Frequency-selective fading due to multipath propagation is serious hindrance in high-speed TDMA mobile communications. An adaptive antenna has been proposed to reduce the frequency-selective fading and realize path-diversity. This paper presents a criterion which selects multipath signals and weighting factors for combining them. First, we describe a selection criterion which chooses the multipath signals for the path-diversity. We propose a ratio of signal power to error power for the criterion. Furthermore, we propose weighting factors which realize approximately the maximal ratio combining. Computer simulation results show that the proposed selection criterion and weighting factors reveal excellent performance.

This paper theoretically analyzed the performance of the RAKE combining (in the time domain), maximal ratio combining (in the spatial domain), and two-dimensional RAKE combining (in the spatial and time domains) techniques for multipath fading environments, where multipath waves are distributed in the spatial and time domains. The analysis was based on a diversity combining technique that employed the eigenvalues of the covariance matrix between branch signals. It was found that the performance of the fading mitigation was normalized by the beamwidth of an array antenna, for various parameters such as the number of antenna elements, angular spread, and angle of arrival.

This paper describes a nonblind digital beamformer for SDMA (space division multiple access) systems used when channels are power-limited. An array antenna with many elements is usually required to obtain high antenna gain for the reception of a low-level desired signal and the degree of freedom for the spatial discrimination of many users using the same frequency. The proposed beamformer is designed for such array antennas by employing the combination of a multibeam former and a maximal-ratio-combining (MRC) technique. The MRC technique is extended to a nonblind combiner that uses a training sequence contained in the desired signal. Basic analysis and numerical simulations of its performance, under the power-limited condition and with fixed user terminals, show that the speed and robustness of desired-signal acquisition and undesired-signal suppression may outperform recursive-least-squares (RLS) beamformer with less computation, when it is applied to an array antenna with many elements.

In uplink data communication in wireless networks, a portable computer may retransmit a packet multiple times before the base station receives the correct one. Each retransmission consumes communication bandwidth and battery energy of the portable computer. Therefore, it is desirable to reduce the number of retransmissions. In this paper, we propose the aggressive packet combining scheme for this purpose. The base station executes this scheme to combine multiple erroneous copies as follows: (1) perform bit-by-bit majority voting on the erroneous copies to produce a combined packet, (2) identify the least reliable bits in this combined packet, and (3) search the correct bit pattern for these bits. Then the base station may recover the correct packet, thereby reducing the mean number of retransmissions. The proposed scheme has several advantages: (1) it is more powerful than the majority packet combining scheme, (2) it can complement many existing ARQ protocols to improve their performance, (3) it does not add additional bits to the packet and hence it does not consume extra bandwidth in the wireless channel, and (4) it is only executed by the base station and hence the portable transceiver can be kept simple. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme is more bandwidth-efficient and energy-efficient than the majority packet combining scheme.

This paper proposes a new maximal ratio combining (MRC) frequency diversity automatic-repeat-request (ARQ) scheme suitable for high-speed orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems that is based on the conventional packet combining ARQ scheme. The proposed scheme regularly changes the previously prepared subcarrier assignment pattern at each retransmission according to the number of retransmissions. This scheme sharply reduces the number of ARQ retransmissions and much improves the throughput performance in slow fading environments by virtue of the frequency diversity effect while it requires no complex adaptive operations. Computer simulation results show that the proposed scheme reduces the required number of retransmissions to about 3 at the accumulative correct packet reception rate (ACPRR) of 0.9.

This paper proposes a novel DS/CDMA system with code-diversity techniques constituted by a simple system to suppress multiple access interference (MAI) without estimating the PN sequence of interference at the receiver. In the transmitter, the data signal is modulated with a sum of several PN sequences, and, two types of code- diversity reception are proposed, (1) maximal-ratio combining (MRC) code-diversity by autocorrelation, and (2) MRC code-diversity by anti-crosscorrelation. By computer simulations, it is shown that MRC code-diversity by anti-crosscorrelation is superior to the other one. It is also shown that MRC code-diversity by anti-crosscorrelation can improve BER more effectively for the interference which takes the phase to degrade BER at the worst. Next, to design the optimum number of branches for code-diversity, average BERs are calculated for several combinations of codes in code-diversity. As a result, the optimum number of branches varies for each combination of codes, however, it is decided from 3 to 7 branches. Finally, the effectivity of the proposed system in a near-far problem is presented.

In coupled oscillator arrays, it is possible to control the inter-element phase shift up to 180 by free-running frequency distribution based on injection-locking phenomenon. In this paper, a new technique to control the inter-element phase shift electronically up to the maximum extent of 360 is reported. Oscillators are unilaterally coupled to the preceding oscillator through one of the two paths, which differ from each other 180 in electrical length and each includes an amplifier. Turning on the desired amplifier one can control the phase shift either -180 to 0 or 0 to 180. The technique was applied in a three-element oscillator array each coupled to a patch antenna via a round aperture. The radiation beam of the array could be scanned 47 in total.

Design of circularly polarized active antennas of dual-fed square patch type is given, and spatial power combining and phased array operation of the antennas have been successfully achieved. In a phased array experiment of the arrays with two and three active antennas by the method of varying their free-running oscillation frequencies, we obtained the scan angles from -12 to +13 and those from -13 to +13, respectively, and good axial ratios together with high spatial power-combining efficiencies.

An efficient ARQ scheme based on the packet combining technique is investigated for multi-carrier modulation systems. In multi-carrier modulation systems, several sub-carriers are used for high data rate transmission and their individual received signal quality becomes different from one sub-carrier to others in a frequency selective fading channel. Therefore by changing the assignment of data to the sub-carriers in the retransmission packets, the distortion between the previous transmitted packet and the newly retransmitted one will be different. This is the principle of the proposed adaptive data order rearrangement for a packet combining ARQ scheme, which can achieve more diversity gain in packet combining and improve the ARQ performance. From the results of the theoretical analysis and the computer simulation, it is confirmed that the proposed packet combining ARQ with the proposed operation can achieve the better performance in terms of the average packet transmission success probability. In addition, this proposed scheme is also compared with the conventional multi-carrier modulation ARQ scheme based on the partial retransmission of a packet. The computer simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme has also advantage against the latter one, and it is considered to be as a more efficient ARQ scheme for multi-carrier modulation systems.

In a multi-bandwidth CDMA system, the performance of a multiple order selection combining rake receiver is analyzed according to the spreading bandwidth of the system and the delay spread of a Rayleigh fading channel. The results for various channel environments indicate a tradeoff between total received signal energy and multipath fading immunity. Increasing the occupied bandwidth of the system (wide-bandwidth spreading) gives better performance for small delay spread environments, while gathering more energy (narrow-bandwidth spreading) gives better performance for large delay spread environments. It is also shown that the performance difference between low and high order selection combining grows larger as the spreading bandwidth is increased. It is noted that performance degrades by increasing the bandwidth above a certain point and the optimum spreading bandwidth for each channel environment decreases as the delay spread of the channel increases.

A RAKE combiner based on a matched filter (MF) can be relatively easily implemented since the despread signal components that have propagated along different paths appear sequentially at the MF output. An important design problem is how to accurately select the paths having sufficiently large signal-to-noise power ratios (SNRs). This paper proposes a simple path selection algorithm that uses two selection thresholds. The first threshold is to select the paths that provide largest SNRs. However, as the total received signal power (sum of the signal powers of all paths) decreases, some of the selected paths become noisy. Therefore, we introduce a second threshold that discards the noisy or noise-only paths from among those selected by the first threshold. We apply the proposed path selection algorithm to a pilot symbol-assisted coherent RAKE combiner and find by computer simulations a near optimum set of the two thresholds in frequency selective multipath Rayleigh fading channels. Several power delay profile shapes are considered. The simulation results demonstrate that the MF-based RAKE combiner with the two selection thresholds can achieve a bit-error-rate (BER) performance close to the ideal case (i. e. , the paths to be used for RAKE combining are selected for each power delay profile such that the required signal energy per information bit-to-noise spectrum density ratio (Eb/N0) is minimized).

An improved pilot symbol-assisted channel estimation filter, called the weighted multi-slot averaging(WMSA)channel estimation filter, is presented for DS-CDMA transmission links using coherent RAKE combining. Known pilot symbols are periodically time-multiplexed with the sequence of transmitted data symbols; they are placed at the beginning of each data slot. The WMSA channel estimation filter extends the observation interval over several slots. The average bit error rate (BER) performance achievable with coherent RAKE combining using the proposed WMSA channel estimation filter is evaluated by computer simulations in a frequency selective multipath Rayleigh fading channel and the results are compared with those achievable with the use of other channel estimation filters such as an interpolation filter. The DS-CDMA reverse link requires fast transmit power control(TPC). In this paper, we also consider fast TPC based on the measurement of signal-to-interference plus background noise ratio(SIR). The average BER performance with the time-multiplexed pilot channel is also compared with that with the parallel pilot channel.

The final closed-form expression of the bit error rate (BER) is presented for a DS-CDMA system using a maximal ratio combining (MRC) diversity in conjunction with simple channel coding over a Rician fading channel. The accuracy of the BER evaluated by this expression is verified through comparison with a semi-analytic simulation result. The effect of diversity order and channel coding on the bit error rate performance is also considered for typical multipath delay profiles with different Rician ratios.

An equivalent circuit for designing a coherent power combiner using a quasi-optical resonator has been developed. In the resonator, large numbers of devices (HEMT, HBT, etc. ) are arrayed two dimensionally and mounted on a surface of a metal grooved-mirror. A newly developed equivalent circuit for the resonator has been constructed using a transmission-line model. Experiments performed at Ku-band have shown that oscillation frequencies in a 33 HEMT array oscillator can be predicted with errors of less than 1% by using this equivalent circuit.

Field experiments using the 2 GHz carrier frequency band were conducted nearby Tokyo to evaluate the effect of joint use of Rake combining and antenna diversity and also the effect of spreading chip rate (or bandwidth) on the achievable bit error rate (BER) performance and the mobile station transmit power distribution of power controlled coherent DS-CDMA reverse-link (mobile-to-base). Four chip rates, 0. 96, 1. 92, 3. 84, and 7. 68 Mcps, were used. The command interval and power step size of the fast transmission power control (TPC) used in the experiments, 1. 25 ms and 1 dB, respectively, were based on measurements of signal-to-interference plus background noise power ratio (SIR) after Rake combining. The field experiments demonstrate that the joint use of antenna diversity and Rake combining significantly improves the BER performance and, furthermore, that increasing the chip rate improves the BER performance and decreases the transmit power because of enhanced Rake combining through an increase in the number of resolved paths.

A maximal-ratio-combining (MRC) digital beamformer has been studied to attain open-loop and automatic self-beam steering towards both desired and multipath signals at the same time and diversity combining of the signals, which are made possible by spatial digital signal processing. This paper describes the performance of this beamformer under the multipath signal arrivals with various path delays using numerical simulation, aimed at application to future mobile radios with high spatial utilization efficiency. The results indicate the robustness of the MRC beamformer in a multipath environment. It features multidirectional beam steering when there is small path delay in the multipath signal and gain suppression in multipath signals when their path delay is more than about one symbol. Moreover, improvement in suppression by employing low-sidelobe amplitude distribution is discussed as a means to reduce inter-symbol interference without null-beam steering.

Fast transmit power control (TPC) adaptively controls the mobile terminal transmit power so that the instantaneous signal-to-interference plus background noise ratio's (SIR's) of received signals of all users at the base station receiver are kept at the target value to avoid the adverse effect of multipath fading as well as the near/far problem. This paper theoretically analyzes the power efficiency of power controlled DS-CDMA reverse link assuming ideal Rake combining under multi-user and multipath Rayleigh fading environments. The achievable bit error rate (BER) performance is evaluated as a function of average and peak transmit powers required at mobile terminals. The effect of number of resolved paths is discussed. It is shown that the required peak transmit power with fast TPC is larger than that without fast TPC for relatively large BER values; however, when the link is interference-limited, fast TPC achieves significantly larger link capacity.

The transmission performance of DS-CDMA forward link with orthogonal spreading and Rake combining is evaluated under multipath fading environments. A simple-to-use expression for the conditional instantaneous signal-to-interference plus background noise power ratio (SIR) is derived, assuming an M-finger Rake combiner. Using the derived expression, the forward link SIRs of either orthogonal spreading or random spreading can be conveniently computed. The link performance in terms of the average bit error rate (BER) and capacity (the maximum number of allowable users) is evaluated by a Monte Carlo simulation assuming ideal BPSK data modulation. In frequency selective multipath fading, the orthogonality of the forward link is destroyed to some extent and link performance approaches that of random spreading. The extent of orthogonality destruction depends on the multipath channel power delay profile shape and number of resolved paths (for an exponential profile, it is defined as the number of stronger resolved paths that capture 90% of the total received power); so their influences on the link performance are discussed. Also simulated is the distribution of the BERs in a radio coverage area taking into account the path loss and shadowing to evaluate the link capacity at a certain outage probability.

For the power controlled DS-CDMA reverse link, two important issues must be addressed when using a Rake combiner with a limited path diversity order (defined as the number of resolved paths used for combining): the decrease in link capacity and the increase in peak transmit power. The peak transmit power is an important design parameter of transmit power amplifiers. In this paper, expressions for the achievable capacity and required peak transmit power under an multi-cell environment are developed. Based on the developed expressions, the relative capacity and required peak transmit power are evaluated theoretically and by Monte Carlo simulations under multipath Rayleigh fading environments with uniform and exponential power delay profiles. The effects of Rake based on maximal ratio combining (MRC) and selection combining (SC) are compared. The influence of the power delay profile shapes is also discussed.

Several types of transmission-line coupling are analyzed to use in one- and two-dimensional active antenna arrays, and a method is developed to scan the beam of the arrays using the mutual locking theory. To compensate the undesired effect of strong radiative coupling of the nearest neighbor elements on the phased array performance, addition of resistive stubs to the end elements is proposed. In a 14 array it was observed that after the connection of resistive stubs, the scanning range of the array increased considerably. The effect of oscillator amplitudes on the phased array behavior is explored numerically. In the experiments main beam of 22 and 33 active antenna arrays were steered up to 25 and 15, respectively in the H-plane.