Wireless Communications

Lecture # 1: Introduction and Historical

Background of Wireless Systems
 Agenda

• Wireless History
• The Wireless Vision
• Technical Challenges
• Current/Next-Gen Wireless Systems
• Spectrum Regulation and Standards
• Emerging Wireless Systems
(Optional Lecture)
 Wireless History
 Ancient Systems: Smoke Signals, Flags,
Carrier
• Radio Pigeons,…
invented in the 1880s by Marconi
 Many sophisticated military radio systems
were developed during and after WW2
Exponential growth in cellular use since
1988: approx. 8B worldwide users today
 Ignited the wireless revolution
 Voice, data, and multimedia ubiquitous
 Use in 3rd world countries growing
rapidly
 Wi-Fi also enjoying tremendous success and
growth
 Bluetooth pervasive, satellites also
 Future Wireless Networks
Ubiquitous Communication Among People and Devices

Next-Gen Cellular/WiFi
Smart Homes/Spaces
Autonomous Cars
Smart Cities
Body-Area Networks
Internet of Things
All this and more …
 Challenges
 Network/Radio Challenges
 Gbps data rates with “no” errors AdHoc
 Energy efficiency Short-Range
 Scarce/bifurcated spectrum
 Reliability and coverage
 Heterogeneous networks
 Seamless internetwork handoff
 Device/SoC Challenges
 Performance BT Radio
 Complexity GPS
Cellular
 Size, Power, Cost Cog

 High frequencies/mmWave Mem WiFi

 Multiple Antennas CPU mmW
 Multiradio Integration
 Coexistance
 Software-Defined (SD) Radio:
Is this the solution to the device challenges?

BT A/D
FM/XM

Cellular GPS

DVB-H
A/D
Apps DSP
Processor WLAN A/D
Media
Processor Wimax A/D

Wideband antennas and A/Ds span BW of desired

signals
 DSP programmed
Today, this is not to cost,
process desired
size, or signal:
powerno
specialized HW
efficient
SubNyquist sampling may help with the A/D and DSP requirements
“Sorry world, your airwaves are
full*”
On the Horizon:
ata
“The Internet of Things”
D
obile
al M
i
nent
po h
Ex rowt
G

Leading
to m ass
deficit ive spec
trum

50 billion devices by 2020

Source: FCC

*CNN MoneyTech – Feb. 2012

 What is the Internet of Things:

• Enabling every electronic device to be

connected to each other and the Internet

• Includes smartphones, consumer

electronics, cars, lights, clothes, sensors,
medical devices,…

• Value in IoT is data processing in the

cloud

Different requirements than smartphones: low rates/energy

 Are we at the Shannon
limit of the Physical Layer?
We are at the Shannon Limit
“The wireless industry has reached the
theoretical limit of how fast networks can
go” K. Fitcher, Connected Planet
“We’re 99% of the way” to the “barrier
known as Shannon’s limit,” D. Warren, GSM
Association Sr. Dir. of Tech.
Shannon was wrong, there is no limit
“There is no theoretical maximum to the
amount of data that can be carried by a
radio channel” M. Gass, 802.11 Wireless
Networks: The Definitive Guide
• “Effectively unlimited” capacity possible via
personal cells (pcells). S. Perlman, Artemis.
What would Shannon say?

We don’t know the Shannon

capacity of most wireless channels
• Time-varying channels.
Channels with interference or relays.
Cellular systems
Ad-hoc and sensor networks
Channels with delay/energy/$$$ constraints.

Shannon theory provides design insights

and system performance upper bounds
 Current/Next-Gen
Wireless Systems
• Current:
• 4G Cellular Systems (LTE-Advanced)
• 4G Wireless LANs/WiFi (802.11ac)
• mmWave massive MIMO systems
• Satellite Systems
• Bluetooth
• Zigbee
• WiGig
• Emerging
• 5G Cellular and WiFi Systems
• Ad/hoc and Cognitive Radio NetworksMuch room
• Energy-Harvesting Systems For innovation
• Chemical/Molecular
 Spectral Reuse
Due to its scarcity, spectrum is
reused
In licensed and unlicensed
bands bands
BS

Cellul Wifi, BT, UWB,

ar Reuse introduces …
 Cellular Systems:
Reuse channels to maximize capacity
• Geographic region divided into cells
• Freq./timeslots/codes/space reused in different cells (reuse 1
common).
• Interference between cells using same channel: interference
mitigation key
• Base stations/MTSOs coordinate handoff and control function
• Shrinking cell size increases capacity, as well as complexity,
handoff, …

BASE
STATION
MTSO
 4G/LTE Cellular
• Much higher data rates than 3G (50-100 Mbps
• 3G systems has 384 Kbps peak rates
• Greater spectral efficiency (bits/s/Hz)
• More bandwidth, adaptive OFDM-MIMO, reduced
interference
• Flexible use of up to 100 MHz of spectrum
• 10-20 MHz spectrum allocation common
• Low packet latency (<5ms).
• Reduced cost-per-bit (not clear to customers)
• All IP network
5G Upgrades from 4G
 Future Cellular Phones
Burden for this
Everything performance
wireless is on the backbone network
in one device
San Francisco

BS
BS

LTE backbone is the Internet

Internet
Paris
Nth- Phone Nth-
Gen System Gen
Cellul Cellul
ar ar

BS

Much better performance and reliability than today

- Gbps rates, low latency, 99% coverage, energy efficiency
 Wifi Networks
Multimedia Everywhere, Without Wires

802.11ac

Wireless HDTV
and Gaming

• Streaming video
• Gbps data rates
• High reliability
• Coverage inside and
out
 Wireless LAN Standards
• 802.11b (Old – 1990s)
• Standard for 2.4GHz ISM band (80 MHz)
• Direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS)
• Speeds of 11 Mbps, approx. 500 ft range

• 802.11a/g (Middle Age– mid-late 1990s)

Many
• Standard for 5GHz band (300 MHz)/also 2.4GHzWLAN
• OFDM in 20 MHz with adaptive rate/codes cards
• Speeds of 54 Mbps, approx. 100-200 ft range have
(a/b/g/n)
• 802.11n/ac/ax (current/next gen)
• Standard in 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band
• Adaptive OFDM /MIMO in 20/40/80/160 MHz
• Antennas: 2-4, up to 8
• Speeds up to 1 Gbps (10 Gbps for ax), approx. 200 ft
range
• Other advances in packetization, antenna use, multiuser
MIMO
 Why does WiFi performance suck?
Carrier Sense Multiple Access:
if another WiFi signal
detected, random backoff
Collision Detection: if collision
detected, resend

• The WiFi standard lacks good mechanisms to mitigate

interference, especially in dense AP deployments
• Multiple access protocol (CSMA/CD) from 1970s
• Static channel assignment, power levels, and carrier sensing
thresholds
• In such deployments WiFi systems exhibit poor spectrum reuse and
significant contention among APs and clients
• Result is low throughput and a poor user experience
• Multiuser MIMO will help each AP, but not interfering APs
 Self-Organizing Networks for WiFi

- Channel Selection
SoN
- Power Control
Controller
- etc.

SoN-for-WiFi: dynamic self-organization network

software to manage of WiFi APs.
Allows for capacity/coverage/interference mitigation
tradeoffs.
Also provides network analytics and planning.
 Satellite Systems

• Cover very large areas

• Different orbit heights
• GEOs (39000 Km) versus LEOs (2000 Km)
• Optimized for one-way transmission
• Radio (XM, Sirius) and movie (SatTV, DVB/S)
broadcasts
• Most two-way systems went bankrupt
• Global Positioning System (GPS) ubiquitous
• Satellite signals used to pinpoint location
• Popular in cell phones, PDAs, and navigation
devices
 Bluetooth
• Cable replacement RF technology (low cost)
• Short range (10m, extendable to 100m)
• 2.4 GHz band (crowded)
• 1 Data (700 Kbps) and 3 voice channels, up
to 3 Mbps

• Widely supported by telecommunications,

PC, and consumer electronics companies

• Few applications beyond cable replacement

8C32810.61-Cimini-7/98
IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee Radios
• Low-rate low-power low-cost secure radio
• Complementary to WiFi and Bluetooth
• Frequency bands: 784, 868, 915 MHz, 2.4 GHz
• Data rates: 20Kbps, 40Kbps, 250 Kbps
• Range: 10-100m line-of-sight
• Support for large mesh networking or star
clusters
• Support for low latency devices
• CSMA-CA channel access
• Applications: light switches, electricity
meters, traffic management, and other low-
power sensors.
 Spectrum Regulation
• Spectrum a scarce public resource, hence
allocated
• Spectral allocation in US controlled by
FCC (commercial) or OSM (defense)
• FCC auctions spectral blocks for set
applications.
• Some spectrum set aside for universal use
• Worldwide spectrum controlled by ITU-R
Innovations
• Regulationin regulation being considered
is a necessary evil. worldwide
in multiple cognitive radio paradigms
 Standards

• Interacting systems require standardization

• Companies want their systems adopted as
standard
• Alternatively try for de-facto standards

• Standards determined by TIA/CTIA in US

• IEEE standards often adopted
• Process fraught with inefficiencies and conflicts

• Worldwide standards determined by ITU-T

• In Europe,
Standards ETSI is
for current equivalent
systems of IEEE
are summarized in Appendix D.
 Advanced Topics Lecture

Emerging Systems
• New cellular system architectures
• mmWave/massive MIMO communications
• Software-defined network architectures
• Ad hoc/mesh wireless networks
• Cognitive radio networks
• Wireless sensor networks
• Energy-constrained radios
• Distributed control networks
• Chemical Communications
• Applications of Communications in Health,
Bio-medicine, and Neuroscience
Rethinking “Cells” in Cellular
How should cellular
Coop
MIMO
systems be designed for
Small

Relay - Capacity
Cell

- Coverage
DAS
- Energy efficiency
- Low latency

• Traditional cellular design “interference-limited”

• MIMO/multiuser detection can remove interference
• Cooperating BSs form a MIMO array: what is a cell?
• Relays change cell shape and boundaries
• Distributed antennas move BS towards cell boundary
• Small cells create a cell within a cell
• Mobile cooperation via relays, virtual MIMO, network coding.
 mmWave Massive MIMO

10s of GHz of Spectrum Dozens of devices

Hundreds
of antennas
• mmWaves have large non-monotonic path loss
• Channel model poorly understood
• For asymptotically large arrays with channel state
information, no attenuation, fading, interference or noise
• mmWave antennas are small: perfect for massive MIMO
• Bottlenecks: channel estimation and system complexity
• Non-coherent design holds significant promise
 Software-Defined Network
Architectures
Video
Cloud Computing
Security
Vehicular
M2M App layer
Networks
Health

Power
Freq. Self QoS CS
Allocation
Contr ICIC Opt. Threshold
Healing
ol
Network Optimization
UNIFIED CONTROL PLANE

HW layer
Distributed Antennas
Ad-Hoc
WiFi Cellular mmWave
… Networks
 Ad-Hoc Networks

• Peer-to-peer communications
• No backbone infrastructure or centralized
control
• Routing can be multihop.
• Topology is dynamic.
• Fully connected with different link SINRs
• Open questions
• Fundamental capacity region
• Resource allocation (power, rate, spectrum,
etc.)
 Cognitive Radios
CRTx CRRx
IP
NCR
NCR CR CR NCRRx
NCRTx

MIMO Cognitive Underlay Cognitive Overlay

• Cognitive radios support new users in existing crowded

spectrum without degrading licensed users
• Utilize advanced communication and DSP
techniques
• Coupled with novel spectrum allocation policies
• Multiple paradigms
• (MIMO) Underlay (interference below a threshold)
• Interweave finds/uses unused time/freq/space slots
• Overlay (overhears/relays primary message while
cancelling interference it causes to cognitive
receiver)
 Wireless Sensor Networks
Data Collection and Distributed Control
• Smart homes/buildings
• Smart structures
• Search and rescue
• Homeland security
• Event detection
• Battlefield surveillance

 Energy (transmit and processing) is the driving

constraint
 Data flows to centralized location (joint compression)
 Low per-node rates but tens to thousands of nodes
 Energy-Constrained Radios
• Transmit energy minimized by sending bits
slowly
• Leads to increased circuit energy consumption
• Short-range networks must consider both
transmit and processing/circuit energy.
• Sophisticated encoding/decoding not always
energy-efficient.
• MIMO techniques not necessarily energy-
efficient
• Long transmission times not necessarily optimal
• Multihop routing not necessarily optimal
• Sub-Nyquist sampling can decrease energy and
is sometimes optimal!
Where should energy come
from?
• Batteries and traditional charging
mechanisms
• Well-understood devices and systems

• Wireless-power transfer
• Poorly understood, especially at large distances and
with high efficiency
• Communication with Energy Harvesting
Radios
• Intermittent and random energy arrivals
• Communication becomes energy-dependent
• Can combine information and energy transmission
• New principles for radio and network design needed.
 Distributed Control over
Wireless
Automated Vehicles
- Cars
- Airplanes/UAVs
- Insect flyers

Interdisciplinary design approach

• Control requires fast, accurate, and reliable feedback.
• Wireless networks introduce delay and loss
• Need reliable networks and robust controllers
: Many design challenges
• Mostly open problems
 Chemical Communications

• Can be developed for both macro (>cm) and

micro (<mm) scale communications
• Greenfield area of research:
• Need new modulation schemes, channel
impairment mitigation, multiple access, etc.
 Applications in Health,
Biomedicine and Neuroscience
Neuroscience
- Nerve network
(re)configuration
Body-Area - EEG/ECoG signal
Networks
processing
- Signal
processing/control
for deep brain
Recovery from Nerve Damage stimulation
- SP/Comm applied to
ECoG Epileptic Seizure Localization
bioscience
EEG

ECoG
 Main Points
• The wireless vision encompasses many exciting
applications

• Technical challenges transcend all system design layers

• 5G networks must support higher performance for

some users, extreme energy efficiency and/or low
latency for others

• Cloud-based software to dynamically control and

optimize wireless networks needed (SDWN)

• Innovative wireless design needed for 5G cellular/WiFi,

mmWave systems, massive MIMO, and IoT connectivity

• Standards and spectral allocation heavily impact the

evolution of wireless technology