Multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing for ultra-wideband wireless communication: analysis, extensions and implementation aspects

Ultra-Wideband (UWB) wireless communication systems employ large bandwidths and low transmitted power spectral densities, and are suitable for operation as underlay systems which reuse allocated spectrum. The subject of this dissertation is Multiband Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MB-OFDM) UWB for high data-rate communication. We address four main questions: (1) What are the theoretical performance limits and practical system performance of MB-OFDM? (2) What extensions can be used to increase the system power efficiency and range? (3) Is it possible to estimate the system error rate without resorting to time-consuming simulations? and (4) What is the effect of interference from narrowband systems on MB-OFDM, and can this interference be mitigated? As for questions 1 and 2, we investigate the MB-OFDM performance, and propose system enhancements consisting of advanced error correcting codes and OFDM bit-loading. Our methodology includes the development of information-theoretic performance measures and the comparison of these measures with performance results for MB-OFDM and our proposed extensions, which improve the power efficiency by over 6 dB at a data rate of 480 Mbps. To address question 3, we develop novel analytical methods for bit error rate (BER) estimation for a general class of coded multicarrier systems (of which MB-OFDM is one example) operating over quasi-static fading channels. One method calculates system performance for each channel realization. The other method assumes Rayleigh distributed subcarrier channel gains, and leads directly to the average BER. Both methods are also able to account for sum-of-tones narrowband interference. As for question 4, we first present an exact analysis of the uncoded BER of MB-OFDM in the presence of interference from incumbent systems such as IEEE 802.16 ("WiMAX"). We also present a Gaussian approximation for WiMAX interference, and establish its accuracy through comparison with exact analysis and simulations. We then propose a two-stage interference mitigation technique for coded MB-OFDM, consisting of interference estimation during silent periods, followed by metric weighting during decoding, which provides substantial gains in performance in return for modest increases in complexity, and without requiring any modifications to the MB-OFDM transmitter.Applied Science, Faculty ofElectrical and Computer Engineering, Department ofGraduat