By: Eyosias Yoseph Imana

Motivation and significance

Underlying philosophy
The actual work and results
Contributions

We use multiple of them at the same time

The gadgets use wireless connectivity
They generate a large amount of wireless traffic

1000x
Source: CISCO
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/serviceprovider/visual-networking-index-vni/white_paper_c11-520862.html

Source: FCC

http://www.hightechforum.org/spectrum-deficit-disorder/

We need to address this challenge!!!

The lower frequencies are already crowded

The wireless industry needs to be allocated with additional
spectrum

Exploiting sparsely used millimeter wave (mmWave) bands

Spectrum sharing between the federal government and the
wireless industry through Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA)

 We need to expedite the adoption of mmWave and DSA

technologies into the main-street of the wireless industry
We do this by addressing the technical challenges related to
these technologies

Exploiting sparsely used millimeter wave (mmWave) bands

Spectrum sharing between the federal government and the
wireless industry through Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA)

Poor receiver selectivity is a challenge for both

mmWave and DSA technologies

What is receiver selectivity?

Highly selective pre-selector

Poorly selective pre-selector

Consider a 1%, -10 dB bandwidth filter

Used in Verizon phones

A 1% filter has bandwidth of 10 MHz at

1 GHz band

A 1% filter has bandwidth of 300 MHz at

30 GHz band (mmWave band)
Reception
Bandwidth > 300 MHz

Signal
Bandwidth < 20 MHz

Source: Yaiyo Yuden

http://www.yuden.co.jp/productdata/sheet/B4UQ.pdf

> 300 MHz

Needs high-performance ADCs

Large guard
bands

Poor selectivity is expected to be a challenge in

mmWave-based communications

In DSA, a secondary user uses a frequency band when the incumbent

user is not active
There may be multiple shared frequency bands
The incumbent may be frequency hopping

Frequency

Frequency

DSA may have to use tunable filters

Electronically-tunable filters are poorly selective

Source: Yaiyo Yuden

http://www.yuden.co.jp/productdata/sheet/B4UQ.pdf

2% selectivity
Poor selectivity is expected to
be a challenge in DSA-based
communications
In average 15% selectivity

Do not attempt to improve selectivity

Accept poor-selectivity
Design the rest of the receiver assuming poor
selectivity

A new modeling concept is developed for poorlyselective receivers

Using this model, a Cognitive RF front-end (CogRF)

control mechanism is developed to improve the
performance of the poorly-selective receivers

A concept of using auxiliary path to combat very strong

neighboring-channel signals is also developed

Motivation and significance

Underlying philosophy
The actual work and results
Contributions

1st Nyquisit Zone

INPUT
SEPECTRUM

MIXER OUTPUT
-fs

DC

fs

fs/2

Baseband frequency

RF frequency
Antenna
No
Pre-selector

LNA
OUTPUT

fLO

LNA

Mixer

Baseband Filter

fLO

RF frequency

ADC

ADC -fs/2 fs
OUTPUT

DSP

DC

+fs/2

DSP frequency

1st Nyquisit Zone

INPUT
SEPECTRUM

MIXER OUTPUT
-fs

DC

fs

fs/2

Baseband frequency

RF frequency
Antenna
No
Pre-selector

LNA
OUTPUT

fLO

LNA

Mixer

Baseband Filter

fLO

RF frequency

ADC

ADC -fs/2 fs
OUTPUT

DSP

DC

+fs/2

DSP frequency

1st Nyquisit Zone

INPUT
SEPECTRUM

Antenna
Pre-selector

LNA
OUTPUT

fLO

MIXER OUTPUT
-fs

DC

Baseband frequency

RF frequency
LNA

fs

fs/2

Mixer

Baseband Filter

fLO

RF frequency

ADC

ADC -fs/2 fs
OUTPUT

DSP

DC

+fs/2

DSP frequency

1st Nyquisit Zone

INPUT
SEPECTRUM

MIXER OUTPUT
-fs

DC

fs

fs/2

Baseband frequency

RF frequency
Antenna
No
Pre-selector

LNA
OUTPUT

fLO

LNA

Mixer

Baseband Filter

fLO

RF frequency

ADC

ADC -fs/2 fs
OUTPUT

DSP

DC

+fs/2

DSP frequency

1st Nyquisit Zone

INPUT
SEPECTRUM

MIXER OUTPUT
DC

fs/2

Baseband frequency

RF frequency
Antenna
No
Pre-selector

LNA
OUTPUT

fLO

LNA

Mixer

Baseband Filter

fLO

RF frequency

ADC

ADC -fs/2 fs
OUTPUT

DSP

DC

+fs/2

DSP frequency

1st Nyquisit Zone

INPUT
SEPECTRUM

MIXER OUTPUT
DC

fs/2

The energy re-distribution in receivers is controllable

Baseband frequency
RF frequency
The energy
re-distribution
process
can
be
controlled
using the
Antenna
sampling andNoLocal LNA
Oscillator
(LO)
frequencies
of theDSP
receiver
Mixer
Baseband Filter
ADC
Pre-selector

LNA
OUTPUT

fLO

fLO

RF frequency

ADC -fs/2 fs
OUTPUT

DC

+fs/2

DSP frequency

CogRF intelligently controls the LO and sampling frequencies

of the receiver
Transforms an RF filtering problem to a DSP filtering problem

Spectrum sensing is integral part of

the CogRF operation

CogRF uses the mathematical model

of a receiver to predict the
interference level corresponding to a
given receiver setting (it does not trial
and error)

3
4

5
end

The model should allow a simple

computation of interference level at
the output of the ADC given a
spectrum sensing data

pin[1]

..

pin[M]
CSR of Receiver Input

Pre-selector

LNA

Mixer

Baseband
filter

Baseband
amplifier

pout [1]

CSR of Receiver
Output

ADC

..

pout [N]

Digital Baseband
Frequency

pin[1]

..

pin[M]
CSR of Receiver Input

Pre-selector

LNA

Mixer

Baseband
filter

Baseband
amplifier

CSR of Receiver
Output

ADC

pout [1]

pout [N]

..

Digital Baseband
Frequency

Pin pin,1 pin,2 pin,3 pin,4 pin,5 pin,6 pin,7 pin,8 pin,9 pin,10 pin,11 pin,12

pin ,5 v1

0
p xp v
0
in ,8
2
in,6

0
pin ,9 v3

v
in ,10
4

0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0

1
0
0
0

0
1
0
0

0
0
1
0

0
x
0
1

0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0

0
v1
v
0
Pin 2
v3
0

0
v4

Linearly models an inherently non-linear receiver

RF front-end
Readily captures the energy re-distribution process
in receivers
Has various applications

Cognitive engine design

Receiver characterization
Spectrum sensing
Receiver aware frequency resource allocation in DSA

The CSR model of the receiver changes as the LO

and sampling frequency settings change
(fLO,B, fs,B)

(fLO,A, fs,A)
0
0

0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0

1
0
0
0

0
1
0
0

0 0 0 0 0
0 x 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0

Desired channel/raw

0
0
0

0
0

0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0

1
0
0
0

0
1
0
0

0
0
1
0

0 x 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0

0
0
0

end

Spectrum sensing for CogRF presents unique

challenges

Estimation based spectrum sensing

The sensing RF front-end is poorly selective
pin[1]

..

pin[M]
CSR of Receiver Input

Pre-selector

LNA

Mixer

Baseband
filter

Baseband
amplifier

pout [1]

CSR of Receiver
Output

ADC

..

pout [N]

Digital Baseband
Frequency

Y ( f LO , f s )

Antenna
No
Pre-selector

LNA

Mixer

Baseband Filter

ADC

DSP

Has to be
estimated
fLO

fs

Is accessed by
spectrum
sensing
algorithms

Y ( f LO , f s ) A( f LO , f s ) X V ( f LO , f s )
CSR model of the
receiver
CSR of the ADC output

Zero-input CSR model

of the receiver

CSR of the received signal

Y ( f LO ,0 , f s ) A( f LO ,0 , f s )
V ( f LO ,0 , f s )
Y ( f , f ) A( f , f ) X V ( f , f )
LO ,1
s
LO ,1
s
LO ,1
s

...
...
...
are known

Y A X V
Raw output of multiband sensing

True spectrum

Z AX ,

Z Y V

Estimator Design

Ym A X V N
Measured

Ym , X

To be estimated

High-dynamic range vectors

Proposed estimator:

X A R A
T

Measurement error

zm,i ai . X
X arg min

ym,i
X
i

AT R 1Ym

called R-TSC

R diag ym2 ,0 ym2 ,1 ym2 ,2 ...

Pout = APin + V
1 Pin
Pin
Pout = A
V B
pm
pm pm

10log10 B 1

B encompasses the effects of different receiver impairments

B is easy to measure
The metric has a single value
The metric tells the performance of the receiver averaged across
different possibilities of the spectrum occupancy

For ideal receiver

For bad receiver

0
0

B 0

0
0

0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 v
0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 v
0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 v

0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 v
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 v

Ideal receiver

0
0

B 0

0
0

0 0 0 1 0 0 0 w 0 0 0 v
0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 x 0 0 v
y 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 y 0 v

0 x 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 v
0 0 w 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 v

Aliasing and IQ imbalance

0
0

B 0

0
0

0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 v
0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 v
0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 v

0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 v
0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 v

IQ imbalance

0
0

B 0

0
0

0 0 0 1 0 0 0 w 0 0 0 v
0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 x 0 0 v
0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 x 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 v
0 0 w 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 v

Aliasing, IQ imbalance and DC offset

PicoRF platform is used to carry out

the hardware experiments

The platform contains:

Virtex-5 FPGA
RFIC5

RFIC5 has variable LO frequency

RFIC5 has variable sampling
frequency

fLO = 915 MHz, fs = 15.625 Msa/s

B matrix
Aliasing

IQ Imbalance

The worst receiver setting

Baseband filters
3 dB bandwidth
14 MHz
14 MHz
7 MHz
7 MHz

Sampling rate
15.625 MSa/s (8 sub-bands)
31.25 MSa/s (16 sub-bands)
15.625 MSa/s (8 sub-bands)
31.25 MSa/s (16 sub-bands)

The best receiver setting

0.81 dB
7.33 dB
1.86 dB
9.47 dB

The worst receiver setting

Baseband filters
3 dB bandwidth
14 MHz
14 MHz
7 MHz
7 MHz

Sampling rate
15.625 MSa/s (8 sub-bands)
31.25 MSa/s (16 sub-bands)
15.625 MSa/s (8 sub-bands)
31.25 MSa/s (16 sub-bands)

The best receiver setting

0.81 dB
7.33 dB
1.86 dB
9.47 dB

The corrected spectrum sensing data closely represents the

state of the spectrum occupancy

Experiment scenario:
Tone signal injected into the receiver
The frequency of the input is randomly varied between 890 MHz and 940 MHz
The desired channel 13 (Dissertation Figure 6.3)
Sampling frequency
under CogRF control

LO frequency under
CogRF control
Fixed settings
The level of undesired
power in the desired band
The spikes corresponding to CogRF are less
aggressive and less frequent

The performance of pre-selector-less

receiver suffers as the number of active
neighboring channels increases

Selective receivers are insensitive to

neighboring-channel interference

CogRF enables a pre-selector-less

receiver to behave like a selective
receiver

CogRF virtually creases selectivity in a

pre-selector-less receiver

The performance of pre-selector-less

receiver suffers as the number of active
neighboring channels increases

CogRF is a viable architecture to implement

Selective receivers are insensitive to
poorly selective receivers neighboring-channel interference

CogRF enables a pre-selector-less

receiver to behave like a selective
receiver

CogRF virtually creases selectivity in a

pre-selector-less receiver

CogRF is a viable architecture to implement

mmWave and DSA receivers

Power

Reception
bandwidth

Psat
Desired
signal

Interferer
Noise

Channels

Neighboring-channel signal exceeds the saturation level of the receiver

CogRF may not be helpful in such scenarios
Traditionally this scenario is addressed using Automatic Gain Control (AGC)

There is SNR penalty associated with using AGCs

 (t ) (t ) I (t )
xs (t ) Vo 1
sin (t ) sin (t )

2V
o sin k (t ) sin k (t ) cos k I t
k 1 k

I t
sin k 1 (t ) sin k 1 (t ) cos k I t
k 1

I t
sin k 1 (t ) sin k 1 (t ) cos k I t

k 2 k 1
sin k (t ) sin k (t )
I (t )

(t ) ( t )
cos I t

k 2

(t ) (t ) 2

+
k sin k (t ) sin k (t ) cos k I t xD (t )

k 1

xD t D t cos Dt D
xI t I t cos I t I

Added Noise
2

xF n 1 n D n e jD v n

xD t D t cos Dt D
xI t I t cos I t I

xF n n D n e jD v n
2

n , for strong non-linearity

where, n
1 3 a I n 2 , for weak non-linearity
3

0,
I n Vo

n 1 Vo
cos I n , I n Vo

Difficult to implement

Auxiliary Path Assisted Soft-Decoding

Simpler to implement

Manual adjustable attenuator

to emulate an AGC

QPSK, C = 8 dB

16-QAM, C = 8 dB
3.5

1.6

No-AGC, no aux. path

no aux. path

1.4

Simulation
APA-SD,

1.2

Simulation

APA-SD,
Hardware

1.5

AGC

No-AGC,
1

no aux. path
Simulation
Hardware
Hardware

0.5

Average Throughput, bits/s/Hz

2.5

Average Throughput, bits/s/Hz

No-AGC,

Simulation

APA-SD,

APA-SD,

Hardware

Simulation

0.8

AGC

No-AGC,

0.6

no aux. path
Simulation
Hardware

0.4

Hardware
0.2

Simulation

Simulation

0
6

10

12

14

16

SNR, dB

max I n
C 20 log

Vo

18

20

22

24

0
0

10

12

SNR, dB

APA-SD has up to 8 dB improvement over AGC

Or more

14

16

18

20

16-QAM, SNR = 14 dB
3.5

Average Throughput, bits/s/Hz

2.5

AGC, Hardware
APA-SD, Hardware

1.5

AGC, Simulation
APA-SD, Simulation

max I n
C 20 log

V
o

0.5

0
0

10

C, dB

APA-SD has up to 8 dB improvement over AGC

Or more

16-QAM, SNR = 14 dB
3.5

2.5

Average Throughput, bits/s/Hz

APA-SD provides up to expands the dynamic range of

a
max I n
poorly-selective receiver by 10 dB or more C 20 log V
2

AGC, Hardware

APA-SD, Hardware

1.5

AGC, Simulation

APA-SD, Simulation

This helps in shrinking receiver-exclusion zones around

radar transmitters
0.5

10

C, dB

APA-SD has up to 8 dB improvement over AGC

Or more

Motivation and significance

Underlying philosophy
The actual work and results
Contributions

Channelized Spectrum Representation (CSR)

A new receiver modeling concept

CSR models an inherently non-linear RF front-end using a
matrix-based linear model
CSR was used to solve various engineering problems
Single-valued receiver
performance metric

Robust spectrum
sensing design

CSR
Cognitive engine
design

Receiver aware frequency

resource allocation

CogRF
Cognitive control over the sampling and LO frequencies of the
receiver
CogRF can transform an RF filtering problem to a DSP filtering
problem
CogRF allows a poorly-selective receiver to behave similar to a
highly-selective receiver

Auxiliary-Path Assisted Soft-Decoding (APA-SD)

Alternative to AGCs to handle strong neighboring-channel
signals
A new concept of informing the decoder about which of the
received bits are likely erroneous
Information used by a decoder
Extrinsic information
Intrinsic information
Bit-quality information

Thank you