Advanced multi-user systems for wireless communication networks

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The increasing demand for ubiquitous broadband wireless access with differentiated services, such as voice, email, and interactive multimedia, is a key driving force for advances in wireless communication technologies. The availability of multiple antennas at one or both ends of a wireless link provides the potential for substantial increases in the achievable rate and the reliability of the link, and hence these multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) systems appear, in some form, in the physical layer of almost all proposals for future wireless communication systems. However, the wireless medium is fundamentally a shared environment, with an inherent broadcast capability, but also mutual interference. The communication resources provided by the environment can be used more efficiently if the physical layer of the wireless network (or networks) is designed to take advantage of the shared nature of the environment, as distinct from optimizing the performance of each link independently, and if it does so dynamically. This dynamic allocation of resources offers the potential for a substantial increase in the quality of service that can be offered, both in the case of networks with some form of centralized control, such as the uplink and downlink of single-cell systems, and networks in which control is distributed, such as cooperative communication systems, spectral overlay ("cognitive") systems, and ad-hoc networks. The goal of the proposed research program is to develop computationally-efficient design techniques for multi-user transceivers that enable wireless networks to make efficient use of the available resources. The resulting systems will form some of the building blocks with which the visions of future wireless networks will be realized. The development of the design techniques will be guided by insights from (and contributions to) multi-user information theory and optimization, and the implementation of the designs will take advantage of the flexibility provided by the "software radio" transceiver architecture. The focus of the work will be on the development of fundamental design principles, but specializations of these principles could be applied to systems developed by particular standards bodies or companies.