Investigation of the Timing/Frequency Synchronization and PAPR Reduction Techniques for Millimeter-Wave MIMO-OFDM Systems and Implementation of the Corresponding Software-Defined Radio Platform

For satisfying the growing demand of high data rates and good quality in wireless communications, IMT-Advanced (4G) seems to be a solution for future communication systems. This technology combines two powerful techniques, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) and multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antennas, in IMT-Advanced standard. Some predictions indicate that the mobile data will grow at a rate with over a thousand-fold increase over the next 10 years. In order to meet this exponential growth, improvement of the air interface capacity and allocation of new spectrum are the most important things for mobile communication systems. Due to the increasing popularity of smart phones and other mobile data devices, the spectrum below 3 GHz is becoming very crowded. But a vast amount of spectrum in the 3-300 GHz range, i.e., millimeter-wave band, remains unexploited. The availability of the unlicensed 60 GHz band also spurs interest in high-data-rate short-range wireless communication. Hence, millimeter-wave MIMO-OFDM communication technique seems to be a candidate for the next-generation mobile communication system. In this project, we focus on peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) reduction and synchronization problems in the millimeter-wave MIMO-OFDM systems. In our lab, we have accomplished an SISO-OFDM prototype system by using the Wireless open-Access Research Platform (WARP) developed by Rice University. We also have set a millimeter-wave communication system which transmits and receives LTE (Long Term Evolution) signals at 60 GHz band. In this project, we want to combine and expand these two existing systems to form a millimeter-wave MIMO-OFDM system that can transmit the self-designed MIMO-OFDM signals. We also want to investigate and verify the performance of the developed PAPR reduction and synchronization algorithms in this real millimeter-wave MIMO-OFDM system. We expect to use the OFDM reference design provided by the open resource of WARP to establish a completed millimeter-wave MIMO-OFDM transceiver system with multiple antennas and evaluate the transmission performance of the developed algorithms in this real circuitry system. We also expect the participated students in this project to have the ability to integrate the software and hardware design using the Xilinx System Generator and Simulink tools. We expect to accomplish the following items in two years: The First Year (August 2014 ~ July 2015): (1.1) Develop a systematic method to find all the possible SFBC coding patterns for millimeter-wave MIMO-OFDM PAPR reduction. (1.2) Investigate an optimal method to combine the above SFBC coding patterns to achieve significant PAPR reduction. (1.3) Improve the structure of STBC codes to develop the timing synchronization algorithms for millimeter-wave MIMO OFDM systems. (1.4) Develop PAPR reduction algorithms with SFBC coding for millimeter-wave MIMO-OFDM systems and accomplish the corresponding floating-point and fixed-point simulations. (1.5) Establish a simplified millimeter-wave MIMO-OFDM transceiver system using the WARP platform with the analog boards (RF circuits are not included). And let the participated students in this project to familiar with the co-design techniques for the Xilinx System Generator and Simulink tools. (1.6) Implement the developed algorithms in step (1.4) on the Platform developed in step (1.5) to verify the performance in real communication systems. The Second Year (August 2015 ~ July 2016): (2.1) Investigate the mathematical properties of the SFBC coding patterns found in step (1.1), finding the possible way to reduce the computational complexity of the encoding and decoding processes. (2.2) Utilize the method developed in [90] and [91] to reduce the computational complexity of the developed SFBC millimeter-wave MIMO-OFDM PAPR reduction algorithms. (2.3) Develop the timing and frequency synchronization algorithms for millimeter-wave MIMO OFDM systems and evaluate the joint performance for these two algorithms. (2.4) Verify the developed millimeter-wave MIMO-OFDM synchronization algorithms for multipath time and frequency selective channels. (2.5) Develop a low-complexity and high-performance algorithms in steps (2.2) and (2.4) for SFBC millimeter-wave MIMO-OFDM systems and accomplish the corresponding floating-point and fixed-point simulations. (2.6) Use the radio boards of WARP platform to establish a MIMO-OFDM transceiver system with multiple antennas. And let the participated students in this project to have the ability to integrate the software and hardware design using the Xilinx System Generator and Simulink tools. (2.7) Integrate the system developed in step (2.5) and (2.6) to form a completed millimeter-wave MIMO-OFDM transceiver system and evaluate the performance in real systems.

Project ID:PB10308-4318
External Project ID:MOST103-2221-E182-013