Equalization, Diversity and Channel Coding

1. Introduction 6. Combining Techniques

2. Equalization Concept 7. Channel Coding Concept
3. Equalization Simulation 8. Block Codes
4. Diversity Concept 9. Convolutional Codes
5. Diversity Techniques 10. Coding Gain

Introduction (1)
- Multipath propagation causes fading
- Fading causes poor signal quality or bit errors on systems using digital
modulation
- Wireless systems need to use one or more techniques to reduce the effects of
multipath.
- Three most effective techniques are equalization diversity and channel
coding

1
 Introduction (2)
Techniques are used to improve radio link performance
Equalization
- Compensate for intersymbol Interference (ISI) create by multipath within
time dispersive channels
Diversity
- Compensate for fading channel impairments
Channel coding
- Used by the receiver to detect or correct some (or all) of the errors introduced
by the channel in a particular sequence of message bits

Equalization Concept (1)

Equalization Characteristic

- Structure of the inverse filter can become very complicated to implement

- Multipath channel structure is not always known
- Channel changes in real time so equalization must be adaptive

2
 Equalization Concept (2)
Operating mode

Training
- Pseudorandom or fixed binary signal which is prescriptive bit pattern

Tracking
- Algorithm to evaluate the channel and estimate filter coefficients

Equalization Concept (3)

Block diagram of a simplified communications system using an adaptive

equalizer at the receiver

3
 Equalization Concept (4)
Equalizer condition

y (t ) = x (t ) ⊗ f ∗ (t ) + nb (t )

d̂ (t ) = x (t ) ⊗ f ∗ (t ) ⊗ heq (t ) + nb (t ) ⊗ heq (t )

f ∗ (t ) ⊗ heq (t ) = δ(t )

F ∗ (− f )H eq ( f ) = 1

Equalization Concept (5)

Linear equalizer (transversal filter) with feedforward tap,

and is called a finite impulse response (FIR) filter

4
 Equalization Concept (6)

Linear equalizer (transversal filter) with both feedforward and feedback taps,
and is called an infinite impulse response (IIR) filter

Equalization Simulation (1)

Time domain

Symbol period
Ts = 1.00 µs

RMS delay spread

σ τ = 1.12 µs

Frequency selective fading

5
 Equalization Simulation (2)
Frequency domain

Frequency selective fading

Equalization Simulation (3)

Receive Signal

Intersymbol interference (ISI)

6
Equalization Simulation (4)

Frequency selective fading Flat fading

Equalization Simulation (5)

7
 Diversity Concept (1)
Basic idea
- Send same bits over independent fading paths
- Combine paths to mitigate fading effects
- Provide two or more inputs to the receiving site for that fading on
among those inputs are uncorreleated
- If one radio path undergoes a deep fade, another independent path
may have a strong signal

Diversity Concept (2)

Basic idea (Cont.)

- Two kind of fading, long term (large scale) and short term (small
scale) fading
- Long term fading can be mitigated by macroscopic diversity (apply
on separated antenna sites) like the diversity using two base stations
- Short term fading can be mitigated by microscopic diversity (apply on
locally located antenna site) like the diversity using multiple
antennas on the base station or mobile unit

8
 Diversity Concept (3)

Graph for probability distributions

of SNR for M branch selection
diversity

Diversity Concept (4)

None Diversity
Single Input Single Output (SISO)

Receiving Diversity
Single Input Multi Output (SIMO)

9
 Diversity Concept (5)

Transmit Diversity
Multi Input Single Output (MISO)

Transmit/Receiving Diversity
Multi Input Multi Output (MIMO)

Diversity Concept (6)

Independent fading sources

- Signal level and phase due to multipath fading is a function of

position, frequency and time (if the paths are time-varying)
- Diversity reception makes use of multiple independent fading sources
to mitigate the effects of fading
- For example, if the signal at one location is faded, at another position
a fraction of a wave-length away it may be unfaded
- There are many ways of getting independent fading sources (diversity
techniques)

10
 Diversity Techniques (1)
Diversity Techniques
Space diversity
- Multiple antenna elements separated by decorrelation distance
Angle or direction diversity
- One or multiple directional antenna(s), each responds to a narrow
direction of arrival (DOA) spread
Polarization diversity
- Two transmit or receive antennas with different polarizations

Diversity Techniques (2)

Diversity Techniques (Cont.)
Frequency diversity
- Multiple narrowband channels separated by channel coherence bandwidth
Time diversity
- Multiple timeslots separated by channel coherence time
Path diversity
- Multiple antennas received multipath signal and separated by using RAKE
receiver

11
 Diversity Techniques (3)
Space Diversity
- Branches are two or more antennas separated in space
- Used in cellular systems in almost all base station
- Used by most microwave point-to-point links
(2 antennas space vertically on same tower)
- At mobile, need little separate distance (0.4λ -0.5λ )
- At base station, need lager separate distance (10λ -20λ)
- Seldom used in mobiles due to cost and limited space

Diversity Techniques (4)

Angle or Direction Diversity
- Sectored antennas and angle diversity
- Adaptive angle diversity
- Each received signal responds to a narrow direction of arrival (DOA) spread
- Advantage is that don’t need any spatial separation between antennas

12
 Diversity Techniques (5)
Polarization Diversity
- Radio wave polarization given by direction of electric field vector
- Polarization of the signal can change when it reflects
- Can use antennas sensitive to different polarizations
- Can make use of orthogonal polarization (horizontal and vertical polarization
or clockwise and anticlockwise polarizations
- Advantage is that don’t need any spatial separation between antennas

Diversity Techniques (6)

Frequency Diversity
- Same information is transmitted on frequencies separated by more than
coherence bandwidth
- Problem is that each diversity path (frequency) increases the bandwidth
required
- Not commonly used

13
 Diversity Techniques (7)
Time Diversity
- Same information is transmitted on times with interval separated by the
coherence time of the channel
- Problem is that each diversity path (time) increases the bandwidth
required
- Not commonly used
- Interleaving
- Automatic repeat request (ARQ)

Diversity Techniques (8)

Interleaving
- Interleaving is a form of time
diversity
- Interleaving scrambles input
bit stream
- Spreads burst errors over
many code words
- Code words correct a small
number errors

14
 Diversity Techniques (9)
Automatic repeat request (ARQ)
- When the receiver detects errors in a packet, it will automatically request
the retransmission of missing packets or packets with errors

Common schemes
- Stop & wait
- Go back N
- Selective repeat

Diversity Techniques (10)

Stop & wait

- Transmits one packet at a time and wait for acknowledge (ACK)

- Transmits next packet after received ACK’s packet
- Retransmits packet after a timeout

15
 Diversity Techniques (11)
Go back N

- Uses a window mechanism where the sender can send packets that are within
a window rang of packet
- If windows size = N, sender cannot send packet i+N until it has received the
ASK for packet i
- When the transmitter reaches the end of its window, or time out it goes back
and retransmits packet within the window

Diversity Techniques (12)

Selective repeat

- Attempts to retransmit only those packets that are actually lost (due to errors)
- Receiver must be able to accept packets out of order, then receiver must be
able to buffer some packet
- Packets that are not ACKed before a time out are assumed lost or in error
- Negative acknowledge (NAK) can request retransmission of just one packet

16
 Diversity Techniques (13)
Path Diversity
- Fading cause multipath of signal
- Used in wideband channel such as spread spectrum and CDMA system
- RAKE receiver is used for separate the path of signal

Diversity Techniques (14)

Rake diversity receiver

17
 Diversity Techniques (15)
Maximum ratio RAKE combining

Diversity Techniques (16)

Effect of diversity combining

18
 Combining Techniques (1)
Combining Techniques
Selection combining (SC)
- Fading path with highest gain used (selecting the strongest signal among
the M diversity branches)
Switched (scanning) combining
- Receiver switches to another branch when ever it experience fading in the
current branch

Combining Techniques (2)

Combining Techniques (Cont.)

Equal gain combining (EGC)

- All paths co-phased and summed with equal weighting

Maximal Ratio Combining

- All paths co-phased and summed with optimal weighting to maximize
combiner output SNR

19
 Combining Techniques (3)
Selection Combining (SC)
- Selected fading path with highest
gain (maximum SNR)
- For analog signals the quantity of interest might be the SNR improvement in
average SNR
- For digital system, we may be more interested in the probability that the signal
falls below a threshold
- If the probability that one branch is “fade” is p and the fading of the different
branches is in dependent, then the probability that all M branches are faded is pM
and the probability that not all branches are faded is 1-pM

Combining Techniques (4)

Switched (Scanning) Combining

- Use an switch to connect various branches to the receiver

- Receiver waits until signal fades, then switches to next branch
- Only need an RF antenna switch and some logic then it is very cheap

20
 Combining Techniques (5)
Equal Gain Combining (EGC)

- It is a co-phase combining that brings all phases to a common point and combines
- Combined signal is the sum of the instantaneous envelops of the individual
branches
- It is simple but not optimum, mostly used

Combining Techniques (6)

Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC)

- Optimal technique (maximizes output SNR)

- Phase-shift the signals from the branches so the received signals have the same
phase and weight them according to their SNR
- Circuitry to provide maximal-ratio combining is complicated, so it is not often used

21
 Channel Coding Concept (1)
Errors
- Errors occur due to noise or interference on a communication channel
- Error detection and correction codes are used for bit errors
- Retransmission (ARQ) is used for packets
Channel coding
- Channel codes that are used to detect errors are called error detection codes
- Channel codes that can detect and correct errors are called error correction
codes

Channel Coding Concept (2)

Basic idea
- Encoder at the transmitter adds redundancy to transmitted data
- Decoder at the receiver uses this redundancy to detect and/or correct for
possible errors in the received data
- Two main types: block codes and convolutional codes

22
 Block Codes (1)
- Block codes are forward error correction (FEC) codes that enable a limited
number of errors to be detected and corrected without retransmission
- Data is broken up into blocks of equal length
- Each block is “mapped” onto a larger block
- Block code is referred to as an (n,k) code where
n : Block length
k : Number of data bits
n-k : Number of checked bits
R = k/n : Code rate

Block Codes (2)

Example
- (6,3) code - Block length (n) = 6
- Number of data bit (k) = 3 - Code rate (R) = 1/2

23
 Block Codes (3)
Block Code Parameters
Distance of a code
- Distance of a code word is the number of elements in which two
codewords Ci and C j
N
d (Ci ,C j ) = ∑ Ci ,l ⊕ C j ,l
l =1
- Minimum distance is the smallest distance for the given set and is
given as
d min = Min{d (Ci ,C j )}

Block Codes (4)

Block Code Parameters (Cont.)

Weigh of a code
- Weight of a codeword is given by the number of nonzero element
in the code word
N
w(Ci ) = ∑ Ci ,l
l =1

24
 Block Codes (5)
Block Code Parameters (Cont.)
00 ⇒ C1 = 0000
Example - (4,2) code 01 ⇒ C2 = 0101
10 ⇒ C3 = 1010
d (C1 ,C2 ) = 2 11 ⇒ C4 = 1111
d (C1 ,C3 ) = 2 w(C1 ) = 0
d (C1 ,C4 ) = 4 w(C2 ) = 2
d min = 2
d (C2 ,C3 ) = 4 w(C3 ) = 2
d (C2 ,C4 ) = 2 w(C4 ) = 4
d (C3 ,C4 ) = 2

Block Codes (6)

Properties of Block Codes
Linearity
- Let α1 and α 2 be any two elements selected from the alphabet
- Code will be linear only if α1C1 + α 2C2 is also a code word

Example - (4,2) code 00 ⇒ C1 = 0000

01 ⇒ C2 = 0101
10 ⇒ C3 = 1010
11 ⇒ C4 = 1111

25
 Block Codes (7)
Properties of Block Codes (Cont.)
Systematic
- For an (n,k) code, the first k bits are identical to the information bits, and
the remaining n-k bits of each code word are linear combinations of the
k information bits

Example - (4,2) code 00 ⇒ C1 = 0000

01 ⇒ C2 = 0101
10 ⇒ C3 = 1010
11 ⇒ C4 = 1111

Block Codes (8)

Properties of Block Codes (Cont.)
Cyclic
- If C = [cn−1 ,cn−2 ,K ,c0 ] is a code word of a cyclic code, then
C = [cn− 2 ,K ,c0 ,cn−1 ] obtained by a cyclic shift of the elements of C
is also a code word

Example - (4,2) code 00 ⇒ C1 = 0000

01 ⇒ C2 = 0101
10 ⇒ C3 = 1010
11 ⇒ C4 = 1111

26
 Convolutional Codes
- Output is provided by looking at a sliding window of input

Coding Gain (1)

- Coding gain describes how much better the decoded message performs
as compared to the raw bit error performance of the coded transmission
1 n ⎛n⎞ i
PB ≅ ∑ i⎜ ⎟ Pc (1 − Pc )n−i
n i =t +1 ⎝ i ⎠

PB : Decoded message error probability

PC : Channel BER probability
t : Number of errors that can be corrected in an (n,k) block code
n : Block length

27
 Coding Gain (2)
Example of coding gain

Given : Channel BER probability ( PC ) = 1%

Number of errors that can be corrected in an (4,2) block code ( t ) = 1

Find : Decoded message error probability

Coding Gain (3)

Solution of coding gain
1 n ⎛n⎞ i
PB ≅ ∑ i⎜ ⎟ Pc (1 − Pc )n −i
n i =t +1 ⎝ i ⎠

1 4 ⎛ 4⎞
≅ ∑ i⎜ ⎟0.01i (1 − 0.01)4−i
4 i =2 ⎝ i ⎠
1 ⎡ ⎛ 4⎞ ⎛ 4⎞ ⎛ 4⎞ ⎤
≅ ⎢2⎜ ⎟0.0120.994− 2 + 3⎜ ⎟0.0130.994−3 + 4⎜ ⎟0.0140.994− 4 ⎥
4 ⎣ ⎝ 2⎠ ⎝ 3⎠ ⎝ 4⎠ ⎦
1
[
≅ 2(6 )0.0120.99 2 + 3(4 )0.0130.991 + 4(1)0.0140.990
4
]
≅ 2.97 × 10−4 = 0.0297%

28