Channel Fading Statistics For Real-Time Data Transmission In Emergency Call Systems And Unmanned Aerial Systems

The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) selected an in-band modem to transmit emergency data over cellular voice channel for the European Union emergency call (eCall) system. However, the road test results presented by the Harmonized eCall European Pilot project showed that the success rate of data delivery was only 71%, indicating that there is significant potential to improve its performance. In this dissertation, a testbed is designed for the eCall system that satisfies the 3GPP TS 26.267/268/269 standards. A method is proposed to measure the power of the received signal that passes through the in-band channel. Experiments are performed with the in-vehicle system testbed in a laboratory or a car travelling in city, suburb, country- side, or freeway. Fading statistics of the received signal after power control are found and discussed, together with cumulative distribution function (CDF), level crossing rate (LCR), and average fade duration (AFD). It is found that with probability less than or equal to 0.1%, fading and attenuation can vary from -19 dB for the continuous wave (CW) signal at 500 Hz to -9.5 dB for the CW signal at 2000 Hz. This dissertation recommends moving the CW signals at 500 Hz and 800 Hz for detection and synchronization in the 3GPP standard to 1500 Hz and 2000 Hz, respectively. This will give 9.5 dB improvement in detection and synchronization. The fading results are used to calculate the bit error rate (BER) performance for the eCall in-band modem. Synchronization detection probability are obtained by transmitting the synchronization preamble through various adaptive multi-rate vocoders and an additive white Gaussian noise channel. The testbed and proposed method are also used to measure the power of signals received by an unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and by the receiver in the operation center, respectively. Field experiments are carried out by flying the UAS above different locations. Statistics, including CDF, LCR, and AFD, are calculated for the six test-sites. The results of the fading statistics, synchronization detection probability, and BER can be directly applied to design real-time communication systems, including detection, delay estimation, modulation and coding