The present invention relates generally to data communication, and more particularly, to data communication with transmission diversity using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) in multiple antenna channels.
In wireless communication systems, antenna diversity plays an important role in increasing the system link robustness. OFDM is used as a multiplexing technique for transmitting digital data using radio frequency signals (RF). In OFDM, a radio signal is divided into multiple sub-signals that are transmitted simultaneously at different frequencies to a receiver. Each sub-signal travels within its own unique frequency range (sub-channel), which is modulated by the data. OFDM distributes the data over multiple channels, spaced apart at different frequencies.
OFDM modulation is typically performed using a transform such as Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) process wherein bits of data are encoded in the frequency-domain onto sub-channels. As such, in the transmitter, an Inverse FFT (IFFT) is performed on the set of frequency channels to generate a time-domain OFDM symbol for transmission over a communication channel. The IFFT process converts the frequency-domain data for each sub-channel into a block of time-domain samples which are later on converted to an analogue modulating signal for an RF modulator. In the receiver, the OFDM signals are processed by performing an FFT process on each symbol to convert the time-domain data into frequency-domain data, and the data is then decoded by examining the phase and amplitude of the sub-channels. Therefore, at the receiver the reverse process of the transmitter is implemented. Further, transmission antenna diversity schemes are used to improve the OFDM system reliability. Such transmit diversity schemes in OFDM systems are encoded in the frequency-domain as described.
OFDM has been selected as the basis for the high speed wireless local area network (WLAN) standards by the IEEE 802.11a standardization group, and is also being considered as the basis for the high throughput WLAN 802.11n. A typical transmitter for a conventional OFDM MIMO system implementing WLAN 802.11n comprises a channel encoder, a puncturer, a spatial parser, and multiple data stream processing paths. Each data stream processing path comprises an interleaver, a constellation mapper, an IFFT function, and guard interval insertion window and an RF modulator.
For parser and interleaver portion of the system, coded and punctured bits are interleaved across spatial streams and frequency tones. There are two steps to the space-frequency interleaving: spatial stream parsing and frequency interleaving. First, encoded and punctured bits are parsed to multiple spatial streams by a round-robin parser. The parser sends consecutive blocks of bits to different spatial streams in a round-robin fashion starting with the first spatial stream. Second, all encoded bits are interleaved by a separate block interleaver for each spatial stream, with a block size corresponding to the number of bits in a single OFDM symbol. The block interleavers are based on the 802.11a interleaver, with certain modifications to allow for multiple spatial streams and 40 MHz transmissions.
The interleaver is defined by a two-step permutation. The first permutation ensures that adjacent coded bits are mapped onto nonadjacent subcarriers. The second permutation ensures that coded bits are mapped alternately onto less and more significant bits of the constellation and thereby long runs of low reliability (LSB) bits are avoided. A deinterleaver in a receiver performs the inverse operation, and is also defined by two permutations corresponding to the two interleaver permutations.
Such conventional system provides write in block, one column rotation for multiple antennas transmission, and PAM order rotation within a column as described in S.A. Mujtaba, “TGn Sync Proposal Technical Specification,” a contribution to IEEE 802.11 11-04-889rl, November 2004 and Manoneet Singh et al. and Bruce Edwards et al., “WWiSE proposal: High throughput extension to the 802.11 Standard,” a contribution to IEEE 802.11 11-04-0886r4, November 2004, (incorporated herein by reference). However, because the columns are rotated by only one column, adjacent bits only 3 and 6 sub-carriers apart for 20 MHz and 40 MHz systems, respectively. As a result, in a correlated channel, the diversity gain is not fully utilized.
Another conventional transmitter design includes a channel encoder, a puncturer, a frequency interleaver, a spatial parser, and two data stream processing paths. Each data stream processing path comprises a constellation mapper, an IFFT function, guard interval insertion window and an RF modulator. The interleaver performs interleaving on two consecutive OFDM symbols before they are parsed onto two different antennas. The relation for the first permutation is:
i=Nrow×(k mod Ncolumn)+floor(k/Ncolumn) where Ncolumn=32, Nrow=2NCBPS/Ncolumn
After the interleaving, the spatial parser parses the interleaved bits in group by a round robin fashion to different spatial streams. The group size equals to the number of bits in one QAM symbol. For example, for 64 QAM, 6 bits will be parsed onto one spatial stream and the next 6 bits will be parsed onto another spatial stream. However, such a transmitter is not flexible enough to accommodate different channel coding and modulation schemes on different special streams.
In one embodiment, the present invention provides an interleaver design for a transmitter that is flexible enough to accommodate different channel coding and modulation schemes on different special streams.
Accordingly, an MIMO wireless system according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a transmitter having a parser that parses a bit stream into multiple spatial data streams and multiple interleavers corresponding to the multiple spatial data streams, where each interleaver interleaves the bits in the corresponding spatial data stream by performing a frequency rotation, which is equivalent to multiple column rotations and at least one row rotation, to increase diversity of the wireless system. The MIMO wireless system also includes a receiver that has deinterleavers that deinterleavers spatial bit streams transmitted by the transmitter.
These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become understood with reference to the following description, appended claims and accompanying figures.
FIGS. 5A-B show example simulation results in 20 MHz channels.
In one embodiment, the present invention provides a method of bit stream interleaving for a MIMO system. The interleaving method uses frequency rotation to better explore the diversity of the wireless system and simplify the implementation.
Conventionally, encoded and punctured bits are parsed to multiple spatial streams by a round-robin parser where
s=max{NBPSC/2,1} (1)
such that s is the number of bit parsed onto one antenna each round, and NBPSC is the number of coded bits per subcarrier. A conventional parser sends consecutive blocks of s bits to different spatial streams in a round-robin fashion starting with the first spatial stream. All encoded bits are conventionally interleaved by a separate block interleaver for each spatial stream, with a block size corresponding to the number of coded bits in a single OFDM symbol, NCBPS. The conventional block interleavers are based on the 802.11a interleaver, with certain modifications to allow for multiple spatial streams and 40 MHz transmissions.
The basic interleaver array has Nrow rows and Ncolumn columns and NBPSC is the number of coded bits per subcarrier (e.g. NBPSC=1 for BPSK, 2 for QPSK, 4 for 16 QAM, etc), wherein the interleaver parameters are shown in Table 1 below.
A conventional interleaver is defined by a two-step permutation. The first-step permutation (first permutation) ensures that adjacent coded bits are mapped onto nonadjacent subcarriers. The first permutation is modified from the 802.11a interleaver such that the column indexes in the array are rotated by one column for each spatial stream. The second-step permutation (second permutation) ensures that coded bits are mapped alternately onto less and more significant bits of the constellation and thereby long runs of low reliability (LSB) bits are avoided.
Relations (2) and (3) below define a conventional interleaver, wherein the index of the coded bit before the first permutation is denoted by k, and i is the index after the first and before the second permutation. In the conventional interleaver, the first permutation is defined by relation (2) below:
i=Nrow×(((k mod Ncolumn)+iss)mod Ncolumn)+floor(k/Ncolumn), k=0,1, . . . ,NCBPS−1, (2)
where iss=0,1, . . . ,Nss−1, is the index of the spatial stream on which this interleaver is operating. The insertion of iss is a modification of the 802.11a interleaver. This results in a “column offset” in the de-interleaving process. That is, bits are read in by rows and out by columns, but starting with column iss in a column-cyclic fashion.
Further, conventionally the second permutation is defined by relation (3) below, wherein j is the index after the second permutation, just prior to modulation mapping:
j=s×floor(i/s)+(i+NCBPS−floor(Ncolumn×i/NCBPS))mod s, i=0,1, . . . ,NCBPS−1, (3)
where s is determined according to relation (4) below:
s=max(NBPSC/2,1). (4)
Similarly, a deinterleaver in a receiver performs the inverse relation, and is defined by a first-step permutation and a second-step permutation corresponding to the conventional interleaver permutations above. Relations (5) and (6) define these first and second permutations for a conventional deinterleaver, wherein the index of the original received bit before the first permutation is denoted by j, and i is the index after the first and before the second permutation.
Conventionally, the first permutation in the deinterleaver is defined by relation (5) below:
i=s×floor(j/s)+(j+floor(Ncolumn×j/NCBPS))mod s, j=0,1, . . . ,NCBPS−1, (5)
where s is as defined in relation (4) above. The first permutation in relation (5) is the inverse of the permutation in relation (3) above.
Conventionally, the second permutation in the deinterleaver is defined by relation (6) below, where k is the index after the second permutation:
k=Ncolumn(i mod Nrow)+(floor(i/Nrow)−iss+Ncolumn)mod Ncolumn, i=0,1, . . . ,NCBPS−1. (6)
The second permutation in relation (6) is the inverse of the interleaver permutation in relation (2) above.
As noted, the conventional system provides write in block, column rotation for multiple antennas transmission, and PAM order rotation within a column. However, because the columns are rotated by only one column, adjacent bits only e.g. 3 and 6 sub-carriers apart for 20 MHz and 40 MHz systems. As a result, in a correlated channel, the diversity gain is not fully utilized.
In the commonly assigned patent application serial number 11/104,808, filed on Apr. 12, 2005, an improved interleaving process is described which increases the column rotation to the largest possible distance within a block to fully explore the diversity of the wireless system. In such improved interleaving process, in a first permutation, the column rotation is changed from one column rotation to ((Ncolumn/Nss)×iss) column rotations, where Nssis the total number of spatial data streams and iss is index of spatial data stream which ranges from e.g. 0 to Nss−1. As such, in contrast to the conventional interleaving relation (2) above, the first permutation in the improved interleaving process is defined by relation (7) below:
i=Nrow×(((k mod Ncolumn)+floor(Ncolumn/Nss)×iss)mod Ncolumn)+floor(k/Ncolumn) where k=0,1, . . . ,NCBPS−1. (7)
On the receiver side, a deinterleaving process performs the reverse operation for de-interleaving the received bits. In contrast to the conventional deinterleaving relation (6) above, the second permutation in the deinterleaver is defined by relation (8) below:
k=Ncolumn×(i mod Nrow)+(floor(i/Nrow)−floor(Ncolumn/Nss)×iss+Ncolumn)mod Ncolumnwherein i=0,1, . . . ,NCBPS−1. (8)
For example, if two data streams are to be transmitted, using the improved interleaving process. The adjacent data bits are separated 8 columns apart for different data streams in a 20 MHz channel. In another example, the adjacent data bits are separated 9 columns apart for different data streams in a 40 MHz channel.
In one example transmitter where there are multiple spatial streams, a block of bits in first data stream is transmitted without any rotation in that block. Conventionally, each remaining spatial stream is transmitted after iss column rotation relative to the first spatial stream. However using the improved interleaving process, each remaining spatial stream is transmitted after multiple column rotations, wherein the number of rotations is the number of columns in the interleaver array divided by the number of spatial streams.
In another example transmitter where there are two spatial streams, and one spatial stream is transmitted over a first antenna, and the other over a second antenna, a first block of bits is transmitted over the first antenna without any rotation in that block. Conventionally, for the second antenna, data is transmitted with one column rotation where the second column is rotated to the first column, and so one, so that all the columns are shifted/rotated left by one column. Using the improved, however, for the second antenna, the number of rotations is the number of columns in the interleaver array divided by the number of antennas. For example, for a 20 MHz transmitter having two antennas, the interleaver array comprises 16 columns and three rows of bits. Using the improved interleavers, for the second antenna the number of rotations is the number of columns (16) divided by the number of antennas (2), resulting in 8 column rotations. As such, columns 9 through 16 are shifted into the first part (first 8 columns) of the array block, and columns 1 through 8 are shifted into the second part (second 8 columns) of the array block for transmission.
The MIMO system performance (e.g., packet error rate vs. signal to noise ratio) using multiple column rotation interleaving in the improved interleavers is improved in comparison to a conventional system with one column rotation interleaving. This is because in OFDM different subcarriers are used and when bits are rotated by multiple columns, adjacent bits are separated further in the spatial domain and in the subcarrier space, reducing fading in transmission channels.
Using multiple column rotation according to the improved interleaving process, two adjacent bits have less probability of seeing the same channel. As such, in the receiver when the received data bits are de-interleaved for convolution decoding, if one received bit has low energy (bad bit) because of transmission in a fading channel, and an adjacent bit has high energy (good bit), the good bit can be used to recover the bad bit by convolution decoding.
With the conventional one column rotation interleaving, the adjacent data bits are spatially close and can face the same bad transmission channel. In a case where there are several continuous bits that face the same bad channel, it is difficult for the receiver to recover the bits by convolution decoding. However, with multiple column rotation in the improved interleaving process, adjacent bits are spatially separated such that they are less likely to be transmitted in the same bad/fading channel. As such, if a bit is transmitted in a bad channel, and the adjacent bits are transmitted via good channels, decoding in the receiver can still recover the bit transmitted via the bad channel using the bits transmitted in the good channels.
In the commonly assigned patent application entitled: “An improved interleaver design for IEEE 802.11n standard”, Attorney Docket No. SAM2B.PAU.07 (incorporated herein by reference), to further separate adjacent bits into different sub-band and different spatial stream, in addition to larger column rotation an additional row rotation is performed on different spatial streams, which result in the change of relation (2) above to relation (10) below:
i=Nrow*(((k mod Ncolumn) +floor(Ncolumn/Nss)*iss)mod Ncolumn)+(floor(k/Ncolumn)+ceil (N/Nss*iss)*NBPSC) mod Nrow (10)
where k=0, 1, . . . NCBPS−1, and
Accordingly, the corresponding deinterleaving relation is modified into relation (11) below, as:
k=(Ncolumn*(i mod Nrow)+(floor(i/Nrow−floor(Ncolumn/Nss)*iss)mod Ncol+Ncolumn*(N−ceil(N/Nss*iss))*NBPSC)mod NCBPS, (11)
wherein i=0,1, . . . NCBPS−1
According to the present invention, an embodiment of a further improved interleaving process is implemented in the system 100 of
Instead of viewing the problem in the interleaver block (array), the implementation of the column and row interleaving according to an embodiment of the present invention includes two steps: First, performing the same interleaving for all the data streams using IEEE802.11a interleaver parameters. The output data bits are then mapped to different sub-carriers of an OFDM symbol. Second, different cyclic shift are performed along the frequency sub-carriers for different data streams to obtain the same effect of column and row rotation in the first permutation of the interleaver operation.
In one example of the further improved interleaving process according to an embodiment of the present invention, such is accomplished by relations (12) through (14) below for the interleavers 108A, 108B.
The further improved interleaving process for the interleavers 108A, 108B, is implemented in three steps according to relations (12) through (14):
i=Nrow×(k mod Ncolumn)+floor(k/Ncolumn), k=0,1, . . . ,NCBPS−1, (12)
j=s×floor(i/s)+(i+NCBPS−floor(Ncolumn×i/NCBPS))mod s, i=0,1, . . . ,NCBPS−1, (13
where s is determined according to s=max(NBPSC/2,1),
r=(j−((2×iss)mod 3+3×floor(iss/3))×Nrot×NBPSC)mod NCBPS, j=0,1,. . . ,NCBPS−1, (14)
wherein in relations (12) to (14), the index of the coded bit before the first permutation is denoted by k, and i is the index after the first and before the second permutation, and j is the index after the second permutation and before the third permutation, and r is the index after the third permutation, iss=0,1, . . . ,Nss−1 is the index of the spatial stream on which this interleaver is operating and Nrot is a base rotation number in use. We choose Nrot equal to 11 and 29 for 20 MHz and 40 MHz operation respectively. The iss parameter controls the rotation of each stream such that for the first stream, there will be no frequency rotation
Relation (12) above ensures that adjacent coded bits are mapped onto nonadjacent sub-carriers. Relation (13) above ensures that coded bits are mapped alternately onto less and more significant bits of the constellation whereby long runs of low reliability (LSB) bits are avoided. Relation (14) represents the frequency rotation operation.
Accordingly, the corresponding deinterleaving relations for the deinterleavers 118A, 118B in the example receiver 102, are according to relations (15) to (17) below:
xd=(xdd+((2×iss)mod 3+3×floor(iss/3))×Nrot×NBPSC)mod NCBPSxdd=0,1, . . . ,NCBPS−1, (15)
Jd=s×floor(jdd/s)+(j+floor(Ncolumn×jdd/NCBPS))mod s jdd=0,1, . . . ,NCBPS−1, (16)
id=Ncolumn×idd−(NCBPS−1)×floor(Ncolumn×idd/NCBPS), idd=0,1, . . . ,NCBPS−1, (17)
wherein idd , jdd represent the index before operation of each step accordingly, the index of the coded bit before the first permutation is denoted by xdd, before the second permutation and after the first permutation by jdd and before third permutation and after second permutation by idd, and xd is the index after the first and before the second permutation, and jd is the index after the second permutation and before the third permutation, and id is the index after the third permutation.
Relations (15) through (17) above perform inverse steps of relations (14) through (12), respectively.
For example, in a 20 MHz channelization case, the block size of the interleaver is 3*NBPSC rows and 16 columns. For a two data stream case, the interleaver for the first data stream can be the same as an IEEE802.11a interleaver. However, for the second data stream, in addition to the usual 802.11a interleaver operation, according to an embodiment of the present invention an additional step of frequency rotation is added before the IFFT operation.
A simple example of BPSK case where NBPSC=1 is now described. The following example Tables 2(a)-(c) show the bit positions for a BPSK modulated OFDM symbol before and after the interleaving operation.
The bits are written in rows and read out in columns, such that after the block interleaving, the bit positions on the subcarriers are shown in Table 2(b) below:
The bit positions after the frequency rotation is shown in Table 2(c) below:
After spatial parsing of the input bit stream into multiple spatial streams by the parser 302, each spatial stream is processed in a corresponding spatial stream processing path 304. Then, the bits processed in each spatial stream path 304 are transmitted via a channel (e.g., as in system 100 of
As noted, in the example of
Referring to
Example simulations have verified the performance gains of the further improved interleaving process according to the present invention in 20 MHz MIMO channelizations. The coding and modulation modes for the example simulations are listed in Table 3.
FIGS. 5A-B show example simulation comparative results for IEEE 802.11n channel models BLOS, DLOS, ELOS and DNLOS for above listed modulation and coding combination. For sake of simplicity of example, perfect synchronization, no RF impairment, and perfect channel estimation is assumed. Further, an MMSE detector is utilized for data stream separation.
In the example shown in
Similarly, graphs 504, 505 and 506 represent CC5/6 DNLOS performance according to said commonly assigned patent application Attorney Docket No. SAM2B.PAU.07, CC5/6 DNLOS performance according to the present invention, and CC5/6 DNLOS performance according the prior art, respectively.
Similarly, graphs 504, 505 and 506 represent CC5/6 ENLOS performance according to said commonly assigned patent application Attorney Docket No. SAM2B.PAU.07, CC5/6 ENLOS performance according to the present invention, and CC5/6 ENLOS performance according the prior art, respectively.
In the example shown in
Similarly, graphs 604, 605 and 606 represent CC7/8 DNLOS performance according to said commonly assigned patent application Attorney Docket No. SAM2B.PAU.07, CC7/8 DNLOS performance according to the present invention, and CC7/8 DNLOS performance according the prior art, respectively.
Similarly, graphs 607, 608 and 609 represent CC7/8 ENLOS performance according to said commonly assigned patent application Attorney Docket No. SAM2B.PAU.07, CC7/8 ENLOS performance according to the present invention, and CC7/8 ENLOS performance according the prior art, respectively.
Various simulation results show that the simplified method has the similar performance as the scheme in commonly assigned patent application Attorney Dockete No. SAM2B.PAU.07. The main performance improvement factors are the frequency rotation among spatial data streams.
An improved interleaving process according to the present invention can be implemented in a modified OFDM MIMO transmitter architecture 600 for a 20 MHz channel is shown in
The transmitter 600 includes a channel encoder 103, a spatial parser 106, and two data stream processing paths 602. Each data stream processing path 602 includes a puncturer 104, an interleaver (e.g., interleavers 108A and 108B), a constellation mapper 110, an IFFT function 112, and guard-interval insertion window 114 and an RF modulator 116. For the parser 106 and the interleaver 108A/108B portions of the transmitter, coded and punctured bits are interleaved across spatial streams and frequency tones.
As shown, in the transmitter 600, each spatial data stream path includes a puncturer 104, allowing different transmission rates for the two spatial streams (based on the channel conditions). In one example, one puncturer 104 provides a convolutional code 1/2 for a first data stream, and the other puncture 104 provides a convolution code 3/4 for the second data stream. Using multiple puncturers 104 provides more flexibility. For example, where there are two transmitter antennas, if the first antenna provides a better channel than the second antenna, then on the first antenna a high transmission data rate can be achieved, and on the second antenna somewhat lower data transmission rate is achieved. This combination makes a MIMO OFDM system according to the present invention more flexible and essentially allows optimization of the transmission.
As those skilled in the art will recognize, the example transmitter in
As those skilled in the art will recognize, other implementations of the present invention are possible, and the present invention is not limited to the example number of frequency rotations described above. The selected set of parameters is chosen based on the specific number of subcarriers in the 802.11n system. In other systems with different number of subcarriers and parsers, the principles of the present invention can be used while the specific rotation parameters can be different.
The present invention has been described in considerable detail with reference to certain preferred versions thereof; however, other versions are possible. Therefore, the spirit and scope of the appended claims should not be limited to the description of the preferred versions contained herein.