As the demand for communications via satellite is rapidly increasing, techniques that produce large traffic capacity are becoming more and more appreciated. We present a class of block coded modulation (BCM) and multiple block coded modulation (MBCM) schemes in this paper. While the BCM scheme is directly derived from our previous work, the MBCM schemes are newly developed using a technique of multiple symbol transmission via a single trellis branch. This class of BCM and MBCM schemes is both power and bandwidth efficient. They also have an advantage in holding both a trellis and a block structure. Code structures, decoding trellises and the corresponding branch variables of these BCM and MBCM schemes are all derived. Their applications to satellite communications are discussed. Computer simulations are performed to verify coding gain performance.

Multipath propagation of radio signal introduces frequency selectivity. OFDMA systems greatly suffer from frequency selective fading. It is an important limit factor of performance of OFDMA systems, especially in subband based multiple user access scehems. In this paper, we propose the method of subband selection and handover to improve the system performance over the frequency selective channel. Two subband selection algorithms are presented to accurately select the subband with high channel gain and avoid the channel notch. The random access procedure employing subband selection is presented as an example. The effects of the subband selection are also given. The selection effectively improves the performances of frame synchronization, frequency synchronization, channel estimation, and bit error rate (BER). The investigations show that the proposed scheme is promising to reliable communications over frequency selective fading channel.

To improve frequency efficiency or user capacity in multi-path fading environments, we introduce and investigate an orthogonal multi-carrier frequency hopping-code division multiple access (FH-CDMA). These improvements are achieved by combining the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and FH-CDMA schemes. The basic idea has been previously proposed by the authors. The aim of study in this paper is to evaluate the performance of this scheme in various environments. The theoretical analysis of bit error rate (BER) performance in this paper includes the effects of frequency selective fading in land mobile communications and of nonlinear amplification in satellite communications. A modified scheme of controlling transmission power to be controlled according to the number of simultaneously accessing users is also discussed. This modified scheme improves BER performance for frequency selective fading when the number of simultaneously accessing users in a cellular zone is small. Furthermore, an error-correcting code and its erasure decoding are applied in order to reduce errors due to hits in asynchronous FH/CDMA for reverse link as well as errors due to fading and noise.

The Communications Research Laboratory (CRL) started a new project named the New Generation Mobile Network Project in April 2002. The target of this project is the development of new technologies to enable seamless and secure integration of various wireless access networks such as 3rd and 4th generation cellular, wireless LAN, high-speed mobile wireless, wired communications, and broadcasting networks. This paper presents an overview of CRL's new generation mobile communication system that is called The Multimedia Integrated Network by Radio Access Innovation Plus (MIRAI+), as well as details the role of Software Radio Technology (SDR) in MIRAI+.

In this letter, we investigate the performance of using subband adaptive loading for the combination of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and adaptive antenna array. The frequency-domain adaptive loading is very effective to deal with the frequency-selective fading which is inevitable in broadband wireless communications. However, almost all of the existing adaptive loading algorithms are based on "subcarrier-to-subcarrier" mode which may results in awfully large signaling overhead, since every subcarrier needs its own signaling loop between the transmitter and receiver. We investigate the performance of the combination of OFDM and adaptive antenna array when a subband adaptive loading algorithm is used to decrease the signaling overhead. It is shown by simulation results that at the cost of some tolerable performance loss, the signaling overhead of adaptive loading can be greatly reduced.

In orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission schemes, nonlinear distortion from high power amplifiers and phase noise due to oscillator instability are potentially serious problems, especially in millimeter-wave transmission systems. In this paper, we investigate and compare the combined effects on uncoded and coded OFDM signals of amplifier nonlinearity and phase noise from silicon-based devices. An analytical parametric formulation of system performance is presented. The theoretical results were in complete agreement with the computer simulation results. Total degradation was greatly reduced by applying a suppression scheme to compensate for the constant phase rotation in coded OFDM systems. In addition, the total coding gain defined for systems with different high-level M-QAM modulation was shown to increase with M.