CSMA/CA is a well known medium access mechanism extensively used in wireless networks. By detecting the carrier sensing (CS) signal, nodes determine whether the status of the wireless medium is busy or idle. However, recent works have shown that besides detecting the channel status, these signals can be used to derive the transmitted packet size at the nodes in the CS range. In this paper, we present the feasibility of this technique using CC2420 radio. In addition, we show how we can apply larger CS range and packet size detection to solve well-known problems such as reducing latency in the wireless sensor network (WSN). To our knowledge, the proposed solution is the first trial that applies such techniques to design the delay-sensitive scheduling for WSN. Based on our ns-2 simulation, we show that our proposal reduces latency significantly compared to the existing listen/sleep scheduling based protocols.

Power-line communication (PLC) technique is one method to realize high-speed communications in a home network. In PLC channels, the transmission signal quality is degraded by colored non-Gaussian noise as well as frequency-selectivity of the channels. In this paper, we describe our investigation of the performance of a OQAM-MCT system in which a noise canceller is used jointly with a time-domain per-subcarrier adaptive equalizer. Furthermore, we propose a noise cancellation method designed for the OQAM-MCT system. The performance of the OQAM-MCT system is evaluated in PLC channels with measured impulse responses in the presence of measured noise. Computer simulation results show that the bit rate of the OQAM-MCT system is improved using both an adaptive equalizer and noise canceller, and that the OQAM-MCT system achieves better performance than an OFDM system with an insufficient length of the guard interval.

In an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) receiver with direct-conversion architecture, carrier frequency offset (CFO) and direct-current offset (DCO), which cause severe performance degradation, need to be estimated and compensated. Recently, by investigating the subspace of OFDM signal after coarse DCO cancellation using time-domain average, we have proposed a nullspace-based estimator (NSE), for blind CFO and DCO estimation. In this paper, based on an analysis of the cost function of the NSE, we propose a common nullspace based estimator (CNSE). It is shown that by matching the frequency occupation of the received OFDM signal with CFO and DCO, the CNSE can achieve the full performance potential of the NSE. Also, the performance analysis reveals that the CNSE can asymptotically approach the Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) of OFDM CFO estimation in the presence of DCO. Finally the analysis results are confirmed by simulations.

This letter presents an efficient blind carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimate approach for multicarrier-code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) system. It can reduce the searching grids required and improve the CFO estimating accuracy compared with conventional searching-based algorithms. Simulation results are provided for illustrating the effectiveness of the proposed blind estimate approach.

In this paper, a new large spreading code set with a uniform low cross-correlation is proposed. The proposed code set is capable of (1) increasing the number of assigned user (capacity) in a multicarrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) system and (2) reducing the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system. In this paper, we derive a new code set and present an example to demonstrate performance improvements of OFDM and MC-CDMA systems. Our proposed code set with code length of N has K=2N+1 number of codes for supporting up to (2N+1) users and exhibits lower cross correlation properties compared to the existing spreading code sets. Our results with subcarrier N=16 confirm that the proposed code set outperforms the current pseudo-orthogonal carrier interferometry (POCI) code set with gain of 5 dB at bit-error-rate (BER) level of 10-4 in the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel and gain of more than 3.6 dB in a multipath fading channel.

In the Evolved UTRA (UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access) uplink, single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) radio access was adopted owing to its advantageous low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) feature, which leads to wide coverage area provisioning with limited peak transmission power of user equipments. This paper proposes orthogonal pilot channel generation using the combination of FDMA and CDMA in the SC-FDMA-based Evolved UTRA uplink. In the proposed method, we employ distributed FDMA transmission for simultaneous accessing users with different transmission bandwidths, and employ CDMA transmission for simultaneous accessing users with identical transmission bandwidth. Moreover, we apply a code sequence with a good auto-correlation property such as a Constant Amplitude Zero Auto-Correlation (CAZAC) sequence employing a cyclic shift to increase the number of sequences. Simulation results show that the average packet error rate performance using an orthogonal pilot channel with the combination of FDMA and CDMA in a six-user environment, i.e., four users each with a 1.25-MHz transmission bandwidth and two users each with a 5-MHz transmission bandwidth, employing turbo coding with the coding rate of R = 1/2 and QPSK and 16QAM data modulation coincides well with that in a single-user environment with the same transmission bandwidth. We show that the proposed orthogonal pilot channel structure using the combination of distributed FDMA and CDMA transmissions and the application of the CAZAC sequence is effective in the SC-FDMA-based Evolved UTRA uplink.

In this letter, we address a carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimator with a large estimation range for ultra-wideband multi-band orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (UWB MB-OFDM) systems. We find by simulations that the proposed CFO estimator yields an improved estimation range, maintaining the same estimation performance and complexity in comparison with the conventional estimator.

This letter describes a new QR-decomposition maximum likelihood detector that is combined with frequency-domain equalization for single-carrier transmission based multiple-input multiple-output systems. By utilizing the equalized substreams to adjust the frequency selectivity in corresponding substreams in subsequent stages, the packet error rate performances of the proposed detector is superior to that of the minimum mean squared error receiver by a factor of the receive antenna diversity gain.

We study in this paper the subchannel access and the rate assignment for the multicarrier multi-cell networks. For subchannel access, we show from theoretic results and simulation results that the scheme with only one user per cell in each subchannel outperforms the scheme with multiple users per cell in each subchannel. For rate assignment, a distributed rate assignment is proposed to assign the rate for all subchannels. The proposed rate assignment need not measure the channel gains and uses only local information to iteratively adjust the transmitting power and data rate. We prove that the aggregate rate can be increased by increasing the number of iterations in the proposed rate assignment.

In mobile communications, the channel consists of many resolvable paths with different time delays, resulting in a severely frequency-selective fading channel. The frequency-domain equalization (FDE) can take advantage of the channel selectivity and improve the bit error rate (BER) performance of the single-carrier (SC) transmission. Recently, multi-input multi-output (MIMO) multiplexing is gaining much attention for achieving very high speed data transmissions with the limited bandwidth. Eigenbeam space division multiplexing (E-SDM) is known as one of MIMO multiplexing techniques. In this paper, we propose frequency-domain SC E-SDM for SC transmission. In frequency-domain SC E-SDM, the orthogonal transmission channels to transmit different data in parallel are constructed at each orthogonal frequency. At a receiver, FDE is used to suppress the inter-symbol interference (ISI). In this paper, the transmit power allocation and adaptive modulation based on the equivalent channel gains after performing FDE are applied. The BER performance of the frequency-domain SC E-SDM in a severe frequency-selective Rayleigh fading channel is evaluated by computer simulation.

Due to the computational complexity of the optimum maximum likelihood detector (OMD) growing exponentially with the number of users, suboptimum techniques have received significant attention. We have proposed the particle swarm optimization (PSO) for the multiuser detection (MUD) in asynchronous multicarrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) system. The performance of PSO based MUD is near optimum, while its computational complexity is far less than OMD. Performance of PSO-MUD has also been shown to be better than that of genetic algorithm based MUD (GA-MUD) at practical SNR.

One of the disadvantages of using OFDM is the larger peak to averaged power ratio (PAPR) in its time domain signal as compared with the conventional single carrier modulation method. The larger PAPR signal would course the fatal degradation of bit error rate (BER) performance due to the inter-modulation noise occurring in the non-linear amplifier. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a simple PAPR reduction method by using dummy sub-carriers, which can achieve the better PAPR performance with less computational complexity than the conventional method. This paper presents various computer simulation results to verify the effectiveness of proposed method as comparing with the conventional method in the non-linear channel.

In MC-CDMA systems, subcarriers can be shared by different users. In this letter, we exploit the shared nature of subcarriers and propose a user grouping and subcarrier allocation algorithm for grouped MC-CDMA systems. The scheme aims at maximizing the total system throughput while providing bandwidth-fairness among groups. Simulation results are given to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm in terms of sum capacity and per-user throughput.

In this review paper we showcase recent activities on silicon photonics science and technology research in Hong Kong regarding two important topical areas--microresonator devices and optical nonlinearities. Our work on silicon microresonator filters, switches and modulators have shown promise for the nascent development of on-chip optoelectronic signal processing systems, while our studies on optical nonlinearities have contributed to basic understanding of silicon-based optically-pumped light sources and helium-implanted detectors. Here, we review our various passive and electro-optic active microresonator devices including (i) cascaded microring resonator cross-connect filters, (ii) NRZ-to-PRZ data format converters using a microring resonator notch filter, (iii) GHz-speed carrier-injection-based microring resonator modulators and 0.5-GHz-speed carrier-injection-based microdisk resonator modulators, and (iv) electrically reconfigurable microring resonator add-drop filters and electro-optic logic switches using interferometric resonance control. On the nonlinear waveguide front, we review the main nonlinear optical effects in silicon, and show that even at fairly modest average powers two-photon absorption and the accompanied free-carrier linear absorption could lead to optical limiting and a dramatic reduction in the effective lengths of nonlinear devices.

In one-cell-frequency-reuse Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access based Time Division Multiple Access (OF/TDMA) systems, communication is blocked by interference from adjacent cells. The most promising solution would be an adaptive modulation and coding scheme that is controlled by estimating the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR). However, there has so far been no way to accurately estimate the SIR using the spreading codes for OF/TDMA systems, because of the asynchronous fast Fourier transform (FFT). In this paper, we propose a novel SIR estimation method that uses a spread pulse-wave symbol and carrier interferometry. Moreover, to introduce multi- input multi-output systems, we modify the proposed method by allocating a different spreading code to each cell. Computer simulation confirmed that the SIR is estimated accurately even if the FFT is asynchronous. On cell boundaries, the average estimation errors that are a ratio between accurate and estimated propagation characteristics are less than 2 dB.

This paper proposes a novel Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) system based on polynomial cancellation coded OFDM (PCC-OFDM). This proposed system can reduce peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) by our neural phase rotator and it does not need any side information to transmit phase rotation factors. Moreover, this system can compensate the common phase error (CPE) by a proposed technique which allows estimating frequency offset at receiver. From numerical experiments, it is shown that our system can reduce PAPR and ICI at the same time and improve BER performance effectively.

The performance of single-carrier (SC) transmission in a frequency-selective fading channel degrades due to a severe inter-symbol interference (ISI). Using frequency-domain equalization (FDE) based on the minimum mean square error (MMSE) criterion can improve the bit error rate (BER) performance of SC transmission. However, the residual ISI after FDE limits the performance improvement. In this paper, we propose a joint use of Tomlinson-Harashima precoding (THP) and FDE to remove the residual ISI. An approximate conditional BER analysis is presented for the given channel condition. The achievable average BER performance is evaluated by Monte-Carlo numerical computation method using the derived conditional BER. The BER analysis is confirmed by computer simulation of the signal transmission.

Cognitive Radios (CRs) are expected to perform more significant role in the view of efficient utilization of the spectrum resources in the future wireless communication networks. In this paper, a cognitive radio coexisting with cellular systems is proposed. In the case that a cellular system adopts Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) as a multiplexing scheme, the proposed CR terminals communicate in local area on uplink channels of the cellular system with transmission powers that don't interfere with base stations of the cellular system. Alternatively, in the case that a cellular system adopts Time Division Duplex (TDD), the CR terminals communicate on uplink slots of the cellular system. However if mobile terminals in the cellular system are near the CR network, uplink signals from the mobile terminals may interfere with the CR communications. In order to avoid interference from the mobile terminals, the CR terminal performs carrier sense during a beginning part of uplink slot, and only when the level of detected signal is below a threshold, then the CR terminal transmits a signal during the remained period of the uplink slot. In this paper, both the single carrier CR network that uses one frequency channel of the cellular system and the multicarrier CR network that uses multiple frequency channels of the cellular system are considered. The probabilities of successful CR communications, the average throughputs of the CR communications according to the positions of the CR network, and the interference levels from cognitive radio network to base stations of the cellular system are evaluated in the computer simulation then the effectiveness of the proposed network is clarified.

A low complexity minimum mean squared error (MMSE) equalizer for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems over time-varying channels is presented. It uses a small matrix of dominant partial channel information and recursive calculation of matrix inverse to significantly reduce the complexity. Theoretical analysis and simulations results are provided to validate its significant performance or complexity advantages over the previously published MMSE equalizers.

A technique for suppressing the clipping noise of an analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) is proposed to realize a cognitive radio transceiver that offers high sensitivity carrier-sensing. When a large bandwidth cognitive radio transceiver performs carrier-sensing, it must receive a radio wave that includes many primary user transmissions. The radio wave may have high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) and clipping noise may be generated. Clipping noise becomes an obstacle to the achievement of high-sensitivity carrier-sensing. In the proposed technique, the original values of the samples clipped by an ADC are estimated by interpolation. Polynomial spline interpolation to the clipped signal is performed in the first step, and then SINC function interpolation is applied to the spline interpolated signal. The performance was evaluated using the signals with various PAPR. It has been found that suppression performance has a dependency on the number of samples clipped at once rather than on PAPR. Although there is an upper limit for the number of samples clipped at once that can be compensated with high accuracy, about 20 dB suppression of clipping noise was achieved with the medium degree of clipping.