver Impairments

This paper presents a novel multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) channel sounding technique with a fully parallel transceiver architecture that employs a layered scheme of frequency and space-time division multiplexing. It offers inherent scalability of the number of antennas by a combination of multiple transceiver units and flexibility for both directional MIMO channel and multi-link MIMO channel measurements. This paper describes the principle of the channel sounding technique and formulates the signal processing that makes possible various scalable unit configurations. The influence of the transceiver imperfections such as I/Q imbalance (IQI) and phase noise (PN) on the measurement accuracy is discussed, and a multitone allocation scheme that is robust against IQI is also introduced. Using computer simulations, the measurement accuracy in the presence of IQI and PN is evaluated using the normalized mean square error, which provides a design guideline for the realization of hardware.