1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an equipment and method for a multi-input/multi-output (MIMO) single carrier frequency encoding/decoding (SC-FED) communication system. More particularly, the present invention relates to a MIMO SC-FED communication system suitable for a selective frequency attenuation channel.
2. Description of the Related Art
Among the variety of communication methods currently in use, single carrier and multiple carrier modulation is quite a reliable technique. In these two techniques, a channel distortion resulting from multi-path transmission can easily be equalized through a fast Fourier transform and its inverse transformation in the frequency domain.
Looking from another perspective, the development of the space time block coding (STBC) and the multi-input/multi-output (MIMO) system can effective resist signal attenuation under a variety of different transmission and/or reception schemes. For a frequency bandwidth with frequency selected attenuation channel, a different MIMO orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system is usually selected. However, this technique requires the receiving end to have a near perfect computational estimation of the channel so that the system can synchronize with decoding and other management decisions.
When the conditions of the channel change slowly, the transmission end facilitates the receiving end to obtain an accurate estimation of the channel conditions by providing a series of pilot sequences. Yet, in an environment where the channel conditions change rapidly, the job of obtaining an accurate estimation of the channel conditions is very difficult.
Accordingly, at least one objective of the present invention is to provide a multi-input/multi-output (MIMO) differential single carrier frequency encoding/decoding (SC-FED) communication system and a method suitable for working under a communication environment whose channel attenuation conditions change very rapidly.
To achieve these and other advantages and in accordance with the purpose of the invention, as embodied and broadly described herein, the invention provides a MIMO differential SC-FED communication system having a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter has a differential block encoder module for receiving a plurality of data block pairs and performing a circular convolution operation on the data blocks to obtain a plurality of coded data blocks in a space-time block coding (STBC) unit. The STBC unit will perform a space-time block encoding process on the output from the differential block encoder module to produce a plurality of transmitting data blocks. A plurality of frame generators receives the respective transmitting data blocks and adds a cyclic prefix to the corresponding transmitting data blocks to generate a plurality of block frames. Then, the frame generators send the block frames to the receiver of the present invention via a corresponding transmitting antenna.
In the embodiment of the present invention, the receiver includes a receiving antenna unit for receiving the block frames produced by the transmitter. Furthermore, the receiving antenna unit will also transmit the received block frames to a computational module. The computational module performs a divergent Fourier transform (DFT) and a conjugation of the block frames and then outputs the block frames to a decoding module. Thus, the decoding module can perform a complex conjugate transformation or a matrix inversion operation of the previous output from the computational module and then multiply with the current output from the computational module. Thereafter, a fast Fourier transform inversion operation is performed. In addition, the receiver further includes a decision unit coupled to the decoding unit for converting the output from the decoding unit back to the original data block.
From another perspective, the present invention also provides a MIMO differential SC-FED communicating method suitable for a frequency selected attenuation channel. The communicating method includes the following steps. First, a plurality of data block pairs is received. Then, a convolution operation is performed on these data blocks to obtain a plurality of encoded data blocks. Thereafter, a space-time block encoding process is performed on these encoded data blocks to obtain a plurality of transmitting data blocks. After that, a cyclic prefix is added to each transmitting data block. Lastly, a block frame is produced and transmitted.
In the embodiment of the present invention, a convolution operation on the coded data blocks in a previous production and the newly received data block is carried out to obtain the newest coded data block.
In addition, the present invention further include receiving the aforesaid block frames to generate a plurality of received sample blocks. Then, a divergent Fourier transform computation of these received sample blocks is carried out to obtain a plurality of Fourier transformation matrices. Thereafter, a diagonalization of each Fourier transform matrix is performed to obtain a receiving signal matrix. After that, a complex conjugate transformation or a matrix inversion operation on the previously received signal matrix is carried out and then multiplied by the currently received signal matrix to obtain a data block matrix. Finally, an inverse Fourier transform of the data block matrix is performed to obtain the original data blocks.
Because there is no need to perform a channel estimation at the transmitting end and the receiving end in the present invention, the present invention is suitable for a communication environment whose channel attenuation conditions change rapidly.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary, and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the invention, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
Reference will now be made in detail to the present preferred embodiments of the invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers are used in the drawings and the description to refer to the same or like parts.
The differential block encoding module 102 can include a differential transmission unit 114 and a block delay unit 116. The differential transmission unit 114 is used for receiving N pairs of data blocks, where N is a positive integer. For example, in the d1(k)(0) to d1(k)(N−1) and d2(k)(0) to d2(k)(N−1), the upper label k represents the kth block space with k equal to 0, 2, 4. . . and so on. The lower label represents the index value, for example, the data block with the lower label 1 is transmitted through the transmitting antenna unit 110. On the contrary, the data block with the lower label 2 is transmitted through the transmitting antenna unit 112.
When the differential transmission unit 114 receives the data blocks, the data blocks will be encoded to produce a plurality of coded data blocks xi(k). Similarly, the upper label k in the coded data block xi(k) represents the data space value and the lower label i is the index value of the antenna. When the differential transmission unit 114 generates a plurality of coded data blocks xi(k), the encoded data blocks will be transmitted to the STBC unit 104 and the data block delay unit 116. The data block delay unit 116 will be fed back to the differential transmission unit 114 after the coded data block xi(k) from the differential transmission unit 114 has undergone a delay so that a newer coded data block xi(k) is produced.
In the present invention, the differential transmission unit 114 performs a circular convolution operation on the previously obtained coded data block xi(k) and the currently acquired data block to produce the newest coded data block xi(k). Thus, the method of generating the coded data block xi(k) can be represented by the following matrix formula:
Thereafter, the differential transmission unit 114 will transmit the output to the STBC unit 104 to perform a space-time block encoding process. After the STBC unit 104 has encoded the output from the differential transmission unit 114, a plurality of transmitting data blocks is produced. These transmission data blocks will be delivered to a corresponding frame generator module (106 or 108). The frame generator module 106 and 108 will add a cyclic prefix to the output from the STBC unit 104 to produce frame blocks and then transmit the frame blocks to the receiver of the communication system in the present invention through the corresponding transmitting antenna unit (110 or 112).
Although the channel used for transmitting the frame blocks operates as a linear convolution operation, the operation will perform as a circular convolution operation due to the action of the cyclic prefix. After the receiving antenna unit 202 has received the frame blocks transmitted from the transmitter shown in
y(j)=H1(j)x1(j)+H2(j)x2(j)+n(j)
where the upper label j represents the jth received frame block and is a positive integer. H1(j) and H2(j), due to the cyclic prefix, is an N×N circular matrix. In addition, the term n(j) is a noise-generated vector.
Because H (disregarding the superscript and the underscript) is a circular matrix, an Eigen-decomposition of the matrix can be represented by the following formula:
H=QHΛQ
where (.)H represents a complex conjugate transform matrix and Q is a standardized divergent Fourier transform matrix, and Λ is a diagonalized Eigen-value matrix.
As shown in
{tilde over (y)}(j)=Qy(j)=Λ1(j){tilde over (x)}1(j)+Λ2(j){tilde over (x)}2(j)+ñ(j) (1)
where {tilde over (x)}i(j)=Qxi(j) and ñ(j)l =Qn(j).
After the fast Fourier transform (FFT) unit 212 has performed a divergent Fourier transform on the output from the receiving antenna unit 202, the conjugation computation unit 216 will perform a conjugation operation on the output from the fast Fourier transform (FFT) unit 212. Through this operation, the output from the computation module 210 can be represented by the following formulae:
{tilde over (Y)}(k)=Λ1(k){tilde over (x)}1(k)+Λ2(k){tilde over (x)}2(k)+{tilde over (n )}(k)
{tilde over (Y)}(k)*=Λ1(k)H{tilde over (x)}1(k)*+Λ2(k)H{tilde over (x)}2(k)*+ñ(k)*
{tilde over (Y)}(k+1)*=−Λ1(k+1)
{tilde over (Y)}(k+1)=−Λ1(k+1){tilde over (x)}2(k)*+Λ2(k+1){tilde over (x)}1(k)*+ñ(k+1) (2)
In addition, assume the two consecutive blocks in the channel are fixed, that is,
Hi(k+1)=H1(k)=Hi
Λi(k+1)=Λi(k)=Λi (3)
By combining the formula (2) and the formula (3), the following received signal matrix is obtained:
Similarly, according to formula (1), the next batch of received signal matrix can be represented by the following formula:
Because of the circular convolution characteristics of the divergent Fourier transform, {tilde over (d)}i(k+2)=Qdi(k+2) and formula (5) can be re-written as:
When the computational module 210 transmits the output to the decoding module 220, the frequency-band block equalizer unit 222 and the block delay unit 224 will simultaneously receive the output from the computational module 210. The block delay unit 224 will transmit the output from the computational module 210 to the frequency-band block equalizer unit 222 after a delay period. The frequency-band block equalizer unit 222 will perform a complex conjugate transform on the previous batch of received signal matrix and then multiply with the current received signal matrix. The process may be represented using the following formula:
Here, {tilde over (Λ)}=|Λ1|2+|Λ22 and {tilde over (X)}=diag(|{tilde over (x)}1(k)|2 +|{tilde over (x)}2(k)|2 ).
In some other embodiment, the frequency-band block equalizer unit 222 performs an inverse matrix transform operation on the previous batch of received signal matrix and then multiplies with the current received signal matrix, that is,
Lastly, the output from the frequency-band block equalizer unit 222 is transmitted to an inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) unit 226 to perform a Fourier transform inversion operation. Then, the result is output to the decision unit 230. Thus, the decision unit 230 will convert back to the original data block according to the output from the decoding module 220.
Although the receiver 200 in
In summary, the advantages of the present invention includes at least the following:
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the structure of the present invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the present invention cover modifications and variations of this invention provided they fall within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.