Hybrid Channel Estimation Scheme for IEEE 802.

11n-based STBC MIMO System

Parismita Gogoi
Department of Electronics and Communication Technology, Gauhati University Guwahati, Assam, 781014, INDIA. parismita.ect@gmail.com

Kandarpa Kumar Sarma

Department of Electronics and Communication Technology, Gauhati University Guwahati, Assam, 781014, INDIA. kandarpaks@gmail.com

Abstract In this paper, we have proposed a Kalman Filter (KF) - Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) based channel estimator block for Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) multipath fading channels based on the IEEE 802.11n channel models for indoor wireless local area networks (WLAN). Two transmit antennas and two receive antennas are used here. The estimator block has been simulated in STBC coded MIMO multipath fading channel scenario with and without CSI, and figure of merit in terms of Bit Error Rate (BER) has been obtained. The design criteria and performance curve shown in the paper clearly proves the effectiveness of the proposed hybrid estimator, both in terms of performance and hardware realizability. Keywords- IEEE 802.11n, MIMO, ANN, Estimation

I.

INTRODUCTION

In order to create an accurate channel model in the specific environment, one should have full knowledge about the characteristics of reflectors, including their situation and movement, and the power of the reflected signal, at any specified time [1]. In recent developments of systems related to Multi-Input and Multi-Output (MIMO) systems, the performances derived shows the requirement of a completely different channel model with the ability to capture the spatiotemporal characteristics of the channel paths, i.e. the correlation between the different paths among the multiple transmit and receive antennas. IEEE 802.11 is a set of standards for implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) computer communication in the 2.4, 3.6 and 5 GHz frequency bands. They are created and maintained by the IEEE LAN/MAN Standards Committee (IEEE 802). 802.11n is an amendment which improves upon the previous 802.11 standards by adding MIMO [2]. Over the years, Space Time Block Coded (STBC) MIMO set ups have been accepted as likely options to meet the ever expanding demands of wireless networks [3]-[6]. But the design of effective receiver mechanisms for the STBC-MIMO is still a challenging area. Recently, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN)s have gained popularity for application in these fields due to their inherent ability to learn from the environment and use it in subsequent purposes. Gradually incorporation of such soft-computational tools into mobile communications has found momentum [7]-[11]. Similar

research works in recent years have been proving the importance of ANN to perform estimation and equalization [13] [14]. In [13], an ANN channel estimation scheme has been proposed using Levenburg- Marquardt algorithm for systems over Rayleigh channels, whereas in [14], the use of feedforward ANN has been explored for use in MIMO channel estimation and compensation. In [15] to [18], works have been reported which are successfully applied to Rayleigh fading environment. Results have been found for various multiple antenna schemes to transmit symbols from transmitter part after being coded with STBC technique to the receiver part. Main emphasis of these works has been given to the inclusion of ANN blocks as channel estimator as an alternative to other available ones. This paper reports an optimized channel estimation and detection technique with Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) and Kalman filter (KF) for STBC-MIMO systems over channels with Rayleigh fading, with IEEE 802.11n standards. This standard generally operates on both the 2.4 GHz and the lesser used 5 GHz bands. This paper is organized into the following sections. Section II presents an insight into IEEE 802.11n standards considered for the proposed work. Section III describes the system model for hybrid channel estimation technique for STBC-MIMO channel. Experimental details and related results are included in Section IV. Finally Section V concludes the paper.
II.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

A.

IEEE 802.11

The indoor channel corresponds to the small coverage areas inside the building, such as office and shopping mall. Since these environments are completely enclosed by a wall, the power azimuth spectrum (PAS) tends to be uniform [1]. Furthermore, the channel tends to be static due to extremely low mobility of the terminals inside the building. Even in the indoor channel environments, however, the channel condition may vary with time and location, which still requires a power delay profile (PDP) to represent the channel delays and their average power. Characteristics of a multipath fading channel are often specified by a PDP. Mean excess delay and RMS delay spread are useful channel parameters that provide a reference of comparison among the different multipath fading

(a) Average channel power (b) Channel frequency response Figure 1. IEEE 802.11 channel model.

Figure 2: MIMO- STBC system with KF-RNN clustered channel estimator III.

channels [3]. The indoor channels are usually modelled under the assumption that they have either static or quasi-static channel conditions. There are two most popular indoor channel models: 2-ray model and exponential model. IEEE 802.11n Task Group has adopted the exponential model to represent a 2.4 GHz indoor channel. A channel impulse response can be represented by the output of finite impulse response (FIR) filter. Here, each channel tap is modelled by an independent complex Gaussian random variable with its average power that follows the exponential PDP, while taking the time index of each channel tap by the integer multiples of sampling periods. The maximum number of paths is determined by the RMS delay spread and sampling period Ts as follows: p [10 / Ts ] . Assuming that the power of the
max

KF-RNN HYBRID ESTIMATOR FOR STBC-MIMO SYSTEM

p channel tap has the mean of 0 and variance of impulse as, hp Z1 response is
1

th

p2
2

its

given

jZ 2 , p 0,......, pmax , where Z and Z are

2

The hybrid structure using KF-RNN is designed for two input and two output antenna systems, using BPSK modulation scheme. The performance of the STBC decoder is enhanced by the KF-RNN blocks. KF generates the estimated channel response and the RNN block is then used to decode the degraded symbols from the impact of estimated channel [16]. Simulated results in terms of improved Bit Error Rate (BER) are observed over a SNR range of -10 to 10 dB which depicts the effectiveness of the proposed hybrid estimator for STBC MIMO systems compared to other existing ANN estimation techniques [10] [11]. In this section, the channel and system models considered in the present work are described respectively. Figure 2 shows the transmitter and receiver structure of STBC- MIMO system used in this work with KFRNN channel estimator clusters. Earlier researches have reported that, KF with the aid of pilot symbols can raise the BER performance in a wireless environment in a significant manner [19]-[24]. A. Channel Model: The IEEE 802.11n channel models make the following assumptions: 1) PAS and the PDS are separable: each tap is modelled independently. 2) The PAS and the Doppler spectrum for each tap are separable: the spatial correlation (correlation matrices) and temporal correlation (Doppler spectrum) for each tap are modelled independently. 3) Each tap is modelled using the Kronecker model for Rician channels, hence it is assumed that the transmit and receive correlation matrices are separable for each tap. Figure 1 shows the average channel power and channel frequency response for the IEEE 802.11 channel model used in our simulation. Since

statistically independent and identical Gaussian random variables, each with (0, p

/ 2) .

The IEEE 802.11n channel models are designed for indoor wireless local area networks for bandwidths of up to 100 MHz, at frequencies of 2 and 5 GHz. The channel models comprise a set of 6 profiles, labelled A to F, which cover the scenarios of flat fading, residential, residential/small office, typical office, large office, and large space (indoors and outdoors). Each channel model has a path loss model including shadowing, and a MIMO multipath fading model, which describes the multipath delay profile, the spatial properties, the K-factor distribution, and the Doppler spectrum [2].

Table 1: RNN specification ANN Type RNN with trainlm Maximum No. of Epochs 1000 MSE goal 10-3 Number of neurons 4-4-2 No. of hidden layers 1 layer with 4 neurons Activation Functions tansig-tansig-tansig 1000 sets in -3dB, to 3dB Training samples SNR in channel 1500 sets of 8, 16 and 64-bit Testing samples blocks Channel Standards IEEE 802.11n RMS delay spread 25 ns sampling period Ts 50 ns.

Figure 3: Architecture with independent ANN (NN1 and NN2) units in the proposed system

the RMS delay spread is relatively small in this work, the power variation in the frequency domain is within at most 15dB, which implies that frequency selectivity is not that significant. We have included Rayleigh fading propagation in our work. B. System model: The system model comprises of transmitter and receiver parts each equipped with components meant for modulation, diversity, antennas for transmission, wireless channel, estimator and equalizer etc. The receiver blocks carry out the exact operations complementary to them done in the transmitter side. At the front end of the receiver both joint detection and estimation operation using the hybrid RNN and KF are performed. In combination with RNN, this performance can be more enhanced [16]. In this work, we have trained two independent RNN blocks each equipped with a KF at the front end. RNN block comprises of two independent networks NN1 and NN2 respectively. These two RNNs work independently on the received signals (y1 and y2) affected by the randomly varying channel to recover transmitted bits ( x1 and x2) from TX1 and TX2 [16]. No matrix computation is required in this technique as it is taking the advantage of learning property of the RNNs. An appropriate training function [12] is chosen during trial and error method in training, which will be able to adjust the synaptic weights and bias values of the RNNs. The number of layers including hidden layer and neuron size in each layer is also been finalized during an extensive training environment. Thus a fully efficient model of RNN is designed and prepared for estimation and equalization task of noisy received bits in STBC coded MIMO set-up. During training, the complex received signals y1 and y2 at both the antennas are split into real and imaginary parts and are fed to the input layer neurons of both NNs as shown in Figure 3. Feedback loop in delayed forms from the output to the hidden layer initiates dynamic updating of the

Figure 4: BER Performance of KF-RNN assisted MIMO system.

weight and bias values connecting all three layers of RNN. It gives superior performance as compared to other feed-forward networks in the same system environment [17]. Figure 3 shows the internal recurrent architecture of the NNs used in estimator block of the system. This learning ability is then tested with unknown sets of input samples, which are passed through the network and estimate of the transmitted signal x1 and x2 are calculated. IV. EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS AND RESULTS The training and validation part of the RNN requires careful selection of configuration of RNN. Training is carried out till mean square error (MSE) approaches the desired goal of 10-3. Several combinations of training functions are applied for training. The length of the hidden layers has been fixed by trial and error method. The size of the hidden layer has been fixed to be same with the input layer, as it gives an efficient result in terms of convergence time and number of epochs

required to reach the goal. The ANNs with specific configuration are shown in Table 1. Error performances are measured as BER against the SNR values for both the cases. The performance of the system under extreme fading is depicted by the BER plot shown in Figure 4. The proposed KF-RNN technique is compared with known channel condition and estimator with RNN block only. In the estimation done by RNN block, received signals at both the antennas are directly fed for training and corresponding estimate of the transmitted bits are obtained. Both these techniques are found to be efficient as in training the RNNs, no pilot bits are required, as compared to other pilot assisted methods [11]. Some of the related works have been reported in [16]. The proposed approach provides improvement consistently over the SNR range compared to [11] and is able to deal with the channel variations without any prior reference unlike the works reported in [13]. Also the system is able to perform symbol recovery. It proves the effectiveness of the proposed system. V. CONCLUSION Here, we have proposed an optimized channel estimation and detection technique with KF- RNN cluster for STBC MIMO systems over Rayleigh fading channels with IEEE 802.11n standards. This standard generally operates on both the 2.4 GHz and the lesser used 5 GHz bands. These standards provide the basis for wireless network products using the WiFi brand. 802.11n is a new multi-streaming modulation technique for higher throughput improvements using MIMO. The proposed hybrid KF-RNN approach seems to be efficiently usable in wireless applications and thus can be implemented into hardware in future. REFERENCES
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