Wireless Device Identification in MIMO channels
Ming-Wei Liu and John F. Doherty
Department of Electrical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802.
Email: {muI168, jfd6}@psu.edu
Abstract- A data-aided iterative algorithm to estimate the
nonlinearities of wireless emitters for Specific emitter Identifi-
cation (SEI) is presented. To achieve robust estimation, Inter
Symbol Interference (lSI) is removed by iteratively estimating
the channel coefficients and nonlinear transmit symbols to
achieve asymptotically unbiased estimation. The complexity of
the iteration procedure is further reduced by increasing the
step size of the iteration result. The algorithm is applicable to
various communication systems where multiple amplitude level
schemes are used such as QAM, OFDM, and PAM in Multiple-
Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) channels. Numerical results are
shown which achieve nonlinearity estimation and radio emitter
identification over empirical channel models using an Orthogonal
Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) MIMO system.
I. INTRODUCTION
Specific Emitter Identification (SEI) systems discern wire-
less radio emitters of interest based only on the external signal
feature measurement. This identification capability leads to a
wide variety of applications such as cognitive radio, network
intrusion detection, battlefield management, electronic support
measurement system, and intelligence gathering.
Current research on performing SEI is based on physical
characteristics such as carrier frequency, pulse width, pulse
duration, pulse shape, pulse repetition interval, angle of ar-
rival, amplitude, and radio signal transient, Radio Frequency
(RF) front-end nonlinearity, [1]-[6]. This paper represents
an extension from our previous work, [6], in which the
identification of radio emitters relies on the estimation of
RF front-end nonlinearity, and the transmitter nonlinearities
are unavoidable and unique due to alternative designs and
fabrication variations.
A challenging SEI problem is robust estimation of multiple
digital signals transmitted over multipath channels. Unfortu-
nately, most prior work on equalization or channel estimation
algorithms derive channel information by either sending train-
ing sequences [7] or using a known constellation structure,
such as Constant Modulus Algorithm (CMA), Multimodulus
Algorithm (MMA), and Reduced Constellation Algorithm
(RCA) [8]-[10]. As a result, the constellation structures used
in blind equalization algorithms or desired signal in data-aided
equalizations come from ideal linear transmission systems, and
the desired nonlinear characteristics might be lost because the
nonlinearities are not considered in these methods. Since our
identification depends on the nonlinearity features, applying
these algorithms jeopardize the SEI process.
In this paper, we propose a data-aided time domain algo-
rithm to overcome the lSI problem for RF front-end nonlinear-
ity estimation by iteratively estimating the transmitted symbol
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values and the channel coefficients to achieve asymptotically
unbiased estimation. The main features of our approach can
be summarized as follows. The algorithm is flexible to operate
under various communication systems when multiple ampli-
tude level schemes are used such as QAM, OFDM, and PAM.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section
II, we give a concise description of the SEI problem in the
MIMO channel scenario. In Section III, an iterative estimation
algorithm is shown. In Section IV, numerical results using
an OFDM system and a practical indoor channel model are
presented. Section V summarizes the paper.
II. PROBLEM STATEMENT
In this paper, we consider a scenario that a single target
emitter with multiple transmit antennas, and since the RF
front-ends of all the antennas likely share the same design
[11], [12], the nonlinear properties of the transmit antennas
are assumed identical throughout this paper. The channel and
the nonlinearity properties are assumed the same during the
estimation process.
The notations (.) T, (.) +, I· I, and 0 stand for transpose,
pseudo-inverse, amplitude operator of a complex number, and
zero matrix respectively.
A. Memoryless Nonlinear Model
The input signal, d, of the nonlinear system is assumed a
random process, and then by applying the nonlinearity distor-
tion analysis from [13], [14], [6], the memoryless nonlinear
system could be described by its coefficients as:
(M-1)/2 (M-1)/2
G(d) = L a2i_1 d2i -
1
= L a2i_1d~i-1 (1)
i=l i=l
where both d and ai are complex numbers with their normal-
ized forms J and ai. The normalization is set to a reference
structure with standard deviation of ad, and hence ai = ai .
(ad)i and J = diad. In this paper M is assumed the maximum
number of nonlinearity coefficients.
Assuming unknown attenuation during the propagation, and
therefore the linear gain, la11, and rotation of the nonlinear
system are not available. Under this assumption, a tractable
solution is to estimate the scaled and rotated form of (1) as
following
=
(M-1)/2
X (G(d) . ai) II a l1 2 = L b2i_1d~i-1 (2)
i=l
563
where b2i-l, i = 1, ... , (M - 1) /2 are the normalized nonlin- Lets unfold (7) to equation:
earity coefficients in complex format, and b l is set to 1 by
definition. r=Hx+n=Xh+n (8)
Since our proposed approaches are data-aided and the where n is the complex Gaussian noise vector, H is a complex
training sequence is known, the outcome of the nonlinear matrix populated by channel coefficients, and X is populated
system is assumed finite. The finite input set of emitter by transmit symbols, x = [Xl, X2, ... , XnR ]T, corresponding
is {Jl ,J2 , ••• ,Jp }, is then one-to-one mapped to output to the composition of r. Here, Hk is assumed zero when
set {Xl ,X2, . .. ,xp}, where P is the number of total out- k =1= 0 rv L - 1 and the length of the training sequence
comes. Our approach will estimate the nonlinear coefficients is Q. The LnTnR x 1 overall channel coefficient vector is
{b3 , bs , ... ,bM} which are identical for all the RF front-ends structured as h = [hfl" .hfnrlhIl" .hIn~ ...1 hrRI" .hrRnr]T
through the estimation of {Xl ,X2, ... ,xp}. The relationship where hrt = [ hrt[O] hrt [I] ... hrt[L - 1]] . Furthermore, the
between the input and output can further be expressed as: receive signal vector is r = [r[ I rr I... I r~R JT, where r r =
V3 vs VM
[rr[O]rr[l] ... rr[Q+L-2]]T is the received signal of an-
dl dl dl
V3 vs VM tenna r.
d2 d2 d2
+ . (3) To describe the details of generating matrices X and H,
several definition should be assigned for convenience. First,
Xp the convolution matrix X t is defined:
Or re-write in matrix format x = d + Db. Once the transmit Xt[O] 0 0 o
symbols are estimated as X, the least-squared nonlinearity xt[l] Xt[O] 0 o
coefficients can be derived as following Xt = xt[2] xt[l] Xt[O] o (9)
(4)
o 0 0 0 xt[Q-l] (Q+L-l)xL
To ensure the uniqueness of pseudoinverse, the columns of D
have to be linearly independent [15] where Q is the length of the training sequence. Then, with
the definition of r in (8) and previous discussion, the receive
B. MIMO Channel Model signal vector be re-arranged in terms of linear combination as:
The propagation channel model addressed in this paper is a Xt 0 0
linear MIMO system with nT transmit antennas and nR receive 0 Xt 0
antennas. We assume a linear dispersive channel in a baseband Xt = (10)
discrete-time equivalent model, which can be represented as
[16], [17]: 0 0 Xt
fI[i] = L Hk<5[i - k] (5)
X= [ Xl X2 XnTJ·h+n=r. (11)
k=-oo
where fI[i] E cnTxnR and Then the estimated channel coefficients can be populated
into matrix H to fit the equation
h~~) h~~ hInT [0]
h(k) h(k) .;. ] ·x+n=H·x+n. (12)
Hk = 21 22 (6)
Here, the population of channel coefficients in this are related
to the linear combination of channel coefficients and the
transmit symbols.
is a complex matrix describing the MIMO channel coefficient
In principle, we seek to estimate the nonlinear symbols
at delay k. Here hrt is the complex transmission coefficient
on the transmitters to improve the channel estimation given
from transmit antenna t to receive antenna r. Based on the
only the received signal, r, and training sequences from each
approach in [18], [19], the discrete MIMO system can be
antenna.
written as
rl [i] xl[k] nl [i] III. ITERATIVE ESTIMATION ApPROACH
r2[i] x2[k] n2[i] In this section, we will introduce a iterative estimation of the
L
00

fI[i-k]. + (7) RF front-end nonlinearity, and this algorithm asymptotically

k=-oo
achieves unbias estimation. Suppose we have basic knowledge
rnR[i] xnT[k] nnR[i]
about the nonlinearity properties and thus a initial guess of the
where rr[·] is a sampled receive symbol of antenna r, Xt[·] is nonlinearity is available. For example, most commercial spec-
a sampled transmit symbol from antenna t, and nr [·] is zero ifications require low RF front-end nonlinearity, and therefore
mean, white Gaussian noise at receive antenna r. the initial value could be set as zero.

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 This initial estimation is further combined with (8) to
estimate the linear channel coefficients, h, called h-step. Then
under the premise this newly estimated information is more
accurate than the previous estimation, the new data can be
utilized to re-estimate the transmit symbols by applying (8),
called x-step. The result can be again sent to h-step and then
x-step for a new iteration or stop to output the results. The
iterative approach is based on the assumption that the new
estimation supports more accurate knowledge about the non-
linear channel than the previous one, and therefore improves
the next estimation. When this premise holds, the accuracy
will increase with the iteration procedure.
A. h-step
The algorithm use the previous transmit symbol estimation
in (n - 1)th iteration to re-estimate the channel coefficient
values by applying (8):
6(n) = X+(n-l) . r,
where r is the received signal, and X+(n-l) is the pseudoin-
verse of X which is composed by the estimated channel
coefficients. For the first iteration, the estimated transmit
symbols are set to be linear, d. This new estimation is then
used to re-estimate the transmit symbols in x-step.
B. x-step
Similar to h-step, the estimated 6(n) is then used to fill in
matrix H to derive new transmit symbol estimation as:
i(n) = H+(n) . r.
This new estimation is then used to repeat the process to h-step
for the next iteration n ---+ (n + 1).
C. i- step
To improve the convergence, an intermediate step could
be used after h- and x-step. A natural augmentation is to
constraint the estimation result by utilizing our nonlinearity
model in (3). The estimated symbols are over-fitted to the
model to reduce the error perpendicular to the solution plane
and than they are re-projected back to the corresponding
transmit symbols. The estimated result is then sent to h-step
for the next iteration.
If the user wishes to stop at this iteration, the estimated
nonlinearity is derived by (4) as following
Analytical result and other details of the algorithm including
the convergence criteria and performance appear in [20].
The algorithm can be depicted as a block diagram as shown
in Fig. 1.
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n=n+l
estimated x estimated h
estimated x
estimated b
classification
Fig. 1. Block diagram of the iterative algorithm.
D. Convergence Rate Improvement
To reduce the computation requirement and latency of the
(13) iterative algorithm, we modify the iterative estimation by
predicting the trajectory of the estimated feature on the feature
plane. The algorithm first observes the previous trajectory and
then predicts the next estimated features. Therefore, instead of
waiting for the next iteration, the algorithm simply moves to
the predicted result. The prediction is based on the fact that the
maximum eigenvalue of the error transform matrix dominates
the movement of the estimated features in each iteration, and
hence the estimated features provide predictable behavior after
the first few iterations. The the error vector evolution of each
iteration is analytically shown in [20].
Suppose we start the next iteration from kth iteration, then
-(k-l) ,,(k-l)
set b =b and do the following estimation.
(14)
-(k) ,,(k) ("(k) -(k-l))
b =b +Jl b -b (16)
where Jl is the step size. After the procedure, the estimated
results are sent to h - step and continue the iteration process.
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
In the simulation, a practical example using an OFDM
system, IEEE 802.11n draft, with the RF front-end device
models from [14] as transmitter 1, and [13] as transmitter 2,
that were used in our previous research [6] will be shown.
Here a 2 x 2 MIMO channel is used in this simulation, and
the training sequence in the simulation includes the 802.11 a/g
long training field and is further encoded over space and time
using a orthogonal matrix [21].
Here we apply an empirical indoor channel model, h[n] =
0.9960<5[n] +0.0628<5[n -1] +0.0079<5[n - 2], extracted from
experimental result in [22]. This model is extended to a MIMO
(15) channel with the channel correlation matrix obtained from
[23].
The output power is set 25 dBm for each emitter which is a
typical average transmit power value in commercial market
products, and the nonlinearity coefficients are in Table I.
The degree of nonlinearity is -16dB Error Vector Magnitude
565
 -0.015 25
-J.!=O
- - -J.! = 0.5
-0.02 14th iteration using J.!=1 co '-'-'J.! = 1
24 iteration using J.!=O 1st iteration :;- 20
h

t
.~
-0.025 C
Q)
·0 "~
-0.03 E
~ 15
~
......
C"')
()
, ~
~

---------
.0 ~
Q) -0.035 .~ :' ,
0:: Q) ..... .... ....

-0.04 ~ 10 -- - - - -- --- :- --
oc
8th iteration using J.!= 1 ~
12th iteration using J.!=O '0
-0.045 w
~ 5
-0.05 z

-0.055
0.3 0.32 0.34 0.36 0.38 0.4 0.42 0.44
o 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Im[b ] Number of iterations
3

Fig. 2. The estimated nonlinearity feature, b3, using Jl = 0 and Jl = 1 Fig. 3. Convergence of estimated nonlinearity coefficients of transmitter 1 in
respectively at 35dB Eb/NO. different Jl situations. The experiment uses 1 long training sequence in 35dB
Eb/NO environment.

(EVM) satisfying the specification [24] when operating in 16-

QAM scheme. The parameters are extracted from a RF device 25
,-·-,1 header
in [14] as transmitter 1 and a class A power amplifier in [13] .. ,... , 4 headers
as transmitter 2. co 20 ~
- - -16 headers
~ ~ - 128 headers
TABLE I
(J)

C
Q) 15 ~,,~

NONLINEARITY PARAMETERS OF TWO TRANSMITTERS iE

Q)
0 ~~
'"
R
Transmitter 1 Transmitter 2
()
10
~
.... ....
-- -- --
.~
b3 -0.0735 - 0.0114i -0.0910+0.1580i Q)

bs -0.0986 + 0.0590i 0.2503 + 0.0286i .~ 5 - - -'- -

b7 -0.0547 - 0.0055i 0.0155 + 0.0025i
C
0 ~
'"" ~
c
'0 0

---
w
CJ)

Fig. 2 shows the estimated features moving on each iter- ~

z -5 ""--- -.
ation. The figure demonstrates two estimation results using
the original iterative estimation, Jl = 0, and the convergence -10
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
improvement algorithm, Jl = 1 where Jl is the step size in Number of iterations
(16). The convergence improvement algorithm initiates at the
4th iteration and it is shown that the the improved version Fig. 4. The nonlinearity estimation convergence of transmitter 1 using
achieve the same estimation result at the 14th iteration while different number of long training sequence headers. Jl and Eb/NO is 1 and
the the original iterative estimation requires 24 iterations. 35dB in this experiment.
To represent the accuracy of our nonlinearity estimation, the
Normalized Mean Squared Error (NMSE) of nth iteration is
introduced as the following As indicated in Fig. 4, the estimation is more accurate
when more information is used. Fig. 5 depicts this situation
_ 16(n) - bl 2 in different Eb/NO scenarios. The result shows that when the
NMSE of b = 1010g Ibl 2 (dB). (17)
signal power increases, the NMSE decreases as expected. In
As shown in Fig. 3, the effect of different Jl to the convergence our simulation, the system is assumed 16QAM and a typical
rate and result is presented. The algorithm converges faster operation environment is 12dB to 16dB for 16QAM scheme
with higher Jl and the final NMSE is similar to the original [25].
algorithm. In this example, the required number of iterations The classification rate depends on the accuracy of estimation
for original iterative algorithm is about 150 while it takes 60 and the knowledge of transmitters The misclassification rate
iterations to achieve similar NMSE when Jl equals 1. is shown in Fig. 6 where minimum distance algorithm is
Furthermore, the effect of different number of headers used chosen as the discriminating function. Here we consider a
when Jl equals 1 is demonstrated in Fig. 4. The result indicates two-class case, where the the nonlinearities of transmitter 1
that the performance improved when the number of headers and 2 are known, and the probability of the observed data
used increases. from transmitter 1 and 2 are equal.

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