This invention relates to a device for cancelling inter-symbol interference in a sampled digital signal. The invention is applicable particularly to the field of digital transmissions, and is designed particularly for use in a digital signals receiver in order to cancel inter-symbol interference resulting from the presence of multiple paths in the digital data transmission channel.
where (Γ−L1+1(n), . . . , Γ0(n), . . . , ΓL2(n)) are coefficients (possibly complex) of the equivalent discrete transmission channel at time n, and L2 and L1-1 are respectively the past and future number of complex symbols generating the interference on the current complex symbol.
The equivalent discrete transmission channel transfer function that inputs inter-symbol interference is as follows, at time n:
where T is the time period between two consecutive complex symbols in the sequence of complex symbols {n}n∈N.
For simplification reasons, the transfer function Hn(f) is denoted H(f) in the remainder of the description.
In equations (1) and (2), it is assumed that the pulse response of the equivalent discrete transmission channel (corresponding to the inverse Fourier transform of the transfer function) is defined by L=L1+L2 coefficients.
One of the best known inter-symbol interference cancellers is described in the document entitled “daptive Cancellation of Inter-symbol Interference for Data Transmission” by A. Gersho and T. L. Lim, Bell Systems technical journal, Vol. 11, No. 60, pp. 1997-2021, November 1981.
A diagram of the structure of this inter-symbol interference canceller is shown in
This interference canceller comprises a first filter 10 called the front filter, to process the sequence of complex symbols {rn}n∈N, a second filter 20 called the back filter to process a sequence of complex symbols {{tilde over (d)}n}n∈N, and a subtractor circuit 30 to subtract the output from filter 20 from the output from filter 10. The subtractor circuit 30 outputs a sequence of complex symbols {dn}n∈N from which the inter-symbol interferences generated by the transmission channel have been eliminated.
The sequence {{tilde over (d)}n}n∈N represents either complex symbols sent through the transmission channel by the sending source if the system uses a learning sequence, or complex symbols that are an estimate of complex symbols emitted by the sending source. In the second case, the sequence of symbols {{tilde over (d)}n}n∈N is provided by another device in the receiver, for example a transverse linear equaliser or a maximum probability equaliser.
For generalisation reasons, it is assumed that the transmission channel varies in time. Therefore, the coefficients of the pulse response are not standardised. We then obtain the following relation:
It is also assumed that the signal sent has a unit power, and therefore that the variance νd2 of symbols sent is equal to 1. With this assumption, αn is equal to the estimated power of the transmission channel.
The filter 10 of the device converges towards a filter tuned to the transmission channel. The optimum coefficients, for example in the sense of the minimum mean quadratic error criterion, of filter 10 are therefore the coefficients of the filter tuned to the transmission channel. Therefore, the optimum transmission function of this filter is equal to
H*(f) denotes the conjugate of the transfer function H(f) and νw2 denotes the variance of the Gaussian noise.
The filter 20 is designed to reconstruct inter-symbol interferences present at the output from filter 10. Therefore the filter 20 converges to a filter with transfer function equal to
Therefore the filters 10 and 20 represent sizes L and 2L-1 respectively. The filter coefficients are output as the processing is being done, either using a channel estimate algorithm or using a matching algorithm designed to minimise a given optimisation criterion.
The invention is based on a search for inter-symbol interference cancellers designed to reduce the size of filters necessary for their use, so that degradation caused by an excessive number of coefficients can be limited and to reduce the coefficient convergence time.
The invention relates to a device for cancelling inter-symbol interference in a sequence of digital signal input samples originating from a transmission channel defined by its transfer function H(f) in the frequency domain, each sample being representative of a complex symbol, characterised in that it comprises:
a first filter that converges towards a filter with a transfer function H(f), the said first filter receives a sequence of samples as input representing the digital signal sent to the input of the said transmission channel,
a subtractor circuit to subtract the output of the said first filter from the said sequence of input samples,
a second filter that converges towards a filter tuned to the transmission channel, the output from the said subtractor circuit being input to this second filter, and
an output circuit designed to combine the output from the said second filter and the sequence of samples representative of the digital signal sent to the input of the said transmission channel to generate a sequence of complex symbols without the inter-symbol interferences generated by the transmission channel.
For example, the output circuit may be an adder circuit designed to add the output from the said second filter to the said sequence of samples representative of the digital signal sent to the input of the said transmission channel.
Preferably, an amplitude correction coefficient is applied to the samples of the sequence representative of the digital signal sent to the input of the transmission channel that are processed by the adder circuit.
The main advantage of this interference canceller is that it comprises two filters using a reduced number of coefficients.
According to one characteristic of the invention, in the case of a transmission channel disturbed by an additive noise with coefficients that vary with time, the amplitude correction coefficient depends on the estimated power of the transmission channel and the variance of the additive noise.
The invention also relates to a digital signal receiver characterised in that it comprises a device for cancellation of inter-symbol interference as described above, and a dedicated circuit to generate the said sequence of samples representative of the digital signal sent to the input of the said transmission channel. For example, the dedicated circuit is a transverse linear equaliser or a maximum probability equaliser into which the sequence of input samples is input.
The invention also relates to a turbo-equalisation device comprising a plurality of turbo-equalisation modules in series, characterised in that each turbo-equalisation module with a rank greater than 1 in the said series of modules comprises a device for cancelling inter-symbol interference as described above, and in that the sequence of samples representative of the digital signal sent to the input of the transmission channel is output by the lower rank turbo-equalisation module, for each interference cancelling device.
The invention also relates to a device for cancelling inter-symbol interference in J sequences of input samples of a digital signal originating from J transmission channels defined by their transfer functions H(1)(f) in the frequency domain, where J is an integer greater than or equal to 2, each sample being representative of a complex symbol, characterised in that it comprises:
a first set of J filters, each of which converges towards a filter with transfer function H(j)(f), jε[1, . . . , J], each of the filters of the said first set receiving a sequence of samples as input representative of the digital signal sent to the input of the said transmission channels,
a set of J subtractor circuits to subtract the outputs from the said J filters in the said first set from the corresponding said J sequences of input samples,
a second set of J filters that converge towards filters tuned to the said J transmission channels, each filter in the said second set receiving the output from one of the said J subtractor circuits as input, and
a first adder circuit to add the samples output by the J filters in the said second set,
an output circuit designed to combine the output from the said first adder circuit and the sequence of samples representative of the digital signal sent to the input of the said transmission channels, to generate a sequence of complex symbols from which the inter-symbol interference generated by the said transmission channels has been eliminated. This device is used in the case of multiple receptions or so-called fractioned reception of the sent symbols.
As before, the filter coefficients of the said first and second set of filters are determined by a digital processing circuit using a tuning algorithm based on an optimisation criterion designed to minimise the influence of inter-symbol interference at the output from the said device or by a transmission channel estimating circuit.
Finally, the invention also relates to a turbo-equalisation device comprising a plurality of turbo-equalisation modules in series characterised in that each turbo-equalisation module with a rank of more than 1 in the said series of modules comprises a device for cancelling inter-symbol interference like that described above for a multiple or fractioned reception of symbols and in that, for each interference cancelling device, the said sequence of samples representative of the digital signal sent to the input of the transmission channel is output by the lower rank turbo-equalisation module.
Other characteristics and advantages of the invention will become clear after reading the following detailed description given with reference to the attached drawings among which:
As indicated above, the conventional structure of the inter-symbol interference canceller shown in
As shown in
Since these two filters are linear, they may be inverted. The subtractor circuit 23 subtracts the sequence of complex samples {{tilde over (d)}n}n∈N multiplied by the amplitude correction coefficient
from the sequence of complex samples output from the cascade of filters 21 and 22. The filter tuned to the transmission channel with the transfer function
is present in both branches of the canceller, in other words the branch processing complex samples {rn}n∈N and the branch processing complex samples {{tilde over (d)}n}n∈N.
According to the invention, this redundancy of the filter tuned to the transmission channel is eliminated to reduce the number of coefficients necessary for use of the canceller.
The inter-symbol interference canceller according to the invention comprises a first filter 100 that converges towards a filter with transfer function H(f). The sequence of complex symbols {{tilde over (d)}n}n∈N is input to this filter 100 and this filter outputs a sequence of complex symbols {{tilde over (d)}′n}n∈N. For example, the sequence of complex symbols {{tilde over (d)}n}n∈N produced by a transverse linear equaliser or a maximum probability equaliser provided in the receiver. A subtractor circuit 110 is designed to subtract the sequence of complex symbols {{tilde over (d)}′n}n∈N from the sequence of complex symbols {rn}n∈N and to output a sequence of complex symbols {en}n∈N. This output sequence is then filtered by a second filter 120. The filter 120 is a filter that converges towards a filter with transfer function
The sequence of complex symbols output by this filter, and denoted {en}n∈N is added to the sequence of complex symbols {{tilde over (d)}n}n∈N multiplied by the amplitude correction coefficient
using an adder circuit 130 that outputs the sequence of complex symbols {dn}n∈N.
The structure of this canceller is equivalent in terms of filtering to that shown in
The filter coefficients may be determined either using a transmission channel estimating circuit as shown in dashed lines in
With reference to
In the case shown in
The device according to the invention is particularly suitable for eliminating interference generated by a radio channel during the transmission of digital data.
It may be used in a turbo-equalisation device. The principle of turbo-equalisation is described in patent application number 97 05978 filed by the same applicant. A principle diagram of a turbo-equalisation device is shown in
Within the context of turbo-equalisation, the structure of the interference canceller may be improved when the filter coefficients are determined by channel estimating. In this improved structure, the value of the transfer function of filter 120 and the value of the amplitude correction coefficient are modified. This improved structure is shown in
In turbo-equalisation the variance varies with each iteration. Thus, the transfer function G(f) and the amplitude correction coefficient g0 vary with each iteration until they tend towards the expressions shown in FIGS. 4 to 6.
With this structure, the interference canceller in the first modules of the turbo-equalisation device also acts as an equaliser.
The canceller structure described above dealt with a single sequence of samples {rn}n∈N corresponding to the SISO (Single Input Single Output) case, the signal received by the canceller being sampled at the symbol time. In the past, the interference canceller only included one reception antenna.
This case may be generalised to the SIMO (Single Input Multiple Outputs) case, the signals being received by several reception antennas.
The transmission system as shown in
where (Γl(j)(n)) are possibly complex coefficients of the transfer function H(j)(f) of one of the transmission channels at time n, and L(j) represent the number of past and future complex symbols causing interference on the current complex symbol.
The canceller that eliminates inter-symbol interference produced by these transmission channels is shown in dn}n∈N.
This inter-symbol interference canceller has the same advantages as that shown in
Like the device in
Although it is not described in detail, the said fractioned reception case is equivalent to the SIMO case. The said fractioned reception consists of picking up signals with a single reception antenna and then producing several sequences of samples at different times, the delay for each being equal to a fraction 1/m of the symbol period T, the sampling period of these sequences remaining equal to T. If m is an integer number, these sequences can then be processed as shown in
In this description, we have expressed the transfer functions in the form of Fourier transforms (in f). They could be also expressed more generally and equivalently using a transform in z.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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01/13991 | Oct 2001 | FR | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/FR02/03624 | 10/23/2002 | WO |