This paper introduces a unified method of spectrum sensing for all existing analog television (TV) signals including NTSC, PAL and SECAM. We propose a correlation based method (CBM) with a single reference signal for sensing any analog TV signals. In addition we also propose an improved energy detection method. The CBM approach has been implemented in a hardware prototype specially designed for participating in Singapore TV white space (WS) test trial conducted by Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) of the Singapore government. Analytical and simulation results of the CBM method will be presented in the paper, as well as hardware testing results for sensing various analog TV signals. Both AWGN and fading channels will be considered. It is shown that the theoretical results closely match with those from simulations. Sensing performance of the hardware prototype will also be presented in fading environment by using a fading simulator. We present performance of the proposed techniques in terms of probability of false alarm, probability of detection, sensing time etc. We also present a comparative study of the various techniques.

In this paper, ultra-wideband (UWB) multiple access systems are introduced by using direct-sequence (DS) and hybrid direct-sequence time-hopping (DS/TH) code division multiple access (CDMA) that use arbitrary chip-duty of the spreading sequences. The bit error probabilities are presented. First of all, the variances of the multiple access interference are developed by investigating the collision properties of the signals. Afterward, various approximations are applied. The standard Gaussian approximation (SGA) for the DS system is shown to become extremely optimistic as the chip-duty becomes low. Though the hybrid system performs better, the SGA still remains optimistic. To obtain accurate results, Holtzman's simplified improved Gaussian approximation (SIGA) and Morrow and Lehnert's improved Gaussian approximation (IGA) are used. A shortcoming of the SIGA is rediscovered that renders it unusable for low-duty DS systems, especially, at high signal-to-noise ratio. However, for the hybrid system, the SIGA works as an excellent tool. The IGA is used to get accurate results for the low-duty DS systems. It is shown that lowering of chip-duty by keeping chip rate and chip length unchanged improves performance for asynchronous DS and both asynchronous and synchronous hybrid systems. However, under the same processing gain, a high-duty system performs better than a low-duty system. Performance of synchronous DS system remains independent of chip-duty.

This paper proposes a hybrid multiband (MB) ultra wideband (UWB) system with direct sequence (DS) spreading. The theoretical error analysis for the DS-MB-UWB multiple access system with Rake receiver in the presence of multipath and narrowband interference is developed. The developed theoretical framework models the multiple access interference (MAI), multipath interference (MI) and narrowband interference for the designed UWB system. It is shown that the system error performance corresponding to the combining effects of these interference can be accurately modeled and calculated. Monte Carlo simulation results are provided to validate the accuracy of the model. Additionally, it is found that narrowband interference can be mitigated effectively in the multiband UWB system by suppressing the particular UWB sub-band co-existing with the interfering narrowband signal. A typical improvement of 5 dB can be achieved with 75% sub-band power suppression. On the other hand, suppression of UWB sub-band is also found to decrease frequency diversity, thus facilitating the increase of MAI. In this paper, the developed model is utilized to determine the parameters that optimize the UWB system performance by minimizing the effective interference.

Performance of Rake reception of Ultra Wideband (UWB) signals is evaluated from energy capture perspective. In addition to ordinary all Rake (ARake) and selective Rake (SRake) receivers which are considered in conventional spread spectrum communications, we introduce optimum ARake and SRake receivers which include the estimation of delay of the combining multipaths. Impact of pulse-width is discussed on their performances considering the relationship between pulse-width and fading. Time hopping M-ary pulse position modulation (TH-MPPM) and binary phase shift keying (TH-BPSK) are considered as modulation schemes. Extensive simulation results are presented showing the performances of the Rakes introduced using IEEE 802.15.3a UWB channel models (CM1 to CM3). Performance of MPPM is shown for various values of M and modulation parameters. The impact of pulse-width is illustrated mainly using BPSK. It is shown that the total energy capture (i.e. by ARake) strongly depends on the pulse-width, and the shorter the pulse-width the more is the amount. The energy capture also varies a lot for employing either optimum or ordinary Raking method. Energy capture by SRake additionally strongly depends on the number of combined paths until the number is 20 for optimum SRake and 10 for ordinary SRake; however, afterwards saturating effects are seen. Several aspects regarding the performance versus complexity issue of Rake receivers are also discussed.

In this paper, throughput and error performance analysis is conducted on the proposed space-time resource management (STRM) scheme to realize a multi-Gbps millimeter-wave wireless personal area network (WPAN) system. The proposed STRM allows multiple peer-to-peer communication links to occupy the same time-division-multiple-access (TDMA) time slot, in contrary to the conventional TDMA system that allocates only one time slot to one communication link. Theoretical analysis is performed to investigate the achievable system throughput in the presence of co-channel interference (CCI) generated by communication links co-sharing the same time slot. To increase accuracy, the analysis results are validated by Monte Carlo simulations. Firstly, it is found that the upper bound of the achievable throughput increases linearly with the number of communication links sharing the same time slot. However, optimum throughput exists corresponding to the CCI present in the system. Secondly, by manipulating a parameter that controls the allowable CCI in the network, the system throughput can be optimized. Lastly, it is also found that in a millimeter-wave band system, a victim system with transmitter-receiver separation of 1-meter can achieve bit error rate (BER) of 10-6 provided that the interferer is at least 6-meters away.

Performance of selective Rake (SRake) receiver is evaluated for direct sequence ultra wideband (DS-UWB) communications considering an independent Rayleigh channel having exponentially decaying power delay profile (PDP). BEP performances are shown. The results obtained are compared with similar results in a channel having flat PDP. Assumption of a flat PDP is found to predict the optimum spreading bandwidth to be lower and sub-optimum operating performance beyond optimum spreading bandwidth to be severely worse than that is achievable in a channel having exponentially decaying PDP by employing an SRake receiver having fixed number of combined paths. Optimum spreading bandwidth for SRake in a channel having exponentially decaying PDP is shown to be much larger than the one in a channel having flat PDP; that is specifically a good-news for UWB communications. Effects of partial band interference are also investigated. Interference is found to be less effective in exponentially decaying PDP.

Error performance of DS-CDMA is discussed over independent Rayleigh faded multipath channel employing selective Rake (SRake) receiver. Simple-to-evaluate and accurate error probabilities are given following Holtzman's simplified improved Gaussian approximation (SIGA). Comparing with SIGA, the validity of standard Gaussian approximation (SGA) is then verified. It is shown that SGA is accurate for SRake until some number of combined paths beyond which it becomes optimistic. It is also shown that as compared to single user performance, the SRake performance is relatively less degraded by multiple access interference (MAI) while the number of combined paths is small.

This paper presents the analysis on hidden node due to multiple transmission power level and its potential impact to system performance of White Space radio operating in the TV bands, a.k.a TV white space (TVWS). For this purpose, a generic interference model for determining the hidden node occurrence probability based on realistic physical (PHY) layer model is developed. Firstly, the generic hidden node interference model is constructed considering typical TVWS radio network deployment scenario. Emphasis is given on cases where the hidden node scenario involves multiple transmission power level. Secondly, the PHY layer design and channel propagation are modeled to analyze the realistic operating range of the TVWS radio. By combining the hidden node interference model and the PHY layer/propagation models, the realistic probability of hidden node occurrence is calculated. Finally, the performance degradation in the victim receiver due to interference generated by the potential hidden node is quantified. As a result, for urban environment, it is found that for networks consisting of devices with multiple transmit power level, the probability of hidden node occurrence is similar to that of networks consisting of devices with uni-transmit power level, provided that the interferer-victim separation distance in the former is 800 m farther apart. Furthermore, this number may increase to a maximum of 1.1 km in a suburban environment. Also, it is found that if the hidden node actually occurs, a co-channel interference (CCI) of -15 dB typically causes a degradation of 2 dB in the victim receiver.

In this paper, we present a coexistence protocol design for a coexistence information service to provide coexistence solutions among dissimilar or independently operated autonomous decision-making networks in a wireless communication environment over, specifically but not limited to, TV white space (TVWS) frequency bands. The designed coexistence protocol for the coexistence information service has three main functionalities: (1) To collect basic information of subscribed TVWS networks; (2) To support generating neighbor lists for the TVWS networks based on the geography information and/or propagation parameters; (3) To provide necessary information for TVWS networks to make coexistence decisions. Both theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the designed coexistence information service ensures harmonious communications among dissimilar networks and is able to achieve coexistence over an area with the limited number of available channels in white space.

This paper proposes a sensing method for TV signals of DVB-T standard to realize effective TV White Space (TVWS) Communication. In the TVWS technology trial organized by the Infocomm Development Authority (iDA) of Singapore, with regard to the sensing level and sensing time, detecting DVB-T signal at the level of -120 dBm over an 8 MHz channel with a sensing time below 1 second is required. To fulfill such a strict sensing requirement, we propose a smart sensing method which combines feature detection and energy detection (CFED), and is also characterized by using dynamic threshold selection (DTS) based on a threshold table to improve sensing robustness to noise uncertainty. The DTS based CFED (DTS-CFED) is evaluated by computer simulations and is also implemented into a hardware sensing prototype. The results show that the DTS-CFED achieves a detection probability above 0.9 for a target false alarm probability of 0.1 for DVB-T signals at the level of -120 dBm over an 8 MHz channel with the sensing time equals to 0.1 second.

Exact bit error probabilities (BEP) are derived in closed-form for binary pulsed direct sequence (DS-) and hybrid direct sequence time hopping code division multiple access (DS/TH-CDMA) systems that have potential applications in ultra-wideband (UWB) communications. Flat Nakagami fading channel is considered and the characteristic function (CF) method is adopted. An exact expression of the CF is obtained through a straightforward method, which is simple and good for any arbitrary pulse shape. The CF is then used to obtain the exact BEP that requires less computational complexity than the method based on improved Gaussian approximation (IGA). It is shown under identical operating conditions that the shape of the CF, as well as, the BEP differs considerably for the two systems. While both the systems perform comparably in heavily faded channel, the hybrid system shows better BEP performance in lightly-faded channel. The CF and BEP also strongly depend on chip length and chip-duty that constitute the processing gain (PG). Different combinations of the parameters may result into the same PG and the BEP of a particular system for a constant PG, though remains nearly constant in a highly faded channel, may vary substantially in lightly-faded channel. A comparison of the results from the exact method with those from the standard Gaussian approximation (SGA) reveals that the SGA, though accurate for both the systems in highly-faded channel, becomes extremely optimistic for low-duty systems in lightly-faded channel. The SGA also fails to track several other system trade-offs.

An exact expression of error rate is developed for maximal ratio combining (MRC) in an independent but not necessarily identically distributed frequency selective Nakagami fading channel taking into account inter-symbol, co-channel and adjacent channel interferences (ISI, CCI and ACI respectively). The characteristic function (CF) method is adopted. While accurate analysis of MRC performance cannot be seen in frequency selective channel taking ISI (and CCI) into account, such analysis for ACI has not been addressed yet. The general analysis presented in this paper solves a problem of past and present interest, which has so far been studied either approximately or in simulations. The exact method presented also lets us obtain an approximate error rate expression based on Gaussian approximation (GA) of the interferences. It is shown, especially while the channel is lightly faded, has fewer multipath components and a decaying delay profile, the GA may be substantially inaccurate at high signal-to-noise ratio. However, the exact results also reveal an important finding that there is a range of parameters where the simpler GA is reasonably accurate and hence, we don't have to go for more involved exact expression.

A simple exact error rate analysis is presented for random binary direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) considering a general pulse shape and flat Nakagami fading channel. First of all, a simple model is developed for the multiple access interference (MAI). Based on this, a simple exact expression of the characteristic function (CF) of MAI is developed in a straight forward manner. Finally, an exact expression of error rate is obtained following the CF method of error rate analysis. The exact error rate so obtained can be much easily evaluated as compared to the only reliable approximate error rate expression currently available, which is based on the Improved Gaussian Approximation (IGA).