Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Spectrum efficiency'

We are in the midst of a major paradigm shift in how we manage the radio spectrum. This paradigm shift in spectrum management from exclusive access to shared access is necessitated by the growth of wireless services and the demand pressure imposed on limited spectrum resources under legacy management regimes. The primary constraint in any spectrum sharing regime is that the incumbent users (IUs) of the spectrum need to be protected from harmful interference caused due to transmissions from secondary users (SUs). Unfortunately, legacy techniques rely on inadequately flexible and overly conservative methods for prescribing interference protection that result in inefficient utilization of the shared spectrum. In this dissertation, we first propose an analytical approach for characterizing the aggregate interference experienced by the IU when it shares the spectrum with multiple SUs. Proper characterization of aggregate interference helps in defining incumbent protection boundaries, a.k.a. Exclusion Zones (EZs), that are neither overly aggressive to endanger the IU protection requirement, nor overly conservative to limit spectrum utilization efficiency. In particular, our proposed approach addresses the two main limitations of existing methods that use terrain based propagation models for estimating the aggregate interference. First, terrain-based propagation models are computationally intensive and data-hungry making them unsuitable for large real-time spectrum sharing applications such as the spectrum access system (SAS). Second, terrain based propagation models require accurate geo-locations of SUs which might not always be available, such as when SUs are mobile, or when their locations are obfuscated for location privacy concerns. Our second contribution in this dissertation is the novel concept of Multi-tiered Incumbent Protection Zones (MIPZ) that can be used to prescribe interference protection to the IUs. Based on the aforementioned analytical tool for characterizing the aggregate interference, we facilitate a framework that can be used to replace the legacy notion of static and overly conservative EZs with multi-tiered dynamic EZs. MIPZ is fundamentally different from legacy EZs in that it dynamically adjusts the IU's protection boundary based on the radio environment, network dynamics, and the IU interference protection requirement. Our extensive simulation results show that MIPZ can be used to improve the overall spectrum utilization while ensuring sufficient protection to the IUs. As our third contribution, we investigate the operational security (OPSEC) issue raised by the emergence of new spectrum access technologies and spectrum utilization paradigms. For instance, although the use of geolocation databases (GDB) is a practical approach for enabling efficient spectrum sharing, it raises a potentially serious OPSEC problem, especially when some of the IUs are federal government entities, including military users. We show that malicious queriers can readily infer the locations of the IUs even if the database's responses to the queries do not directly reveal such information. To address this issue, we propose a perturbation-based optimal obfuscation strategy that can be implemented by the GDB to preserve the location privacy of IUs. The proposed obfuscation strategy is optimal in the sense that it maximizes IUs' location privacy while ensuring that the expected degradation in the SUs' performance due to obfuscated responses does not exceed a threshold. In summary, this dissertation focuses on investigating techniques that improve the utilization efficiency of the shared spectrum while ensuring adequate protection to the IUs from SU induced interference as well as from potential OPSEC threats. We believe that this study facilitates the regulators and other stakeholders a better understanding of mechanisms that enable improved spectrum utilization efficiency and minimize the associated OPSEC threats, and hence, helps in wider adoption of dynamic spectrum sharing.
Ph. D.

Since spectrum is the invisible infrastructure that powers the wireless communication, the demand has been exceptionally increasing in recent years after the implementation of 4G and immense data requirements of 5G due to the applications, such as Internet-of-Things (IoT). Therefore, the effective optimization of the use of spectrum is immediately needed than ever before. The spectrum sensing is the prerequisite for optimal resource allocation in cognitive radio networks (CRN). Therefore, the spectrum sensing in wireless system with lower latency requirements is proposed first. In such systems with high spatial density of the base stations and users/objects, spectrum sharing enables spectrum reuse across very small regions. The proposed method in this Thesis is a multi-channel cooperative spectrum sensing technique, in which an independent network of sensors, namely, spectrum monitoring network, detects the spectrum availability. The locally aggregated decision in each zone associated with the zone aggregator (ZA) location is then passed to a decision fusion centre (DFC). The secondary base station (SBS) accordingly allocates the available channels to secondary users to maximize the spectral efficiency. The function of the DFC is formulated as an optimization problem with the objective of maximizing the spectral efficiency. The optimal detection threshold is obtained for different cases with various spatial densities of ZAs and SBSs. It is further shown that the proposed method reduces the spectrum sensing latency and results in a higher spectrum efficiency. Furthermore, a novel power allocation scheme for multicell CRN is proposed where the subchannel power allocation is performed by incorporating network-wide primary system communication activity. A collaborative subchannel monitoring scheme is proposed to evaluate the aggregated subchannel activity index (ASAI) to indicate the activity levels of primary users. Two utility functions are then defined to characterize the spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE) as a function of ASAI to formulate a utility maximization problem. The optimal transmit power allocation is then obtained with the objective of maximizing the total utility at the SBS, subject to maximum SBS transmit power and collision probability constraint at the primary receivers. Since optimal EE and SE are two contradicting objectives to obtain the transmit power allocation, the design approach to handle both EE and SE as a function of common network parameter, i.e., ASAI, is provided which ultimately proves the quantitative insights on efficient system design. Extensive simulation results confirm the analytical results and indicate a significant improvement in sensing latency and accuracy and a significant gain against the benchmark models on the rate performance, despite the proposed methods perform with lower signalling overhead.

Ultra-wideband (UWB) and cognitive radio have been proposed as two important approaches to improve the spectrum efficiency of wireless communications. The aim of this thesis is to study these two techniques considering different practical conditions. The study of the UWB technique begins with the analysis of the statistical properties of the sum of path gains using maximum ratio combining technique based on the IEEE UWB channel models. This analysis helps to justify the equivalent tapped-delay-line discrete UWB channel models. Following the study of the UWB channel models, signal-to-interferenceplus- noise ratio is analyzed for direct sequence binary phase shift keying UWB Rake receivers. Closed-form expressions for the signal-to-interferenceplus- noise ratio are derived by taking inter-path interference, inter-chip interference and inter-symbol interference as well as multiple-access interference into account. The analysis framework is further used to optimize the integration interval for UWB transmitted reference receivers. In addition to the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio, channel capacity of UWB systems with timing errors is also analyzed in this work. Both additive white Gaussian noise and multipath fading channels are studied. All the necessary interferences are considered. Moreover, transmitted reference systems are also considered as an example of non-coherent UWB systems for the capacity analysis. Novel adaptive receivers are also proposed for multi-user UWB systems in this thesis, as conventional matched-filter detection is not optimal in multi-user environments due to the non-Gaussian multiple-access interference. The new receivers adopt modified correlation operations without designing new decision rules. Numerical results show that the new receivers outperform the conventional receivers in both additive white Gaussian noise and multipath fading channels. For cognitive radio, spectrum sensing based on energy detection is studied. In order to make the analysis closer to practical applications, traffic load of the multiple primary users is taken into account. Expressions for the probability of detection, probability of false alarm and error probability are derived for both standalone spectrum sensing and collaborative spectrum sensing. In addition, the effect of the primary user traffic on the signal-to-noise ratio wall of energy detection is evaluated when noise uncertainty is present. Collaborative user number selection is also investigated in this work. The number of collaborative users is selected to maximize the effective throughput considering both the sensing performance in the physical layer and the throughput performance in the upper layer. Different channel conditions and decision rules are considered. Expressions for the optimum number of collaborative users are derived and verified.

The aim of this thesis is the study of techniques for efficient management and use of the spectrum based on cognitive radio technology. The ability of cognitive radio technologies to adapt to the real-time conditions of its operating environment, offers the potential for more flexible use of the available spectrum. In this context, the international interest is particularly focused on the “white spaces” in the UHF band of digital terrestrial television. Spectrum sensing and geo-location database have been considered in order to obtain information on the electromagnetic environment. Different methodologies have been considered in order to investigate spectral resources potentially available for the white space devices in the TV band. The adopted methodologies are based on the geo-location database approach used either in autonomous operation or in combination with sensing techniques. A novel and computationally efficient methodology for the calculation of the maximum permitted white space device EIRP is then proposed. The methodology is suitable for implementation in TV white space databases. Different Italian scenarios are analyzed in order to identify both the available spectrum and the white space device emission limits. Finally two different applications of cognitive radio technology are considered. The first considered application is the emergency management. The attention is focused on the consideration of both cognitive and autonomic networking approaches when deploying an emergency management system. The cognitive technology is then considered in applications related to satellite systems. In particular a hybrid cognitive satellite-terrestrial is introduced and an analysis of coexistence between terrestrial and satellite networks by considering a cognitive approach is performed.

The aim of this thesis is the study of techniques for efficient management and use of the spectrum based on cognitive radio technology. The ability of cognitive radio technologies to adapt to the real-time conditions of its operating environment, offers the potential for more flexible use of the available spectrum. In this context, the international interest is particularly focused on the “white spaces” in the UHF band of digital terrestrial television. Spectrum sensing and geo-location database have been considered in order to obtain information on the electromagnetic environment. Different methodologies have been considered in order to investigate spectral resources potentially available for the white space devices in the TV band. The adopted methodologies are based on the geo-location database approach used either in autonomous operation or in combination with sensing techniques. A novel and computationally efficient methodology for the calculation of the maximum permitted white space device EIRP is then proposed. The methodology is suitable for implementation in TV white space databases. Different Italian scenarios are analyzed in order to identify both the available spectrum and the white space device emission limits. Finally two different applications of cognitive radio technology are considered. The first considered application is the emergency management. The attention is focused on the consideration of both cognitive and autonomic networking approaches when deploying an emergency management system. The cognitive technology is then considered in applications related to satellite systems. In particular a hybrid cognitive satellite-terrestrial is introduced and an analysis of coexistence between terrestrial and satellite networks by considering a cognitive approach is performed.

We investigate spectral-efficient design and develop novel schemes to improve spectral efficiency of the modern wireless communications networks. Nowadays, more and more spectrum resources are required to support various high-data-rate applications while spectrum resources are limited. Moreover, static allocation and exclusive access in current spectrum assignment policy caused a lot of licensed spectrum bands to be underutilized. To deal with the problem, cognitive radio (CR) has been developed, which allows unlicensed/secondary users to transmit with licensed/primary users as long as the former ones do not generate intolerable interference to the latter ones. The coexistence of users and networks requires careful and dynamic planning to mitigate interference. Otherwise, the network performance will be severely undermined. We study both spectrum sensing and spectrum access techniques and propose several transmit schemes for different types of cognitive ratio networks, including spectrum overlay and spectrum underlay systems. The proposed algorithms can improve spectral efficiency of the networks efficiently and have potentials to be used in future wireless communications networks.

Propelled by the explosive increases in mobile data traffic volume, existing wireless technologies are stretched to their capacity limits. There is a tremendous need for an expansion in system capacity and an improvement on energy efficiency. In addition, wireless network will support more and more multimedia services and applications, in which user experience has been always an important factor in evaluating the overall network performance. In order to keep pace with this explosion of data traffic and to meet the emerging quality of experience needs, wireless heterogeneous networks have been introduced as a promising network architecture evolution of the traditional cellular network. In this dissertation, we explore video quality-aware spectrum efficiency and energy efficiency in wireless heterogeneous networks|the potentials and the associated technical challenges. In particular, aiming to significantly enhance spectrum efficiency, we need to tackle the interference issue, which is exacerbated in heterogeneous network due to ultra dense node deployment as well as heterogeneity nature of various nodes. Specifically, werst study an optimal intra-cell inter-tier cooperation to mitigate interference between high power nodes and low power nodes. Together with cooperation, optimal mobile association and resource allocation schemes are also intensively investigated in heterogeneous network to achieve system load balancing so that bandwidth at high power and low power nodes can be utilized in the optimal way. The proposed scheme can greatly alleviate inter-tier interference and significantly increase overall system spectrum efficiency in a heterogeneous network. We then further apply advanced algorithms such as precoding, and non-orthogonal multiple access into intra-cell inter-tier cooperation so that the overall system spectrum efficiency and user experience are even more improved. When supporting a video type application in such a heterogeneous network, considering only spectrum efficiency is far from enough as video application is bandwidth consuming, battery consuming, and quality demanding. We develop a video quality-aware spectrum and energy efficiency resource allocation scheme in a wireless heterogeneous network and propose novel performance metrics to establish fundamental relationships among spectrum efficiency, energy efficiency, and quality of experience. Extensive simulations are conducted to evaluate the trade-o performance among three performance metrics.

In the cooperative networks, in order to combat the 50% spectrum efficiency loss of the half-duplex limit imposed on most of the mobile terminals, this thesis studies the high efficiency two-path model and proposes the selective two-path model to recover the efficiency loss and explore the diversity. In the two-path succussive relay cooptative transmission, the 50% loss in data rate can be well avoided because the source can continuously transmit to two relays alternatively. Due to the concurrent transmission from source and relays, however, inter-relay interference may significantly damage the performance. Various practical interference cancellation algorithms are introduced in the thesis. Two practical relay protocols for the two-path model are studied: the amplify-forward protocol and decode-forward protocol. With the application of these two protocols, the interference emerges with different effects towards the final received signal. As demonstrated in the simulation parts, we show that the proposed algorithms can suppress the interference effectively, thus achieve satisfied performance without the sacrifice of other resources, e.g. time, frequency or space. " With the help of information theoretical tools, the analysis of the proposed selective two-path model proves that it can achieve diversity order of M if there are M potential relay candidates. Such diversity is obtained without the reduction of spectrum efficiency. The selective two-path model can combat the fading of wireless channels and improve the robustness of the system without the cost of power or bandwidth. With the recovered 50% spectrum efficiency, such model can be used in the cooperative networks which require high data rate and spectrum efficiency, for example, cellular networks or wireless sensor networks.

CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO
Nesta dissertação é proposto um novo método para a avaliação da eficiência de uso do espectro a ser aplicado para os sistemas de telecomunicações pontoárea, incluindo radiodifusão, e ponto-a-ponto. A definição proposta para o índice de eficiência é baseada nos aspectos técnicos, mas outros aspectos que podem influenciar na determinação da eficiência dos sistemas de telecomunicações, como os econômicos, sociais, políticos e estratégicos também são discutidos. O método é testado com dados reais de sistemas disponibilizados pela Anatel e no sítio dos prestadores de serviços de telecomunicações no Brasil. É muito importante avaliar a eficiência dos sistemas de telecomunicações, pois sendo o espectro de radiofreqüências um recurso limitado, pela tecnologia e capacidade de gerenciamento, a introdução de novos serviços de telecomunicações somente será possível com a substituição, pela realocação ou extinção, de determinadas aplicações menos eficientes. Apesar da regulamentação nacional e internacional constantemente referir-se à importância do uso eficiente das faixas de freqüências, não existe um método harmonizado de avaliação, o que impede a verificação deste aspecto pelos órgãos reguladores. As novas tecnologias e as oportunidades de desenvolvimento social que elas proporcionam demonstram a necessidade da boa gerência do espectro de radiofreqüências e de que cada uma de suas porções seja utilizada de forma eficiente e adequada a cada tipo de aplicação.
In this work a new method for the assessment of the spectrum use efficiency is proposed to be applied to point-area, including broadcasting, and point-to-point telecommunications systems. The proposed definition of the efficiency index is based in technical aspects, but other subjects that affect the determination of a telecommunications system efficiency, as economics, social, political and strategic issues are also discussed. The method is tested with data of real systems available from the Brazilian Regulatory Agency (Anatel) and at the telecommunications service providers web sites. It is very important to assess the telecommunications systems efficiency, because being the radio spectrum a scarce resource, limited by technology and management capacity, the introduction of new telecommunications services will only be possible by replacement, refarming or suppression of some less efficient applications. Despite national and international regulations usually refers to the importance of efficient use of the frequency bands, there is no harmonized assessment method to be applied and verified by the regulators. The new technologies and the opportunities for social development provided by them, bring to the light the need for a good radio spectrum management and how each part of it must be used efficiently and assigned properly for each type of application or telecommunications service.

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2017.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 88-97).
Today, two dominant strategies for solar energy harvesting exist: solar thermal and photovoltaic. Solar thermal energy harvesting offers the distinct ability to both utilize the full solar spectrum and provide dispatchable electrical power to the grid. By contrast, the generation of power via the photovoltaic effect can reduce the complexity of a system by eliminating moving parts. Conversion strategies which use both thermal and photovoltaic principles capitalize on the advantages of each. This thesis explores the potential of these technologies through both experimental and theoretical device-level studies. First, we explored solar thermophotovoltaic devices (STPVs) which convert broadband sunlight to narrow-band thermal radiation tuned for a photovoltaic cell. We demonstrated the highest STPV efficiency to date through the suppression of 80% of sub-bandgap blackbody radiation by pairing a one-dimensional photonic-crystal selective emitter with a tandem plasma-interference optical filter. We measured a solar-to-electrical conversion rate of 6.8%, exceeding the performance of the photovoltaic cell alone. Additionally, we show experimentally that STPVs can reduce the heat generation rates in the photovoltaic cell by a factor of two for the same power density. Next, we explored the use of spectral splitting as a different strategy to use both thermal and photovoltaic technologies. A model of an ideal solar spectral-splitting converter was developed to determine the conversion efficiency limit as well as the corresponding optimum spectral bandwidth of sunlight which should illuminate the photovoltaic cell. This bandwidth was also obtained analytically through an entropy minimization scheme and matches well with our model. We show that the maximum efficiency of the system occurs when it minimizes the spectral entropy generation. Beyond solar energy harvesting, we investigated the radiation dynamics of vanadium dioxide (VO2 ), which is of interest because of the abrupt decline of emittance at the insulator-metal transition at ~340 K. Negative differential emission is exploited to demonstrate thermal runaway of this system for the first time. These results are used to validate a radiation heat transfer model which explores the limiting behavior of a VO2 material set.
by David M. Bierman.
Ph. D.

Mestrado em Engenharia Eletrónica e Telecomunicações
A recolha de energia do meio ambiente para alimentar dispositivos como forma de os tornar auto-sustentáveis tem vindo cada vez mais a suscitar interesse. Por outro lado, o crescimento contínuo do espectro resultante das telecomunicações constitui uma grande oportunidade para a colheita de energia. Assim sendo, neste trabalho e proposto um sistema altamente e ciente de recolha de energia de rádio-frequência que utiliza o sinal da televisão digital (D-TV) portuguesa e que converte-o em tenso que poder a ser reaproveitada. De forma a ser vantajoso, o sistema e otimizado para operar a baixos níveis de potência. Assim, o presente trabalho pretende também fornecer orientações para o correto desenvolvimento do sistema de colheita de energia para baixa potência de entrada, contribuindo para o desenvolvimento de projetos futuros. O sistema e dividido numa antena recetora e num retificador. Para o retificador são propostas três soluções distintas: um díodo série, um díodo paralelo e um duplicador de tensão. A eficiência obtida e semelhante para as três configurações - cerca de 54% para um sinal de entrada sinusoidal com um nível de potência de -10.5 dBm. Medições com o multiplicador de tensão e o sinal real da D-TV como entrada mostraram uma eficiência de 63% para o mesmo nível de potência. Relativamente à antena, e proposta uma patch com slots e com um elemento parasita que utiliza como substrato dielétrico FR-4. Esta configuração resulta da necessidade de melhorar a largura de banda da microstrip simples. Medições mostraram um aumento da largura de banda em cerca de 4 vezes quando em comparação com uma patch simples.
Collect energy from the surroundings is being biased to power-up devices in order to turn them self-sustainable. On the other hand, the spectrum resultant from the telecommunications tends to progressively increase and becomes wide-reaching, constituting an enormous opportunity to energy harvesting. Thus, in this work a high e ciency radio-frequency energy harvesting system is proposed that takes uses of the Portuguese Digital Television (D-TV) signal to obtain Direct Current (DC) power. To be useful, the system is optimized to operate at low power conditions. So, this work also aims to provide reliable guidelines in the design of energy harvesting systems with low-input power. The system is divided into an antenna and a recti er. For the recti er, three di erent solutions are presented: a single-series diode, a singleshunt diode and a voltage doubler con guration. The e ciency is similar for the three recti ers { around 54% with a sine-wave excitation and -10.5 dBm input power. Field measurements with the voltage doubler has proven 63% e ciency for the same input power. As receiver antenna is proposed a slotted patch with a stacked parasitic based on FR-4 substrate. This con guration results from the need to improve the bandwidth of the basic microstrip patch. Measurements have proven and enhancement around 4 times in comparison with a basic patch.

ITC/USA 2012 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Eighth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2012 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California
Spectrum efficiency is the key challenge in modern telemetry systems. Network telemetry requires moving from a dedicated link structure to a network structure which is a very complex problem and requires spectrum management tools. A mixed network structure has been previously proposed for networked telemetry which employs a combination of cellular and Adhoc networks. Significant improvements in QoS and clustering of the complex aeronautical networks have been observed and published in several venues. However in the earlier work routing within the Ad-hoc clusters has not been addressed and the clustering has been done using an enhanced K-means clustering. In this paper, a well known clustering algorithm is adopted in the mixed network concept and clustering of the Ad-hoc nodes are optimized based on shortest route to the gateway and minimum hop count criteria. The proposed clustering technique in this paper leads to a jointly optimized cluster-topology and gateway-selection solution a complex aeronautical network. Simulation results towards the end of this paper illustrate that with the proposed method, cluster configuration is locally optimized and the best gateway for each cluster is successfully selected. With addition of traffic measures to the consideration in the routing, the proposed solution will leads to efficient spectrum allocation and improved QoS.

As the wireless communication technologies evolve and the demand of wireless services increases, spectrum scarcity becomes a bottleneck that limits the introduction of new technologies and services. Spectrum sharing between primary and secondary users has been brought up to improve spectrum efficiency. In underlay spectrum sharing, the secondary user transmits simultaneously with the primary user, under the constraint that the interference induced at the primary receiver is below a certain threshold, or a certain primary rate requirement has to be satisfied. Specifically, in this thesis, the coexistence of a multiple-input single-output (MISO) primary link and a MISO/multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) secondary link is studied. The primary transmitter employs maximum ratio transmission (MRT), and single-user decoding is deployed at the primary receiver. Three scenarios are investigated, in terms of the interference from the primary transmitter to the secondary receiver, namely, weak interference, strong interference and very strong interference, or equivalently three ranges of primary rate requirement. Rate splitting and successive decoding are deployed at the secondary transmitter and receiver, respectively, when it is feasible, and otherwise single-user decoding is deployed at the secondary receiver. For each scenario, optimal beamforming/precoding and power allocation at the secondary transmitter is derived, to maximize the achievable secondary rate while satisfying the primary rate requirement and the secondary power constraint. Numerical results show that rate splitting at the secondary transmitter and successive decoding at the secondary receiver does significantly increase the achievable secondary rate if feasible, compared with single-user decoding at the secondary receiver. In overlay spectrum sharing, different from underlay spectrum sharing, the secondary transmitter can utilize the knowledge of the primary message, which is acquired non-causally (i.e., known in advance before transmission) or causally (i.e., acquired in the first phase of a two-phase transmission), to help transmit the primary message besides its own message. Specifically, the coexistence of a MISO primary link and a MISO/MIMO secondary link is studied. When the secondary transmitter has non-causal knowledge of the primary message, dirty-paper coding (DPC) can be deployed at the secondary transmitter to precancel the interference (when decoding the secondary message at the secondary receiver), due to the transmission of the primary message from both transmitters. Alternatively, due to the high implementation complexity of DPC, linear precoding can be deployed at the secondary transmitter. In both cases, the primary transmitter employs MRT, and single-user decoding is deployed at the primary receiver; optimal beamforming/precoding and power allocation at the secondary transmitter is obtained, to maximize the achievable secondary rate while satisfying the primary rate requirement and the secondary power constraint. Numerical results show that with non-causal knowledge of the primary message and the deployment of DPC at the secondary transmitter, overlay spectrum sharing can achieve a significantly higher secondary rate than underlay spectrum sharing, while rate loss occurs with the deployment of linear precoding instead of DPC at the secondary transmitter. When the secondary transmitter does not have non-causal knowledge of the primary message, and still wants to help with the primary transmission in return for the access to the spectrum, it can relay the primary message in an amplify-and-forward (AF) or a decode-and-forward (DF) way in a two-phase transmission, while transmitting its own message. The primary link adapts its transmission strategy and cooperates with the secondary link to fulfill its rate requirement. To maximize the achievable secondary rate while satisfying the primary rate requirement and the primary and secondary power constraints, in the case of AF cooperative spectrum sharing, optimal relaying matrix and beamforming vector at the secondary transmitter is obtained; in the case of DF cooperative spectrum sharing, a set of parameters are optimized, including time duration of the two phases, primary transmission strategies in the two phases and secondary transmission strategy in the second phase. Numerical results show that with the cooperation from the secondary link, the primary link can avoid outage effectively, especially when the number of antennas at the secondary transceiver is large, while the secondary link can achieve a significant rate. Power is another precious resource besides spectrum. Instead of spectrum efficiency, energy-efficient spectrum sharing focuses on the energy efficiency (EE) optimization of the secondary transmission. The EE of the secondary transmission is defined as the ratio of the achievable secondary rate and the secondary power consumption, which includes both the transmit power and the circuit power at the secondary transmitter. For simplicity, the circuit power is modeled as a constant. Specifically, the EE of a MIMO secondary link in underlay spectrum sharing is studied. Three transmission strategies are introduced based on the primary rate requirement and the channel conditions. Rate splitting and successive decoding are deployed at the secondary transmitter and receiver, respectively, when it is feasible, and otherwise single-user decoding is deployed at the secondary receiver. For each case, optimal transmit covariance matrices at the secondary transmitter are obtained, to maximize the EE of the secondary transmission while satisfying the primary rate requirement and the secondary power constraint. Based on this, an energy-efficient resource allocation algorithm is proposed. Numerical results show that MIMO underlay spectrum sharing with EE optimization can achieve a significantly higher EE compared with MIMO underlay spectrum sharing with rate optimization, at certain SNRs and with certain circuit power, at the cost of the achievable secondary rate, while saving the transmit power. With rate splitting at the secondary transmitter and successive decoding at the secondary receiver if feasible, a significantly higher EE can be achieved compared with the case when only single-user decoding is deployed at the secondary receiver. Moreover, the EE of a MIMO secondary link in overlay spectrum sharing is studied, where the secondary transmitter has non-causal knowledge of the primary message and employs DPC to obtain an interference-free secondary link. Energy-efficient precoding and power allocation is obtained to maximize the EE of the secondary transmission while satisfying the primary rate requirement and the secondary power constraint. Numerical results show that MIMO overlay spectrum sharing with EE optimization can achieve a significantly higher EE compared with MIMO overlay spectrum sharing with rate optimization, at certain SNRs and with certain circuit power, at the cost of the achievable secondary rate, while saving the transmit power. MIMO overlay spectrum sharing with EE optimization can achieve a higher EE compared with MIMO underlay spectrum sharing with EE optimization
Aufgrund der rasanten Entwicklung im Bereich der drahtlosen Kommunikation und der ständig steigenden Nachfrage nach mobilen Anwendungen ist die Knappheit von Frequenzbändern ein entscheidender Engpass, der die Einführung neuer Funktechnologien behindert. Die gemeinsame Benutzung von Frequenzen (Spektrum-Sharing) durch primäre und sekundäre Nutzer ist eine Möglichkeit, die Effizienz bei der Verwendung des Spektrums zu verbessern. Bei der Methode des Underlay-Spektrum-Sharing sendet der sekundäre Nutzer zeitgleich mit dem primären Nutzer unter der Einschränkung, dass für den primären Nutzer die erzeugte Interferenz unterhalb eines Schwellwertes liegt oder gewisse Anforderungen an die Datenrate erfüllt werden. In diesem Zusammenhang wird in der Arbeit insbesondere die Koexistenz von Mehrantennensystemen untersucht. Dabei wird für die primäre Funkverbindung der Fall mit mehreren Sendeantennen und einer Empfangsantenne (MISO) angenommen. Für die sekundäre Funkverbindung werden mehrere Sendeantennen und sowohl eine als auch mehrere Empfangsantennen (MISO/MIMO) betrachtet. Der primäre Sender verwendet Maximum-Ratio-Transmission (MRT) und der primäre Empfänger Einzelnutzerdecodierung. Für den sekundären Nutzer werden außerdem am Sender eine Datenratenaufteilung (rate splitting) und am Empfänger entweder eine sukzessive Decodierung – sofern sinnvoll – oder andernfalls eine Einzelnutzerdecodierung verwendet. Im Unterschied zur Methode des Underlay-Spektrum-Sharing kann der sekundäre Nutzer beim Verfahren des Overlay-Spektrum-Sharing die Kenntnis über die Nachrichten des primären Nutzers einsetzen, um die Übertragung sowohl der eigenen als auch der primären Nachrichten zu unterstützen. Das Wissen über die Nachrichten erhält er entweder nicht-kausal, d.h. vor der Übertragung, oder kausal, d.h. während der ersten Phase einer zweistufigen Übertragung. In der Arbeit wird speziell die Koexistenz von primären MISO-Funkverbindungen und sekundären MISO/MIMO-Funkverbindungen untersucht. Bei nicht-kausaler Kenntnis über die primären Nachrichten kann der sekundäre Sender beispielsweise das Verfahren der Dirty-Paper-Codierung (DPC) verwenden, welches es ermöglicht, die Interferenz durch die primären Nachrichten bei der Decodierung der sekundären Nachrichten am sekundären Empfänger aufzuheben. Da die Implementierung der DPC mit einer hohen Komplexität verbunden ist, kommt als Alternative auch eine lineare Vorcodierung zum Einsatz. In beiden Fällen verwendet der primäre Transmitter MRT und der primäre Empfänger Einzelnutzerdecodierung. Besitzt der sekundäre Nutzer keine nicht-kausale Kenntnis über die primären Nachrichten, so kann er als Gegenleistung für die Mitbenutzung des Spektrums dennoch die Übertragung der primären Nachrichten unterstützen. Hierfür leitet er die primären Nachrichten mit Hilfe der Amplify-And-Forward-Methode oder der Decode-And-Forward-Methode in einer zweitstufigen Übertragung weiter, währenddessen er seine eigenen Nachrichten sendet. Der primäre Nutzer passt seine Sendestrategie entsprechend an und kooperiert mit dem sekundären Nutzer, um die Anforderungen an die Datenrate zu erfüllen. Nicht nur das Spektrum sondern auch die Sendeleistung ist eine wichtige Ressource. Daher wird zusätzlich zur Effizienz bei der Verwendung des Spektrums auch die Energieeffizienz (EE) einer sekundären MIMO-Funkverbindung für das Underlay-Spektrum-Sharing-Verfahren analysiert. Wie zuvor wird für den sekundären Nutzer am Sender eine Datenratenaufteilung (rate splitting) und am Empfänger entweder eine sukzessive Decodierung oder eine Einzelnutzerdecodierung betrachtet. Weiterhin wird die EE einer sekundären MIMO-Funkverbindung für das Overlay-Spektrum-Sharing-Verfahren untersucht. Dabei nutzt der sekundäre Nutzer die nicht-kausale Kenntnis über die primären Nachrichten aus, um mittels DPC eine interferenzfreie sekundäre Funkverbindung zu erhalten

Abstract Recent advances in wireless communications coupled with the widespread of bandwidthhungry and high-power consuming wireless services as well as the rapid penetration of multimedia-enabled smart handheld devices generate a drastic growth in mobile traffic volume. With these trends, the goals of 5G and beyond wireless communications include energy efficiency, low latency, and low service cost from the user’ perspective as well as spectrum efficiency, revenue increasing, and lower capital and operational cost from the network operators’ point of view. This thesis studies the potential of mobile clouds for improving energy, spectral, and cost efficiency towards the primary goals of 5G networks. Mobile clouds define a promising 5G integrated technology which combines the conventional cellular and shortrange networks into a novel and powerful communication architecture. Mobile clouds can be seen as a flexible and efficient platform for cooperative content delivery, cooperation, resource sharing, and social networks. Research work in this thesis is conducted in two main areas, namely fundamental and applied research on mobile clouds. Fundamental research focuses on cloud formation strategies and cloud maintenance mechanisms. In the applied area, the potential of mobile clouds for content distribution is investigated in both licensed and unlicensed bands. For content distribution using unlicensed band, several cooperative strategies are designed and their efficiency is compared to traditional multicast strategy in terms of energy efficiency, content distribution latency, and users’ quality of experience (QoE). In content distribution over licensed band, spectrum sharing and resource allocation algorithms are considered for multi pair and full-duplex device-to-device (D2D) communications, aiming at improving spectral efficiency and network performance as well as quality of service (QoS) provisioning. In addition, a business model is designed to consider how mobile clouds can reduce the cost of users and operators while improving revenue of operators and increasing users’ satisfaction. The results of this thesis show that mobile clouds technology creates a flexible and efficient platform which can efficiently enhance spectral efficiency, significantly improve energy efficiency and network performance while guaranteeing cost efficiency for users and network operators simultaneously
Tiivistelmä Langattomassa viestinnässä on viime aikoina saavutettu useita edistysaskeleita samalla kun suurta kaistanleveyttä edellyttävien ja paljon tehoa kuluttavien langattomien palveluiden käyttö on yleistynyt ja multimediatoiminnoilla varustetut älylaitteet ovat vallanneet nopeasti markkinoita. Tämän seurauksena mobiililiikenne on lisääntynyt huomattavasti. Näiden suuntausten valossa langattoman 5G-viestinnän ja sitä seuraavien sukupolvien langattoman viestinnän kehitystavoitteita ovat muun muassa seuraavat: käyttäjän näkökulmasta energiatehokkuus, mahdollisimman lyhyet viiveajat ja palvelun käytöstä aiheutuvien kustannusten edullisuus sekä verkko-operaattorin näkökulmasta spektritehokkuus, tulojen kasvattaminen ja aiempaa matalammat pääoma- ja käyttökustannukset. Tässä väitöskirjassa tarkastellaan millaisia mahdollisuuksia mobiilipilvet tarjoavat energia-, spektri- ja kustannustehokkuuden parantamiseen ja siten 5G-verkkojen päätavoitteiden saavuttamiseen. Mobiilipilvi on lupaava osa 5G-teknologiaa, jossa perinteiset solukkoverkot ja lyhyen kantaman verkot yhdistyvät aivan uudenlaiseen ja tehokkaaseen tietoliikennearkkitehtuuriin. Mobiilipilvet voidaan nähdä joustavana ja tehokkaana alustana sisällön yhteisjakelulle, yhteistyölle, resurssien jakamiselle ja toiminnalle sosiaalisissa verkoissa. Tätä väitöskirjaa varten on tehty tutkimusta sekä mobiilipilviä koskevan perustutkimuksen että soveltavan tutkimuksen parissa. Perustutkimuksessa keskitytään tarkastelemaan pilvien muodostamisessa käytettäviä strategioita ja pilvien ylläpidossa käytettäviä mekanismeja. Soveltavan tutkimuksen alueella mobiilipilvien tarjoamia sisällön jakelun mahdollisuuksia tarkastellaan sekä luvanvaraisilla että vapaasti käytettävillä kaistoilla. Vapaasti käytettävillä kaistoilla toteutettavaa jakelua varten työssä kehitetään useita yhteistoimintastrategioita, joiden tehokkuutta verrataan perinteiseen monilähetysstrategiaan energiatehokkuuden, sisällön jakelun viiveiden ja käyttäjien kokemuksen laadun (Quality of Experience, QoE) osalta. Luvanvaraisilla kaistoilla toteutettavan sisällön jakelun osalta tarkastellaan moniparisessa ja samanaikaisessa molemminsuuntaisessa laitteiden välisessä viestinnässä (D2D-kommunikaatiossa) käytettäviä spektrin jakamisen ja resurssien allokoimisen algoritmeja, jotta spektritehokkuutta ja verkon suorituskykyä sekä palvelun laatua (Quality of Service, QoS) pystyttäisiin parantamaan. Tämän lisäksi työssä kehitellään liiketoimintamallia, jonka avulla voidaan pohtia, miten mobiilipilvillä voidaan vähentää käyttäjien ja operaattorien kustannuksia ja samalla kasvattaa operaattorien tuloja ja parantaa käyttäjien tyytyväisyyttä. Tämän työn tulokset osoittavat, että mobiilipilviteknologia on joustava ja tehokas alusta, jolla voidaan lisätä olennaisesti spektritehokkuutta, parantaa merkittävästi energiatehokkuutta ja verkon suorituskykyä sekä taata kustannustehokkuus sekä käyttäjien että verkko-operaattorien näkökulmasta

Modern innovation is a driving force behind increased spectrum crowding. Several studies performed by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and other groups have proposed Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) as a promising solution to alleviate spectrum crowding. The spectrum assignment decisions in DSA will be made by a centralized entity referred to as as spectrum access system (SAS); however, maintaining spectrum utilization information in SAS presents privacy risks, as sensitive Incumbent User (IU) operation parameters are required to be stored by SAS in order to perform spectrum assignments properly. These sensitive operation parameters may potentially be compromised if SAS is the target of a cyber attack or an inference attack executed by a secondary user (SU). In this thesis, we explore the operational security of IUs in SAS-based DSA systems and propose a novel privacy-preserving SAS-based DSA framework, Suspicion Zone SAS (SZ-SAS), the first such framework which protects against both the scenario of inference attacks in an area with sparsely distributed IUs and the scenario of untrusted or compromised SAS. We then define modifications to the SU inference attack algorithm, which demonstrate the necessity of applying obfuscation to SU query responses. Finally, we evaluate obfuscation schemes which are compatible with SZ-SAS, verifying the effectiveness of such schemes in preventing an SU inference attack. Our results show SZ-SAS is capable of utilizing compatible obfuscation schemes to prevent the SU inference attack, while operating using only homomorphically encrypted IU operation parameters.
Master of Science

ITC/USA 2012 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Eighth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2012 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California
Growing pressures on today's testing resources are driving the need for a change in the way telemetry is currently being done. As systems advance and become more complex, testing these systems becomes more difficult due to budget, schedule and test resource constraints. These pressures create the need to support more concurrent testing with ever increasing numbers of participants and bandwidth requirements, all while available resources are diminishing. In order to continue to provide support to the war fighter through timely and efficient testing of new systems, the test infrastructure needs to be updated to become more agile and efficient. We will examine the application of innovative new technologies and concepts to increase the capabilities of the testing infrastructure in the presence of shrinking resources. By leveraging advances in wireless technologies, telemetry networks and other technologies, we will present alternatives to the current telemetry paradigm.

Wireless spectrum is a limited resource that must be used efficiently. It is also a broadcast medium, hence, additional procedures are required to maintain communication over the wireless spectrum private. In this thesis, we investigate three key issues related to efficient use and privacy of wireless spectrum use. First, we propose GAVEL, a truthful short-term auction mechanism that enables efficient use of the wireless spectrum through the licensed shared access model. Second, we propose CPRecycle, an improved Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) receiver that retrieves useful information from the cyclic prefix for interference mitigation thus improving spectral efficiency. Third and finally, we propose WiFi Glass, an attack vector on home WiFi networks to infer private information about home occupants. First we consider, spectrum auctions. Existing short-term spectrum auctions do not satisfy all the features required for a heterogeneous spectrum market. We discover that this is due to the underlying auction format, the sealed bid auction. We propose GAVEL, a truthful auction mechanism, that is based on the ascending bid auction format, that avoids the pitfalls of existing auction mechanisms that are based on the sealed bid auction format. Using extensive simulations we observe that GAVEL can achieve better performance than existing mechanisms. Second, we study the use of cyclic prefix in Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing. The cyclic prefix does contain useful information in the presence of interference. We discover that while the signal of interest is redundant in the cyclic prefix, the interference component varies significantly. We use this insight to design CPRecycle, an improved OFDM receiver that is capable of using the information in the cyclic prefix to mitigate various types of interference. It improves spectral efficiency by decoding packets in the presence of interference. CPRecycle require changes to the OFDM receiver and can be deployed in most networks today. Finally, home WiFi networks are considered private when encryption is enabled using WPA2. However, experiments conducted in real homes, show that the wireless activity on the home network can be used to infer occupancy and activity states such as sleeping and watching television. With this insight, we propose WiFi Glass, an attack vector that can be used to infer occupancy and activity states (limited to three activity classes), using only the passively sniffed WiFi signal from the home environment. Evaluation with real data shows that in most of the cases, only about 15 minutes of sniffed WiFi signal is required to infer private information, highlighting the need for countermeasures.

Light is used to illuminate objects in the built environment. Humans can only observe light reflected from an object. Light absorbed by an object turns into heat and does not contribute to visibility. Since the spectral output of the new lighting technologies can be tuned, it is possible to imagine a lighting system that detects the colours of objects and emits customised light to minimise the absorbed energy. Previous optimisation studies investigated the use of narrowband LEDs to maximise the efficiency and colour quality of a light source. While these studies aimed to tune a white light source for general use, the lighting system proposed here minimises the energy consumed by lighting by detecting colours of objects and emitting customised light onto each coloured part of the object. This thesis investigates the feasibility of absorption-minimising light source spectra and their impact on the colour appearance of objects and energy consumption. Two computational studies were undertaken to form the theoretical basis of the absorption-minimising light source spectra. Computational simulations show that the theoretical single-peak spectra can lower the energy consumption up to around 38 % to 62 %, and double-peak test spectra can result in energy savings up to 71 %, without causing colour shifts. In these studies, standard reference illuminants, theoretical test spectra and coloured test samples were used. These studies are followed by the empirical evidence collected from two psychophysical experiments. Data from the experiments show that observers find the colour appearance of objects equally natural and attractive under spectrally optimised spectra and reference white light sources. An increased colour difference, to a certain extent, is found acceptable, which allows even higher energy savings. However, the translucent nature of some objects may negatively affect the results.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Physics, 2009.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 147-156).
Fast Ignition is an alternative scheme for Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) that uses a petawatt laser to ignite a hot spot in precompressed fuel. The laser delivers its energy into relativistic electrons at the critical surface of the blowoff plasma. These electrons must propagate to the fuel core and deliver their energy to a hot spot. Electrons of energies between 1 and 3 MeV have the appropriate range for efficient energy deposition. This thesis experimentally explores the coupling efficiency and spectrum of the laser produced electrons. The experiments make use of Bremsstrahlung and K-shell emission from planar foil targets to infer the electron distribution produced in the laser-plasma interaction. This thesis describes the development of a filter stack Bremsstrahlung spectrometer with differential sensitivity up to 500 keV. The spectrometer is used with a single photon counting camera for measuring K[alpha] emission in experiments on the Titan laser (1.06 [mu]m, 150 J, 0.7 ps) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. The Bremsstrahlung and K-shell emission from 1 mm3 planar targets irradiated with intensities from 3x1018-8x1019 W/cm2 were measured. The target emission is modeled using the Monte Carlo code Integrated Tiger Series 3.0 in order to unfold the electron spectrum from the x-ray measurements. Conversion efficiencies into 1-3 MeV electrons of 12-28% were inferred, representing 35-60% total conversion efficiencies. Laser diagnostics were used to characterize the laser focal spot and pulselength in order to provide proper comparisons to intensity scaling laws.
(cont.) Comparisons to scaling laws show that the electron spectrum is colder than the laser ponderomotive potential derived from the peak intensity. For intensities above 2 x 1019 W/cm2, the spectrum is slightly hotter than widely used empirical scalings. More accurate comparisons to ponderomotive scaling using a synthetic energy spectra generated from the intensity distribution of the focal spot imply slope temperatures less than the ponderomotive potential, but is within the range of a correction due to the neglect of resistive transport effects. The impact of resistive transport effects were estimated using an analytic transport model and may lead to higher total conversion efficiencies but lower conversion efficiencies into 1-3 MeV electrons.
by Cliff D Chen.
Ph.D.

Cette thèse traite le problème de garantir la qualité de service (QoS) dans l'internet des objets (IoT) en termes d’urgence et de fiabilité. Pour atteindre cet objectif, nous avons proposé différentes solutions adaptées aux réseaux étendus LoRa (LoRaWAN). Premièrement, nous mettons en œuvre un découpage virtuel du réseau LoRa en plusieurs tranches et nous évaluons son impact en utilisant plusieurs stratégies statiques et dynamiques. Les résultats des simulations exécutés sur NS3 ont prouvé l'efficacité de l'isolation virtuelle des ressources physiques pour une tranche d'un réseau ayant des communications urgentes en réduisant l'impact venant des autres communications IoT. Motivés par ces résultats, une méthode d'optimisation est ensuite proposée pour chercher une meilleure configuration des nœuds LoRa en regardant plus en détail leur paramètres au niveau de la couche physique permettant d’améliorer ses performances en termes de QoS, de fiabilité et d’efficacité énergétique. Par contre, même avec le découpage du réseau en tranches virtuels, l’évolutivité de LoRa reste un défi en raison du manque de flexibilité lors de la gestion des réseaux sans fil actuels. Par conséquent, pour atteindre l'objectif global de garantir une bonne QoS dans un réseau IoT à grande échelle, les technologies SDN et le découpage virtuel du réseau sont adoptés simultanément pour proposer une architecture virtualisée et distribuée. Cette dernière proposition est basée sur la théorie des jeux et s'adapte plus rapidement aux changements dans un environnement IoT encombré en exploitant la prise de décision du découpage du réseau et la configuration des nœuds LoRa à la périphérie du réseau
This thesis deals with the problem of guaranteeing heterogeneous quality of service (QoS) requirements for Internet of Things (IoT) communications in terms of urgency and reliability. Various solutions are proposed towards achieving this goal in LoRa Wide Area Networks (LoRaWAN). First, we implement network slicing over LoRa standard architecture and evaluate its impact using various static and dynamic strategies. Simulation Results performed over NS3 proved the efficiency of network slicing in isolating physical resources for each slice and serving delay critical communications. Motivated by these results, a slice-based optimization is proposed next to improve the dynamic slicing strategy by investigating more LoRa parameters at the physical layer. The proposed method finds for each device the best parameters configuration that potentially improves the performance of its slice in terms of QoS, reliability and energy efficiency. Moreover, we also looked towards meeting upcoming challenges in future IoT networks that comes from the increasing number of IoT devices. Even with network slicing, LoRa scalability remained as a big challenge that should be carefully considered especially due to the lack of flexibility in managing current wireless networks. Therefore, to meet the global objective in guaranteeing QoS in large scale IoT deployments, software defined networking (SDN) and network slicing are adopted as backbone technologies for a distributed virtualized architecture and slicing strategy. The latter proposition is based on game theory and adapts faster to the changes in a congested IoT environment by leveraging slicing decision making closer to the edge

Les années récentes ont vu l’explosion du trafic sur les réseaux mobiles depuis l’apparition de nouveaux terminaux (smartphones, tablettes) et des usages qu’ils permettent, en particulier les données multimédia, le trafic voix restant sensiblement constant. Une conséquence est le besoin de plus de spectre, ou la nécessité de mieux utiliser le spectre déjà alloué. Comme il n’y a pas de coordination entre les utilisateurs secondaire(s) et primaire, avant toute transmission les premiers doivent mettre en œuvre des traitements pour détecter les périodes dans lesquelles l’utilisateur primaire transmet, ce qui est le scénario considéré dans cette thèse. Nous considérons donc une autre approche, reposant sur l’utilisation de codes correcteurs d’effacements en mode paquet. La dernière partie de la thèse aborde un scénario dans lequel il n’y a plus d’utilisateur primaire, tous les utilisateurs ayant le même droit à transmettre dans le canal. Nous décrivons une modification de la couche MAC du 802.11 consistant à réduire les différents temps consacrés à attendre (SIFS, DIFS, backoff, . . .) afin d’accéder plus souvent au canal, au prix de quelques collisions supplémentaires qu’il est possible de récupérer en mettant en œuvre des codes correcteurs d’effacements
The emergence of new devices especially the smartphones and tablets having a lot of new applications have rocketed the wireless traffic in recent years and this is the cause of main surge in the demand of radio spectrum. There is a need of either more spectrum or to use existing spectrum more efficiently due to dramatic increase in the demand of limited spectrum. Among the new dynamic access schemes designed to use the spectrum more efficiently opportunistic spectrum access (OSA) is currently addressed when one or more secondary users (SU) are allowed to access the channel when the PU is not transmitting. The erasure correcting codes are therefore envisioned to recover the lost data due to sensing impairments. We define the parameter efficiency of SU and optimize it in-terms of spectrum utilization keeping into account sensing impairments, code parameters and the activity of PU. Finally, the spectrum access for multiple secondary users is addressed when there is no primary and each user has equal right to access the channel. The interesting scenarios are Cognitive radio networks and WiFi where 802.11 protocol gives the specification for MAC layer. The throughput curvesachieved by retransmission and using various erasure correcting codes are compared. This modification in MAC layer will reduce the long waiting time to access the channel, as the number of users are increased

ITC/USA 2006 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Second Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 23-26, 2006 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California
Research at Morgan State University shows a means of enabling both a mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) and a cellular network to operate simultaneously in the same spectrum. This enhanced frequency efficiency would facilitate the creation of a hybrid or Mixed Cellular/MANET network (MCMN) in which each of the MCMN sub-networks would have access to the entire allotted spectrum. Interference rejection and excision have been identified as a means of distinguishing between and isolating the two different kinds of signals. This paper shows the promising performance of such techniques within the MCMN environment as a part of the integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) project.

Wireless data communications, especially to and from portable mobile devices, is one of the fastest growing paradigms in the field of computer communications. This fast paced growth of wireless communication devices is making some communication frequency bands overcrowded. There exists legacy frequency spectrum that remains under utilized. As a result, there are great inefficiencies in how the overall available frequency spectrum is utilized, motivating the need for new technologies to solve this issue. Cognitive Radio (CR) is an emerging technology proposed over the past decade in order to deal with spectrum inefficiency and to help improving wireless communication performance. A CR has the capability to scan across the spectrum to find under utilized channels and use them for communications under some stipulated conditions. A key aspect of CRs is the "cognition" gained through a spectrum scanning process. The benefit of this cognition is apparent and well studied in terms of achieving better communication performance on selected spectrum and detecting the presence of primary users of licensed spectrum. The benefits in terms of reduced energy consumption in secondary users, however, due to easier channel access and less contention have not been quantified in prior work. Spectrum scanning to gain cognition is a power intensive process and the costs incurred in terms of energy lost need to be accounted for. Thus, it is not clear whether a cognitive radio based node would be more energy efficient than any conventional radio node, and if so, under what circumstances. As a result, the focus of this work is on the ad hoc Wireless LAN scenario that works in the highly congested ISM bands. In this dissertation three important contributions to research on ad-hoc WLAN cognitive radios are presented. First, a comprehensive survey on prior research in cognitive radio networks with a focus on the implications for energy consumption is presented. Second, the energy consumption of a radio that uses the CR technique is modeled and analyzed for a static scenario with fixed channel conditions and node populations. As part of this work four novel spectrum scanning algorithms are proposed and analytically evaluated for their energy consumption. Finally, the energy consumption of a radio that employs the CR technique through one of our four spectrum scanning schemes is studied through simulations for dynamic scenarios that include diverse channel conditions and varying node populations.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Device-to-Device (D2D) communication is one of the technologies for next generation communication system. Unlike traditional cellular network, D2D allows proximity users to communicate directly with each other without routing the data through a base station. The main aim of this study is to improve the overall energy efficiency (EE) of D2D communications overlaying cellular system. To reduce the complexity of joint EE optimization, we decompose the main EE problem into two subproblems; resource efficiency (RE) optimization in the first stage and EE optimization for D2D pairs in the second stage. Firstly, we propose an alternative two-stage RE-EE scheme for a single cellular user equipment (CUE) and a D2D pair utilizing uplink spectrum. Later, we extend this work for multiple CUEs and D2D pairs by considering the downlink orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA). By exploiting a range of optimization tools including the Bisection method, interior point algorithm, fractional programming, Dinkelbach approach, Lagrange dual decomposition, difference of convex functions, and concave-convex procedure, the original non-convex problems are solved and we present iterative two-stage RE-EE solutions. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed two-stage scheme for uplink scenario outperforms the cellular mode and dedicated mode of communications and the performance is close to the global optimal solution. The results also show that the proposed schemes for downlink resource sharing provide improved system EE performance with significant gain on EE for D2D users compared to a two-stage EE-EE solution, which is obtained numerically. Furthermore, the RE and EE optimization for non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) are considered to study the effect of users' access to the whole spectrum. The results indicate that the proposed RE scheme for NOMA with D2D communications achieves higher system EE compared to the OFDMA based schemes.

Les bandes des fréquences, telles qu'elles sont aménagées aujourd'hui, sont statiquement allouées. Afin d'améliorer la productivité et l'efficacité de l'utilisation du spectre, une nouvelle approche a été proposée : le "partage dynamique du spectre". Les régulateurs, les industriels et les scientifiques ont examiné le partage des bandes fédérales entre les détenteurs de licences (utilisateurs primaires) et les nouveaux entrants (utilisateurs secondaires). La nature d'un tel partage peut faciliter les attaques d'inférence et mettre en péril les paramètres opérationnels des utilisateurs primaires. Par conséquent, le but de cette thèse est d'améliorer la confidentialité des utilisateurs primaires tout en permettant un accès secondaire au spectre. Premièrement, nous présentons une brève description des règles de partage et des exigences en termes de confidentialité dans les bandes fédérales. Nous étudions également les techniques de conservation de confidentialité (obscurcissement) proposées dans les domaines d'exploration et d'édition de données pour contrecarrer les attaques d'inférence. Ensuite, nous proposons et mettons en œuvre notre approche pour protéger la fréquence et la localisation opérationnelles contre les attaques d'inférence. La première partie étudie la protection de la fréquence opérationnelle en utilisant un obscurcissement inhérent et explicite pour préserver la confidentialité. La deuxième partie traite la protection de la localisation opérationnelle en utilisant la confiance comme principale contre-mesure pour identifier et atténuer un risque d'inférence. Enfin, nous présentons un cadre axé sur les risques qui résume notre travail et s'adapte à d'autres approches de protection de la confidentialité. Ce travail est soutenu par des modèles, des simulations et des résultats qui focalisent sur l'importance de quantifier les techniques de préservation de la confidentialité et d'analyser le compromis entre la protection de la confidentialité et l'efficacité du partage du spectre
Radio frequencies, as currently allocated, are statically managed. Spectrum sharing between commercial users and incumbent users in the Federal bands has been considered by regulators, industry, and academia as a great way to enhance productivity and effectiveness in spectrum use. However, allowing secondary users to share frequency bands with sensitive government incumbent users creates new privacy threats in the form of inference attacks. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to enhance the privacy of the incumbent while allowing secondary access to the spectrum. First, we present a brief description of different sharing regulations and privacy requirements in Federal bands. We also survey the privacy-preserving techniques (i.e., obfuscation) proposed in data mining and publishing to thwart inference attacks. Next, we propose and implement our approach to protect the operational frequency and location of the incumbent operations from inferences. We follow with research on frequency protection using inherent and explicit obfuscation to preserve the incumbent's privacy. Then, we address location protection using trust as the main countermeasure to identify and mitigate an inference risk. Finally, we present a risk-based framework that integrates our work and accommodates other privacy-preserving approaches. This work is supported with models, simulations and results that showcase our work and quantify the importance of evaluating privacy-preserving techniques and analyzing the trade-off between privacy protection and spectrum efficiency

Les années récentes ont vu l’explosion du trafic sur les réseaux mobiles depuis l’apparition de nouveaux terminaux (smartphones, tablettes) et des usages qu’ils permettent, en particulier les données multimédia, le trafic voix restant sensiblement constant. Une conséquence est le besoin de plus de spectre, ou la nécessité de mieux utiliser le spectre déjà alloué. Comme il n’y a pas de coordination entre les utilisateurs secondaire(s) et primaire, avant toute transmission les premiers doivent mettre en œuvre des traitements pour détecter les périodes dans lesquelles l’utilisateur primaire transmet, ce qui est le scénario considéré dans cette thèse. Nous considérons donc une autre approche, reposant sur l’utilisation de codes correcteurs d’effacements en mode paquet. La dernière partie de la thèse aborde un scénario dans lequel il n’y a plus d’utilisateur primaire, tous les utilisateurs ayant le même droit à transmettre dans le canal. Nous décrivons une modification de la couche MAC du 802.11 consistant à réduire les différents temps consacrés à attendre (SIFS, DIFS, backoff, . . .) afin d’accéder plus souvent au canal, au prix de quelques collisions supplémentaires qu’il est possible de récupérer en mettant en œuvre des codes correcteurs d’effacements
The emergence of new devices especially the smartphones and tablets having a lot of new applications have rocketed the wireless traffic in recent years and this is the cause of main surge in the demand of radio spectrum. There is a need of either more spectrum or to use existing spectrum more efficiently due to dramatic increase in the demand of limited spectrum. Among the new dynamic access schemes designed to use the spectrum more efficiently opportunistic spectrum access (OSA) is currently addressed when one or more secondary users (SU) are allowed to access the channel when the PU is not transmitting. The erasure correcting codes are therefore envisioned to recover the lost data due to sensing impairments. We define the parameter efficiency of SU and optimize it in-terms of spectrum utilization keeping into account sensing impairments, code parameters and the activity of PU. Finally, the spectrum access for multiple secondary users is addressed when there is no primary and each user has equal right to access the channel. The interesting scenarios are Cognitive radio networks and WiFi where 802.11 protocol gives the specification for MAC layer. The throughput curvesachieved by retransmission and using various erasure correcting codes are compared. This modification in MAC layer will reduce the long waiting time to access the channel, as the number of users are increased

ITC/USA 2012 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Eighth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2012 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California
The Test Resource Management Center's (TRMC) Spectrum Efficient Technologies (SET) S&T program is sponsoring development of the Enhanced Query Data Recorder (EQDR), a network flight recorder that is intended to meet the future needs of the networked telemetry environment. EQDR is designed to support the "fetch" of recorded test data during a test without interrupting the ongoing recording of data from the test article vehicle network. The key benefits of the network data recorder as implemented in EQDR are increased flexibility and efficiency of test in an environment with increasing demands on spectrum available for telemetered data. EQDR enables retrieval of individual recorded parameters on an as-needed basis. Having the flexibility to send data only when it is required rather than throughout the duration of the test significantly increases the efficiency with which limited spectrum resources are used. EQDR enables parametric-level data retrieval, based not only on time interval and data source, but also on the content of the recorded data messages. EQDR enables selective, efficient retrieval of individual parameters using indexes derived from the actual values of recorded data. This paper describes the design of EQDR and the benefits of selective data storage and retrieval in the application of networked telemetry. In addition it describes the performance of the EQDR in terms of data recording and data retrieval rates when implemented on single board computers designed for use in the aeronautical test environment with size, weight, and power constraints.

Les bandes des fréquences, telles qu'elles sont aménagées aujourd'hui, sont statiquement allouées. Afin d'améliorer la productivité et l'efficacité de l'utilisation du spectre, une nouvelle approche a été proposée : le "partage dynamique du spectre". Les régulateurs, les industriels et les scientifiques ont examiné le partage des bandes fédérales entre les détenteurs de licences (utilisateurs primaires) et les nouveaux entrants (utilisateurs secondaires). La nature d'un tel partage peut faciliter les attaques d'inférence et mettre en péril les paramètres opérationnels des utilisateurs primaires. Par conséquent, le but de cette thèse est d'améliorer la confidentialité des utilisateurs primaires tout en permettant un accès secondaire au spectre. Premièrement, nous présentons une brève description des règles de partage et des exigences en termes de confidentialité dans les bandes fédérales. Nous étudions également les techniques de conservation de confidentialité (obscurcissement) proposées dans les domaines d'exploration et d'édition de données pour contrecarrer les attaques d'inférence. Ensuite, nous proposons et mettons en œuvre notre approche pour protéger la fréquence et la localisation opérationnelles contre les attaques d'inférence. La première partie étudie la protection de la fréquence opérationnelle en utilisant un obscurcissement inhérent et explicite pour préserver la confidentialité. La deuxième partie traite la protection de la localisation opérationnelle en utilisant la confiance comme principale contre-mesure pour identifier et atténuer un risque d'inférence. Enfin, nous présentons un cadre axé sur les risques qui résume notre travail et s'adapte à d'autres approches de protection de la confidentialité. Ce travail est soutenu par des modèles, des simulations et des résultats qui focalisent sur l'importance de quantifier les techniques de préservation de la confidentialité et d'analyser le compromis entre la protection de la confidentialité et l'efficacité du partage du spectre
Radio frequencies, as currently allocated, are statically managed. Spectrum sharing between commercial users and incumbent users in the Federal bands has been considered by regulators, industry, and academia as a great way to enhance productivity and effectiveness in spectrum use. However, allowing secondary users to share frequency bands with sensitive government incumbent users creates new privacy threats in the form of inference attacks. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to enhance the privacy of the incumbent while allowing secondary access to the spectrum. First, we present a brief description of different sharing regulations and privacy requirements in Federal bands. We also survey the privacy-preserving techniques (i.e., obfuscation) proposed in data mining and publishing to thwart inference attacks. Next, we propose and implement our approach to protect the operational frequency and location of the incumbent operations from inferences. We follow with research on frequency protection using inherent and explicit obfuscation to preserve the incumbent's privacy. Then, we address location protection using trust as the main countermeasure to identify and mitigate an inference risk. Finally, we present a risk-based framework that integrates our work and accommodates other privacy-preserving approaches. This work is supported with models, simulations and results that showcase our work and quantify the importance of evaluating privacy-preserving techniques and analyzing the trade-off between privacy protection and spectrum efficiency

Le travail de recherche présenté dans cette thèse est basé sur l’étude du protocole de communication par satellite appelé « Enhanced Spread Spectrum Aloha » (E-SSA) et créé par l’Agence Spatiale Européenne (ESA) en 2009. Il s’agit d’une technique qui permet à un terminal d’envoyer des messages courts par satellite de manière totalement asynchrone. L’intérêt est de maximiser l’efficacité spectrale tout en gardant une complexité minimale du terminal grâce aux techniques d’étalement de spectre et d’annulation d’interférences (SIC). Alors qu’au départ le protocole E-SSA avait pour but d’apporter un support physique pour des applications destinées à des terminaux mobiles en bande S, les développements se sont récemment étendus à une gamme de terminaux fixes dans des bandes de fréquence différentes (C, Ku ou Ka). À partir de ces deux modèles d’utilisation de l’E-SSA, ce travail de recherche se concentre sur la mise en place de solutions techniques permettant d’augmenter significativement la capacité globale du système. Cela est possible à travers une optimisation des différents paramètres du protocole et la conception d’algorithmes de gestion des puissances des terminaux
The work presented in this thesis focuses on the satellite communication protocol named “Enhanced Spread Spectrum Aloha” (E-SSA) and developed in 2009 by the European Space Agency (ESA). The E-SSA structure, based on fully asynchronous random access, perfectly copes with low-duty cycle bursty transmissions adapted to satellite messaging. High performance in terms of spectral efficiency is possible by exploiting iterative successive interference cancellation (SIC) while keeping minimal complexity at the terminal side. If the first exploitation of the protocol concerned mobile applications in S-band, it has been extended to fleets of fixed terminals in other frequency bandwidths (C, Ku or Ka). Starting from these two scenarios, this thesis proposes different innovations to further boost the E-SSA global system capacity. These technical solutions particularly include a fine optimization of protocol parameters and new power control algorithms

In this paper a prototype spectrum-splitting photovoltaic system based on volume holographic lenses (VHL) is designed, fabricated and tested. In spectrum-splitting systems, incident sunlight is divided in spectral bands for optimal conversion by a set of single-junction PV cells that are laterally separated. The VHL spectrum-splitting system in this paper has a form factor similar to conventional silicon PV modules but with higher efficiencies (>30%). Unlike many other spectrum-splitting systems that have been proposed in the past, the system in this work converts both direct and diffuse sunlight while using inexpensive 1-axis tracking systems. The VHL system uses holographic lenses that focus light at a transition wavelength to the boundary between two PV cells. Longer wavelength light is dispersed to the narrow bandgap cell and shorter wavelength light to the wide bandgap cell. A prototype system is designed with silicon and GaAs PV cells. The holographic lenses are fabricated in Covestro Bayfol HX photopolymer by 'stitching' together lens segments through sequential masked exposures. The PV cells and holographic lenses were characterized and the data was used in a raytrace simulation and predicts an improvement in total power output of 15.2% compared to a non-spectrum-splitting reference. A laboratory measurement yielded an improvement in power output of 8.5%.

ITC/USA 2013 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Ninth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 21-24, 2013 / Bally's Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV
The focus of this work is the development of a complete network architecture to enhance telemetry performance using a mobile base station (MBS). The present study proposes a means of enabling both the mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) and a cellular network to operate simultaneously within the same spectrum. In this paper the application of a modified k-means clustering to organize several hundred TAs in a complex network environment is presented. A mobile base station is added to the network to locate the congested area and support the network but positioning itself in the mixed network environment. A scenario with two base stations (one mobile and one stationary) is simulated and results are presented. It is observed that use of an additional mobile base station could greatly increase the quality of communication by providing uniform distribution of node traffic and interference across the clusters in a complex telemetry environment with several hundred TAs.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California
Space agencies are under pressure to utilize better bandwidth-efficient communication methods due to the actual allocated frequency bands becoming more congested. Budget reductions is another problem that the space agencies must deal with. This budget constraint results in simpler spacecraft carrying less communication capabilities and also the reduction in staff to capture data in the earth stations. It is then imperative that the most bandwidth efficient communication methods be utilized. This paper gives the results of a computer simulation study on 8 Level Phase Shift Keying (8PSK) modulation with respect to bandwidth, power efficiency, spurious emissions, interference susceptibility and the non-constant envelope effect through a non-linear channel. The simulations were performed on a Signal Processing Worksystem (SPW: software installed on a SUN SPARC 10 Unix Station and Hewlett Packard Model 715/100 Unix Station). This work was conducted at New Mexico State University (NMSU) in the Center for Space Telemetry and Telecommunications Systems in the Klipsch School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The main topic of this thesis is based on multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communications, which is a novel technology that has attracted great interest in the last twenty years. Conventional MIMO systems using up to eight antennas play a vital role in the urban cellular network, where the deployment of multiple antennas have significantly enhanced the throughput without taking extra spectrum or power resources. The massive MIMO systems “scales” up the benefits that offered by the conventional MIMO systems. Using sixty four or more antennas at the BS not only improves the spectrum efficiency significantly, but also provides additional link robustness. It is considered as a key technology in the fifth generation of mobile communication technology standards network, and the design of new algorithms for these two systems is the basis of the research in this thesis. Firstly, at the receiver side of the conventional MIMO systems, a general framework of bit error rate (BER) approximation for the detection algorithms is proposed, which aims to support an adaptive modulation scheme. The main idea is to utilize a simplified BER approximation scheme, which is based on the union bound of the maximum-likelihood detector (MLD), whereby the bit error rate (BER) performance of the detector for the varying channel qualities can be efficiently predicted. The K-best detector is utilized in the thesis because its quasi- MLD performance and the parallel computational structure. The simulation results have clearly shown the adaptive K-best algorithm, by applying the simplified approximation method, has much reduced computational complexity while still maintaining a promising BER performance. Secondly, in terms of the uplink channel estimation for the massive MIMO systems with the time-division-duplex operation, the performance of the Grassmannian line packing (GLP) based uplink pilot codebook design is investigated. It aims to eliminate the pilot contamination effect in order to increase the downlink achievable rate. In the case of a limited channel coherence interval, the uplink codebook design can be treated as a line packing problem in a Grassmannian manifold. The closed-form analytical expressions of downlink achievable rate for both the single-cell and multi-cell systems are proposed, which are intended for performance analysis and optimization. The numerical results validate the proposed analytical expressions and the rate gains by using the GLP-based uplink codebook design. Finally, the study is extended to the energy efficiency (EE) of the massive MIMO system, as the reduction carbon emissions from the information and communication technology is a long-term target for the researchers. An effective framework of maximizing the EE for the massive MIMO systems is proposed in this thesis. The optimization starts from the maximization of the minimum user rate, which is aiming to increase the quality-of-service and provide a feasible constraint for the EE maximization problem. Secondly, the EE problem is a non-concave problem and can not be solved directly, so the combination of fractional programming and the successive concave approximation based algorithm are proposed to find a good suboptimal solution. It has been shown that the proposed optimization algorithm provides a significant EE improvement compared to a baseline case.

ITC/USA 2014 Conference Proceedings / The Fiftieth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 20-23, 2014 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, CA
The Enhanced Query Data Recorder (EQDR) has been developed under the Test Resource Management Center's (TRMC) Spectrum Efficient Technologies (SET) T&E S&T program. The EQDR is a network flight recorder built around the iNET standards and which is intended to meet the future needs of the networked telemetry environment. The EQDR is designed to support the "fetch" of recorded test data during a test without interruption to the ongoing recording of data from the test article vehicle network. The key benefits of the network data recorder as implemented in the EQDR are increased flexibility and efficiency of test in an environment with increasing demands on spectrum available for telemetered data. EQDR enables retrieval of individual recorded parameters on an as-needed basis. Having the flexibility to send data only when it is required rather than throughout the duration of the test significantly increases the efficiency with which limited spectrum resources are used. EQDR enables parametric-level data retrieval, based not only on time interval and data source, but also on the content of the recorded data messages. EQDR enables selective, efficient retrieval of individual parameters using indexes derived from the actual values of recorded data.

Cognitive radio is an emerging technology proposing the concept of dynamic spec- trum access as a solution to the looming problem of spectrum scarcity caused by the growth in wireless communication systems. Under the proposed concept, non- licensed, secondary users (SU) can access spectrum owned by licensed, primary users (PU) so long as interference to PU are kept minimal. Spectrum sensing is a crucial task in cognitive radio whereby the SU senses the spectrum to detect the presence or absence of any PU signal. Conventional spectrum sensing assumes the PU signal as ‘stationary’ and remains in the same activity state during the sensing cycle, while an emerging trend models PU as ‘non-stationary’ and undergoes state changes. Existing studies have focused on non-stationary PU during the transmission period, however very little research considered the impact on spectrum sensing when the PU is non-stationary during the sensing period. The concept of PU duty cycle is developed as a tool to analyse the performance of spectrum sensing detectors when detecting non-stationary PU signals. New detectors are also proposed to optimise detection with respect to duty cycle ex- hibited by the PU. This research consists of two major investigations. The first stage investigates the impact of duty cycle on the performance of existing detec- tors and the extent of the problem in existing studies. The second stage develops new detection models and frameworks to ensure the integrity of spectrum sensing when detecting non-stationary PU signals. The first investigation demonstrates that conventional signal model formulated for stationary PU does not accurately reflect the behaviour of a non-stationary PU. Therefore the performance calculated and assumed to be achievable by the conventional detector does not reflect actual performance achieved. Through analysing the statistical properties of duty cycle, performance degradation is proved to be a problem that cannot be easily neglected in existing sensing studies when PU is modelled as non-stationary. The second investigation presents detectors that are aware of the duty cycle ex- hibited by a non-stationary PU. A two stage detection model is proposed to improve the detection performance and robustness to changes in duty cycle. This detector is most suitable for applications that require long sensing periods. A second detector, the duty cycle based energy detector is formulated by integrat- ing the distribution of duty cycle into the test statistic of the energy detector and suitable for short sensing periods. The decision threshold is optimised with respect to the traffic model of the PU, hence the proposed detector can calculate average detection performance that reflect realistic results. A detection framework for the application of spectrum sensing optimisation is proposed to provide clear guidance on the constraints on sensing and detection model. Following this framework will ensure the signal model accurately reflects practical behaviour while the detection model implemented is also suitable for the desired detection assumption. Based on this framework, a spectrum sensing optimisation algorithm is further developed to maximise the sensing efficiency for non-stationary PU. New optimisation constraints are derived to account for any PU state changes within the sensing cycle while implementing the proposed duty cycle based detector.

[EN] Next-generation terrestrial broadcasting targets at enhancing spectral efficiency to overcome the challenges derived from the spectrum shortage as a result of the progressive allocation of frequencies - the so-called Digital Dividend - to satisfy the growing demands for wireless broadband capacity. Advances in both transmission standards and video coding are paramount to enable the progressive roll-out of high video quality services such as HDTV (High Definition Televison) or Ultra HDTV. The transition to the second generation European terrestrial standard DVB-T2 and the introduction of MPEG-4/AVC video coding already enables the transmission of 4-5 HDTV services per RF (Radio Frequency) channel. However, the impossibility to allocate higher bit-rate within the remaining spectrum could jeopardize the evolution of the DTT platforms in favour of other high-capacity systems such as the satellite or cable distribution platforms. Next steps are focused on the deployment of the recently released High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard, which provides more than 50% coding gain with respect to AVC, with the next-generation terrestrial standards. This could ensure the competitiveness of the DTT. This dissertation addresses the use of multi-RF channel aggregation technologies to increase the spectral efficiency of future DTT networks. The core of the Thesis are two technologies: Time Frequency Slicing (TFS) and Channel Bonding (CB). TFS and CB consist in the transmission of the data of a TV service across multiple RF channels instead of using a single channel. CB spreads data of a service over multiple classical RF channels (RF-Mux). TFS spreads the data by time-slicing (slot-by-slot) across multiple RF channels which are sequentially recovered at the receiver by frequency hopping. Transmissions using these features can benefit from capacity and coverage gains. The first one comes from a more efficient statistical multiplexing (StatMux) for Variable Bit Rate (VBR) services due to a StatMux pool over a higher number of services. Furthermore, CB allows increasing service data rate with the number of bonded RF channels and also advantages when combined with SVC (Scalable Video Coding). The coverage gain comes from the increased RF performance due to the reception of the data of a service from different RF channels rather that a single one that could be, eventually, degraded. Robustness against interferences is also improved since the received signal does not depend on a unique potentially interfered RF channel. TFS was firstly introduced as an informative annex in DVB-T2 (not normative) and adopted in DVB-NGH (Next Generation Handheld). TFS and CB are proposed for inclusion in ATSC 3.0. However, they have never been implemented. The investigations carried out in this dissertation employ an information-theoretical approach to obtain their upper bounds, physical layer simulations to evaluate the performance in real systems and the analysis of field measurements that approach realistic conditions of the network deployments. The analysis report coverage gains about 4-5 dB with 4 RF channels and high capacity gains already with 2 RF channels. This dissertation also focuses on implementation aspects. Channel bonding receivers require one tuner per bonded RF channel. The implementation of TFS with a single tuner demands the fulfilment of several timing requirements. However, the use of just two tuners would still allow for a good performance with a cost-effective implementation by the reuse of existing chipsets or the sharing of existing architectures with dual tuner operation such as MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output).
[ES] La televisión digital terrestre (TDT) de última generación está orientada a una necesaria mejora de la eficiencia espectral con el fin de abordar los desafíos derivados de la escasez de espectro como resultado de la progresiva asignación de frecuencias - el llamado Dividendo Digital - para satisfacer la creciente demanda de capacidad para la banda ancha inalámbrica. Los avances tanto en los estándares de transmisión como de codificación de vídeo son de suma importancia para la progresiva puesta en marcha de servicios de alta calidad como la televisión de Ultra AD (Alta Definición). La transición al estándar europeo de segunda generación DVB-T2 y la introducción de la codificación de vídeo MPEG-4 / AVC ya permite la transmisión de 4-5 servicios de televisión de AD por canal RF (Radiofrecuencia). Sin embargo, la imposibilidad de asignar una mayor tasa de bit sobre el espectro restante podría poner en peligro la evolución de las plataformas de TDT en favor de otros sistemas de alta capacidad tales como el satélite o las distribuidoras de cable. El siguiente paso se centra en el despliegue del reciente estándar HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding), que ofrece un 50% de ganancia de codificación con respecto a AVC, junto con los estándares terrestres de próxima generación, lo que podría garantizar la competitividad de la TDT en un futuro cercano. Esta tesis aborda el uso de tecnologías de agregación de canales RF que permitan incrementar la eficiencia espectral de las futuras redes. La tesis se centra en torno a dos tecnologías: Time Frequency Slicing (TFS) y Channel Bonding (CB). TFS y CB consisten en la transmisión de los datos de un servicio de televisión a través de múltiples canales RF en lugar de utilizar un solo canal. CB difunde los datos de un servicio a través de varios canales RF convencionales formando un RF-Mux. TFS difunde los datos a través de ranuras temporales en diferentes canales RF. Los datos son recuperados de forma secuencial en el receptor mediante saltos en frecuencia. La implementación de estas técnicas permite obtener ganancias en capacidad y cobertura. La primera de ellas proviene de una multiplexación estadística (StatMux) de servicios de tasa variable (VBR) más eficiente. Además, CB permite aumentar la tasa de pico de un servicio de forma proporcional al número de canales así como ventajas al combinarla con codificación de vídeo escalable. La ganancia en cobertura proviene de un mejor rendimiento RF debido a la recepción de los datos de un servicio desde diferentes canales en lugar uno sólo que podría estar degradado. Del mismo modo, es posible obtener una mayor robustez frente a interferencias ya que la recepción o no de un servicio no depende de si el canal que lo alberga está o no interferido. TFS fue introducido en primer lugar como un anexo informativo en DVB-T2 (no normativo) y posteriormente fue adoptado en DVB-NGH (Next Generation Handheld). TFS y CB han sido propuestos para su inclusión en ATSC 3.0. Aún así, nunca han sido implementados. Las investigaciones llevadas a cabo en esta Tesis emplean diversos enfoques basados en teoría de la información para obtener los límites de ganancia, en simulaciones de capa física para evaluar el rendimiento en sistemas reales y en el análisis de medidas de campo. Estos estudios reportan ganancias en cobertura en torno a 4-5 dB con 4 canales e importantes ganancias en capacidad aún con sólo 2 canales RF. Esta tesis también se centra en los aspectos de implementación. Los receptores para CB requieren un sintonizador por canal RF agregado. La implementación de TFS con un solo sintonizador exige el cumplimiento de varios requisito temporales. Sin embargo, el uso de dos sintonizadores permitiría un buen rendimiento con una implementación más rentable con la reutilización de los actuales chips o su introducción junto con las arquitecturas existentes que operan con un doble sintonizador tales como
[CAT] La televisió digital terrestre (TDT) d'última generació està orientada a una necessària millora de l'eficiència espectral a fi d'abordar els desafiaments derivats de l'escassetat d'espectre com a resultat de la progressiva assignació de freqüències - l'anomenat Dividend Digital - per a satisfer la creixent demanda de capacitat per a la banda ampla sense fil. Els avanços tant en els estàndards de transmissió com de codificació de vídeo són de la màxima importància per a la progressiva posada en marxa de serveis d'alta qualitat com la televisió d'Ultra AD (Alta Definició). La transició a l'estàndard europeu de segona generació DVB-T2 i la introducció de la codificació de vídeo MPEG-4/AVC ja permet la transmissió de 4-5 serveis de televisió d'AD per canal RF (Radiofreqüència). No obstant això, la impossibilitat d'assignar una major taxa de bit sobre l'espectre restant podria posar en perill l'evolució de les plataformes de TDT en favor d'altres sistemes d'alta capacitat com ara el satèl·lit o les distribuïdores de cable. El següent pas se centra en el desplegament del recent estàndard HEVC (High Efficiency Vídeo Coding), que oferix un 50% de guany de codificació respecte a AVC, junt amb els estàndards terrestres de pròxima generació, la qual cosa podria garantir la competitivitat de la TDT en un futur pròxim. Aquesta tesi aborda l'ús de tecnologies d'agregació de canals RF que permeten incrementar l'eficiència espectral de les futures xarxes. La tesi se centra entorn de dues tecnologies: Time Frequency Slicing (TFS) i Channel Bonding (CB). TFS i CB consistixen en la transmissió de les dades d'un servei de televisió a través de múltiples canals RF en compte d'utilitzar un sol canal. CB difon les dades d'un servei a través d'uns quants canals RF convencionals formant un RF-Mux. TFS difon les dades a través de ranures temporals en diferents canals RF. Les dades són recuperades de forma seqüencial en el receptor per mitjà de salts en freqüència. La implementació d'aquestes tècniques permet obtindre guanys en capacitat i cobertura. La primera d'elles prové d'una multiplexació estadística (StatMux) de serveis de taxa variable (VBR) més eficient. A més, CB permet augmentar la taxa de pic d'un servei de forma proporcional al nombre de canals així com avantatges al combinar-la amb codificació de vídeo escalable. El guany en cobertura prové d'un millor rendiment RF a causa de la recepció de les dades d'un servei des de diferents canals en lloc de només un que podria estar degradat. De la mateixa manera, és possible obtindre una major robustesa enfront d'interferències ja que la recepció o no d'un servei no depén de si el canal que l'allotja està o no interferit. TFS va ser introduït en primer lloc com un annex informatiu en DVB-T2 (no normatiu) i posteriorment va ser adoptat en DVB-NGH (Next Generation Handheld). TFS i CB han sigut proposades per a la seva inclusió en ATSC 3.0. Encara així, mai han sigut implementades. Les investigacions dutes a terme en esta Tesi empren diverses vessants basades en teoria de la informació per a obtindre els límits de guany, en simulacions de capa física per a avaluar el rendiment en sistemes reals i en l'anàlisi de mesures de camp. Aquestos estudis reporten guanys en cobertura entorn als 4-5 dB amb 4 canals i importants guanys en capacitat encara amb només 2 canals RF. Esta tesi també se centra en els aspectes d'implementació. Els receptors per a CB requerixen un sintonitzador per canal RF agregat. La implementació de TFS amb un sol sintonitzador exigix el compliment de diversos requisit temporals. No obstant això, l'ús de dos sintonitzadors permetria un bon rendiment amb una implementació més rendible amb la reutilització dels actuals xips o la seua introducció junt amb les arquitectures existents que operen amb un doble sintonitzador com ara MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output).
Giménez Gandia, JJ. (2015). Improved Spectrum Usage with Multi-RF Channel Aggregation Technologies for the Next-Generation Terrestrial Broadcasting [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/52520
TESIS

Recent trends in mobile broadband indicates that the available radio frequency (RF) spectrum will not be enough to support the data requirements of the immediate future. Visible light communication, which uses visible spectrum to transmit wirelessly could be a potential solution to the RF ’Spectrum Crunch’. Thus there is growing interest all over the world in this domain with support from both academia and industry. Visible light communication( VLC) systems make use of light emitting diodes (LEDs), which are semiconductor light sources to transmit information. A number of demonstrators at different data capacity and link distances has been reported in this area. One of the key problems holding this technology from taking off is the unavailability of power efficient, miniature LED drive schemes. Reported demonstrators, mostly using either off the shelf components or arbitrary waveform generators (AWGs) to drive the LEDs have only started to address this problem by adopting integrated drivers designed for driving lighting installations for communications. The voltage regulator based drive schemes provide high power efficiency (> 90 %) but it is difficult to realise the fast switching required to achieve the Mbps or Gbps data rates needed for modern wireless communication devices. In this work, we are exploiting CMOS technology to realise an integrated LED driver for VLC. Instead of using conventional drive schemes (digital to analogue converter (DAC) + power amplifier or voltage regulators), we realised a current steering DAC based LED driver operating at high currents and sampling rates whilst maintaining power efficiency. Compared to a commercial AWG or discrete LED driver, circuit realised utilisng complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology has resulted in area reduction (29mm2). We realised for the first time a multi-channel CMOS LED driver capable of operating up to a 500 MHz sample rate at an output current of 255 mA per channel and > 70% power efficiency. We were able to demonstrate the flexibility of the driver by employing it to realise VLC links using micro LEDs and commercial LEDs. Data rates up to 1 Gbps were achieved using this system employing a multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) scheme. We also demonstrated the wavelength division multiplexing ability of the driver using a red/green/blue commercial LED. The first integrated digital to light converter (DLC), where depending on the input code, a proportional number of LEDs are turned ON, realising a data converter in the optical domain, is also an output from this research. In addition, we propose a differential optical drive scheme where two output branches of a current DAC are used to drive two LEDs achieving higher link performance and power efficiency compared to single LED drive.

La radio cognitive (CR) est une radio entièrement reconfigurable qui permet de changer intelligemment ses paramètres de communication en réponse à l’activité des autres réseaux radios et demandes d’utilisateur. L’objectif ultime de la CR est de permettre à l’utilisateur secondaire (SU) d’utiliser la ressource de spectre disponible sans interférer sur l’utilisateur primaire (PU) en utilisant des trous de spectre. Par conséquent, la détection du PU est l’un des défis principaux dans le développement de la CR. Par rapport aux systèmes conventionnels de communication sans fil, le système CR introduit de nouveaux problèmes d’allocation de ressource (RA) en raison de l’interférence des canaux adjacents utilisés par le SU et le PU. Dans le contexte de la CR, la plupart des efforts ont été menés sur les systèmes de CR basés sur le multiplexage par division de fréquences orthogonales (OFDM). Toutefois, la technique de l’OFDM montre quelques points faibles dans l’application à cause des remontées significatives du spectre. Les modulations multiporteuses à base de bancs de filtre (FBMC) ont été récemment proposées pour des applications de CR. Dans cette thèse, trois points importants pour le développement d’un système de CR basé sur le FBMC sont discutés.Les trois points principaux peuvent être résumés ainsi: nous examinons premièrement les problèmes de détection de spectre des signaux OFDM et FBMC en employant le détecteur de signature de cyclostationnarité (CS). En outre, nous proposons une architecture de détection multi-bande basée sur le banc de filtre polyphasé (PFB), et montrons son avantage; deuxièmement, la comparaison entre l’OFDM et le FBMC du point de vue de l’efficacité spectrale est discutée; et enfin, nous proposons un algorithme stratégique d’allocation de ressource pour les systèmes cognitifs multi-cellulaires et multi-utilisateurs.Les algorithmes proposés dans cette thèse ont été testés par simulation. Les résultats numériques prouvent que le FBMC, par opposition à l’OFDM, pourrait réaliser une efficacité spectrale plus élevée et offre un avantage attrayant dans la détection de spectre. Les contributions de cette thèse ont accru l’intérêt d’appliquer FBMC dans les systèmes de CR à l’avenir
Cognitive Radio (CR) is a fully reconfigurable radio that can intelligently change its communicationvariables in response to network and user demands. The ultimate goal of CR is to allowthe Secondary User (SU) to utilize the available spectrum resource on a non-interfering basis to thePrimary User (PU) by sensing the existence of spectrum holes. Therefore, the detection of PU isone of the main challenges in the development of the CR technology. Moreover, compared to conventionalwireless communication systems, CR system poses new challenges to Resource Allocation(RA) problems because of the Cross-Channel Interference (CCI) from the adjacent channels used bySU to PU. In the CR context, most past efforts have been spent on Orthogonal Frequency DivisionMultiplexing (OFDM) based CR systems. However, OFDM technique exhibits some shortcomingsin application due to its significant spectrum leakage. Filter Bank based Multi-Carrier (FBMC), asanother promising Multi-Carrier Modulation (MCM) candidate, has been recently proposed for CRapplications. In this dissertation, three important issues in developing a FBMC based CR system arediscussed.The three prime issues can be summarized: we firstly survey the spectrum sensing problemsof OFDM and FBMC signals by using Cyclostationary Signature (CS) detector. Furthermore, wepropose a Polyphase Filter Bank (PFB) based multi-band sensing architecture, and argue for its advantage;secondly, the comparison of OFDM and FBMC from the spectral efficiency point of viewis discussed; and lastly, our emphasis is placed on the strategic resource allocation algorithms fornon-cooperative multi-cell CR systems.The overall proposed algorithms have been verified by simulation. Numerical results show thatFBMC, as opposed to OFDM, could achieve higher spectrum efficiency and attractive benefit inspectrum sensing. The contributions of this dissertation have heighten the interest in applying FBMCin the future CR systems

We investigate the spatial evolution of an intense laser pulse as it generates high-order harmonics in a long gas cell, filled with 80 torr of helium. A thin foil separates the gas-filled region of the cell from a subsequent evacuated region. The exit plane of the gas cell can be scanned along the laser axis so that the evolution of the laser throughout the focus can be observed (full scanning range of 9 cm). We constructed an apparatus that images the laser radial energy profile as it exits the cell. The high harmonics, odd orders ranging from 45 to 91, are observed at the same time that the laser spot is characterized. Re-absorption of the harmonics within the gas cell restricts the region of harmonic emission to the final centimeter (or less) of the cell. We present the first direct evidence (to our knowledge) of laser filamentation under conditions ideal for high-order harmonic generation. The 30 fs, 4 mJ, laser pulses were observed to undergo double focusing within the gas cell, with about 4 cm separating the two foci. The region with best harmonic emission occurs midway between the two foci. The radial profile of the laser focus, 150-200 microns in diameter, evolves from a Gaussian-like profile to a more square-top profile as it propagates over several centimeters. The filamentation phenomenon as well as the brightness of the harmonics improves when an aperture is partially closed on the laser beam before reaching the focusing mirror. A spectral sampling of the imaged laser focus revealed a 4 nm blue-shift associated with the generation of plasma in the gas cell. The blue-shifting occurs primarily in the center of the laser beam and less at the wider radii. The initial laser pulse had a spectrum centered at 800 nm with a 35 nm bandwidth. The energy associated with each of the observed 26 harmonic beams was found to be approximately 1 nJ, yielding a conversion efficiency of approximately 2e−7.

A boron neutron capture enhanced fast neutron therapy assembly has been designed for the Fermilab Neutron Therapy Facility (NTF). This assembly uses a tungsten filter and collimator near the patient¡¯s head, with a graphite reflector surrounding the head to significantly increase the dose due to boron neutron capture reactions. The assembly was designed using Monte Carlo radiation transport code MCNP version 5 for a standard 20x20 cm2 treatment beam. The calculated boron dose enhancement at 5.7-cm depth in a water-filled head phantom in the assembly with a 5x5 cm2 collimation was 21.9% per 100-ppm B-10 for a 5.0-cm tungsten filter and 29.8% for an 8.5-cm tungsten filter. The corresponding dose rate for the 5.0-cm and 8.5-cm thick filters were 0.221 and 0.127 Gy/min, respectively. To validate the design calculations, a simplified BNCEFNT assembly was built using four lead bricks to form a 5x5 cm2 collimator. Five 1.0-cm thick 20x20 cm2 tungsten plates were used to obtain different filter thicknesses and graphite bricks/blocks were used to form a reflector. Measurements of the dose enhancement of the simplified assembly in a water-filled head phantom were performed using a pair of tissue-equivalent ion chambers. One of the ion chambers is loaded with 1000-ppm natural boron (184-ppm 10B) to measure dose due to boron neutron capture. The measured dose enhancement at 5.0-cm depth in the head phantom for the 5.0-cm thick tungsten filter is (16.6 ¡À 1.8)%, which agrees well with the MCNP simulation of the simplified BNCEFNT assembly, (16.4¡À 0.5)%. The error in the calculated dose enhancement only considers the statistical uncertainties. The total dose rate measured at 5.0-cm depth using the non-borated ion chamber is (0.765 ¡À 0.076) Gy/MU, about 61% of the fast neutron standard dose rate (1.255Gy/MU) at 5.0-cm depth for the standard 10x10 cm2 treatment beam. The increased doses to other organs due to the use of the BNCEFNT assembly were calculated using MCNP5 and a MIRD phantom.

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Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)
Uma das alternativas à utilização de combustíveis fósseis é a energia solar, obtida pelo uso de painéis fotovoltaicos. A existência de diferenças diárias, sazonais e regionais na distribuição espectral da luz do sol pode produzir variações na capacidade de produção de energia dos painéis. O objetivo deste trabalho é verificar como a geração de energia de células fotovoltaicas varia em função dos diferentes comprimentos de onda do espectro da luz solar, quando as células estão submetidas a condições reais de operação. Este trabalho possui caráter experimental. Dois painéis fotovoltaicos policristalinos idênticos foram montados lado a lado. Oito diferentes filtros de cor, com curvas conhecidas de distribuição espectral, foram instalados sobre um dos painéis e foi registrada a quantidade de energia gerada por cada painel ao longo do dia. Cada filtro permite apenas a passagem de uma determinada faixa de comprimentos de onda da luz solar. Foi calculada a eficiência relativa de cada filtro, dada pela relação entre a quantidade de energia gerada pelo painel com filtro e a gerada pelo painel sem filtro, de referência. Os resultados indicam que os painéis produzem mais energia na faixa do vermelho, com eficiência relativa de 23,83%, sendo, portanto, mais sensíveis à radiação nesta faixa de comprimentos de onda. Por outro lado, ocorre uma redução da resposta do painel na faixa do verde e azul, apresentando eficiências de 19,15% e 21,58% respectivamente. Isso mostra que painéis fotovoltaicos não respondem de maneira uniforme à luz solar. A radiação infravermelha, além de produzir um aumento de temperatura, exerce um importante papel na produção total de energia, com eficiência de 13,56%. Conclui-se que painéis de silício cristalino não respondem de maneira uniforme à luz solar. Os painéis produzem energia nas faixas não-visíveis do espectro; sendo o infravermelho um importante componente do espectro. As respostas espectrais em condições reais de operação apresentam diferenças significativas em relação àquelas obtidas nas condições padrão de ensaio.
Solar energy is an alternative to fossil fuels. It can be obtained through the use of photovoltaic panels. There are daily, seasonal and regional differences in the spectral energy distribution of sunlight that can result in variations in the energy production capacity of the panels. The objective of this study is the verification of the photovoltaic cell’s response to different wavelengths of the sunlight’s spectrum, under real operating conditions. This is an experimental study. Two identical polycrystalline photovoltaic modules were mounted side-by-side. Eight different color filters, each one with a specific spectral distribution curve, were installed above one of the panels and the daily generated energy of each panel was registered. Each color filter allows just a specific wavelength range of solar spectrum to pass through it. The relative efficiency of each filter was calculated; it is given by the relation between the energy generated by the solar panel with filter and the solar panel without filter. The results indicate that the panels produce more power in the red range (with a relative efficiency of 23.83%) and therefore they are more sensitive to radiation at this wavelength range. Also, the panel’s response is reduced in the color ranges of green and blue, with efficiency of 19.15% and 21.58%, respectively. This shows that photovoltaic panels do not respond uniformly to sunlight. Infrared radiation, which leads to an increased temperature, plays an important role in the total energy production. The relative efficiency of infrared filter is 13.56%. It can be concluded that crystalline silicon photovoltaic modules do not respond uniformly to sunlight. Photovoltaic panels are able to produce energy not only with visible light but also with non-visible wavelengths, being infrared an important component of solar spectrum. The spectral responses under real operating conditions are significantly different from the responses obtained at the standard test conditions.
CNPq: 134367/2015-4

Avec le besoin croissant en bande-passante, les technologies dites de radio-cognitive sont de plus en plus étudiées par la communauté scientifique. L’enjeu est d’utiliser au mieux le spectre disponible. L'une de ces technologies, Transform Domain Communication System (TDCS), dont les performances en termes d’efficacité énergétique et spectrale étaient jusqu'à présent méconnues, constitue le sujet d'étude de cette thèse. Après une présentation du contexte scientifique et industriel de la thèse, le système TDCS est introduit, ainsi que ses similarités et différences avec OFDM et MC-CDMA. Le système est ensuite décrit sous le formalisme algébrique des modulations linaires. Cela a permis d’établir une expression de l’efficacité spectrale du système. Plusieurs techniques sont alors proposées pour améliorer celle-ci tout en améliorant, dans certains cas, le taux d’erreur binaire. Étant composé d’un de plusieurs composantes sinusoïdales, le signal TDCS souffre d’un fort Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR). La théorie ensembliste est alors présentée puis mise à profit en troisième partie de cette thèse pour proposer les algorithmes Douglas-Rachford et ROCS de réduction du PAPR des signaux TDCS. Ces algorithmes convergent plus rapidement et vers des valeurs plus basses que l’algorithme POCS précédemment utilisé dans la littérature
For about ten years, spectrum scarcity and the growing need of bandwidth have pushed the studies on cognitive-radio technologies to counter this waste. Among them: the Transform Domain Communication System (TDCS), on which this thesis focuses. Until now, TDCS’ performance in terms of spectral and power efficiency was largely unknown. After introducing the thesis’ industrial and scientific context, the TDCS is introduced and compared with popular technologies such as OFDM and MC-CDMA. The system is then studied by means of the linear modulations’ algebraic framework. This has led to the TDCS’ spectral efficiency determination and to new design rules to jointly achieve a better spectral efficiency and a lower BER. Several methods are then proposed to further increase the spectral efficiency by means of a dense multidimensional modulation. Since a TDCS signal is made of several sines, it suffers from a strong Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR). Set theoretic estimation is then introduced in a third part and new PAPR-reduction algorithms such as Douglas-Rachford and Reflection Onto Convex Sets are brought to light and achieve better performance than the usual POCS algorithm regarding to the convergence rate, as well as the achieved PAPR

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between sleep patterns, motor proficiency and commonly co-occurring neurodevelopmental disorders in children, attitude to physical activity, mental health, and age. The study also looked at differences in sleep efficiency, as well as, perceived adequacy in physical activity between typically developing children and children with low motor proficiency. The sample consisted of 127 participants, 6-12 years old living in Perth, Western Australia. 51% participants were considered typically developing and 49% to have low motor proficiency. Motor proficiency, indications of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder and anxiety/depression, adequacy in, or predilection for physical activity did not show a relationship to sleep efficiency. Significant differences between groups in sleep efficiency or adequacy in physical activity were not found. No interaction effect of neurodevelopmental disorders were identified. Sleep in children with movement impairments caused by neurodevelopmental disorders is an area where continued studies are of great importance. Although no relationship was identified in the current study, previous research has suggested sleep may play an important role for development and optimal everyday functioning. A better understanding of physical and psychological consequences and possible contributing factors of low motor proficiency in childhood is important as the risk of long-term dysfunction in emotional, cognitive and physical areas may be reduced in an optimal environment.

Radiofrequency spectrum is a finite resource that consists of the frequencies in the range 3 kHz to 300 GHz. It is used for wireless communication and supports several applications and services. Whether it is at the personal, community or society level, and whether it is for applications in consumer electronics, building management, smart utility networks, intelligent driving systems, the Internet of Things, industrial automation and so on, the demand for wireless communication is increasing continuously. Together with this increase in demand, there is an increase in the quality of service requirements in terms of throughput, and the reliability and availability of wireless services. Industrial wireless sensor networks, for example, operate in environments that are usually harsh and time varying. The frequency spectrum that is utilised by industrial wireless protocols such as WirelessHART and ISA 100.11a, is also used by many other wireless technologies, and with wireless applications growing rapidly, it is possible that multiple heterogeneous wireless systems will need to operate in overlapping spatiotemporal regions in the future. Increased radiofrequency interference affects connectivity and reduces communication link quality. This affects reliability and latency negatively, both of which are core quality service requirements. Getting multiple heterogeneous radio systems to co-exist harmoniously in shared spectrum is challenging. Traditionally, this has been achieved by granting network operators exclusive rights that allow them to access parts of the spectrum assigned to them and hence the problems of co-existence and limited spectrum could be ignored. Design time multi-access techniques have also been used. At present, however, it has become necessary to use spectrum more efficiently, to facilitate the further growth of wireless communication. This can be achieved in a number of ways. Firstly, the policy that governs the regulation of radiofrequency spectrum must be updated to accommodate flexible, dynamic spectrum access. Secondly, new techniques for multiple-access and spectrum sharing should be devised. A revolutionary new communication paradigm is required, and one such paradigm has recently emerged in the form of Cognitive Radio technology. Traditional methods to sharing spectrum assume that radios in a wireless network work together in an unchanging environment. Cognitive radios, on the other hand, can sense, learn and adapt. In cognitive radio networks, the interactions between users are taken into account, in order for adjustments to be made to suit the prevailing radio environment. In this thesis, the problem of spectrum scarcity and coexistence is addressed using cognitive radio techniques, to ensure more efficient use of radio-frequency spectrum. An introduction to cognitive radio networks is given, covering cognitive radio fundamentals, spectrum sensing, dynamic spectrum management, game theoretic approaches to spectrum sharing and security in cognitive radio networks. A focus is placed on wireless industrial networks as a challenging test case for cognitive radio. A study on spectrum management policy is conducted, together with an investigation into the current state of radio-frequency spectrum utilisation, to uncover real and artificial cases of spectrum scarcity. A novel cognitive radio protocol is developed together with an open source test bed for it. Finally, a game theoretic dynamic spectrum access algorithm is developed that can provide scalable, fast convergence spectrum sharing in cognitive radio networks. This work is a humble contribution to the advancement of wireless communication.
Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2016.
Centre for Telecommunication Engineering for the Information Society
Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering
PhD
Unrestricted