1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method for eliminating a reception interference signal of a space-time block coded orthogonal frequency division-multiplexing system in a high-speed mobile channel and, more particularly, to receiving end and transmitting end technologies that can compensate for self-channel interference that occurs simultaneously with inter-channel interference on a receiver due to the time-varying characteristics of a channel in the case of using space-time block coded orthogonal frequency division-multiplexing in a high-speed mobile environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a frequency multiplexing method in which data is split into a plurality of sub-carriers and is transmitted on the sub-carriers. OFDM refers to a frequency multiplexing communication method that is capable of separating sub-carriers on a receiver regardless of the overlap of spectra by imposing a specific orthogonal condition between the frequencies of the sub-carriers.
Meanwhile, in a Space-Time Block Coded Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (STBC-OFDM) system, Inter-Channel Interference (ICI) and Self-Channel Interference (SCI) simultaneously occur due to the time-varying characteristics of channels, so that the magnitude of noise increases, thus increasing a decision-error probability.
The prior art, U.S. Pat. No. 6,442,130, discloses a method for eliminating interference generated in an OFDM system, in which, using a grating array and a Viterbi decoder, a channel is acquired and data symbols are obtained, and then interference is eliminated using the data symbols. However, the prior art requires many devices, including a plurality of signal generation devices and measurement devices, to evaluate the performance of systems using array antennas, which have interference elimination functionality, as receiving antennas, so that the prior art is disadvantageous in that the cost and complexity of equipment increase.
Furthermore, the prior art, U.S. Pat. No. 6,549,581 discloses a method for eliminating interference generated in an OFDM system, in which the interference between channels is eliminated by a multiplication of the data of a single block using a matrix. However, this prior art is a method of eliminating the ICI other than the SCI. In a time-varying channel, the SCI rather than the ICI produces more important distortion in STBC-OFDM, so that this prior art is disadvantageous in that a technique of reducing the SCI rather than the ICI is required to improve the performance of an STBC-OFDM system.
Accordingly, the present invention has been made keeping in mind the above problems occurring in the prior art, and an object of the present invention is to provide a receiving and transmitting end technology that is capable of eliminating the SCI that occurs due to the time-varying characteristics of a channel in the case of using an STBC-OFDM transmission method in a high-speed mobile environment.
In order to accomplish the above object, the present invention provides a method for eliminating the reception interference signal of an STBC-OFDM system in a high-speed mobile channel, including the first step of estimating the gain of a channel combined at a receiving end in the case of using the STBC-OFDM system in a time-varying channel; the second step of obtaining first temporary decision symbols by performing comparison on the estimated gain; the third step of obtaining second temporary decision symbols using the first temporary decision symbols; the fourth step of eliminating the SCI terms using the second temporary decision symbols and obtaining third temporary decision symbols; and the fifth step of obtaining final data symbols using the third temporary decision symbols.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be more clearly understood from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Reference now should be made to the drawings, in which the same reference numerals are used throughout the different drawings to designate the same or similar components.
In Equation 1, l is an OFDM symbol period, and k is a sub-carrier index. A baseband modulation signal transmitted through an i-th transmitting antenna in an (l+d)-th OFDM symbol period is as follows:
In Equation 2, d=0 or 1, i=1 or 2, and Sli=[Sli(0), Sli(1), L, Sli(N−1)]T. Furthermore, F is an IDFT matrix whose (n, k)-th element is ei2πnk/N(0≦n≦N−1, where n is an integer). N is an IDFT size and represents the number of overall sub-carriers. From Equation 2, an n-th sample signal is as follows:
xli and xl+1i are transmitted in the l-th and (l+1)-th OFDM symbol periods, respectively, and the following received signal can be obtained at d=0 or 1 at a receiving end in the case in which the number of receiving antennas is 1 (K=1).
In Equation 4, hl+di(n;v) represents a discrete-time channel impulse response at sampling time n that exists between an i-th transmitting antenna and the receiving antenna in an l-th OFDM symbol period. On the assumption that a multi-path channel is Wide-Sense Stationary Uncorrelated Scattering (WSSUS), the size of h1(n;v) has Rayleigh distribution, the phase thereof has uniform distribution, and they have characteristics independent of v. V represents the number of overall samples of the discrete-time channel impulse response, and wl(n) is a discrete-time representation of Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN). As understood from Equation 4, a received signal is a linear combination of signals transmitted from two transmitting antennas when transmission diversity is used, so that the l-th and (l+1)-th demodulated signals can be obtained by performing a fast Fourier transform (FFT) on Equation 4.
In Equation 6, Ili(m) is the ICI generated due to a time-varying channel, and is expressed as follows:
In Equation 7, Hli(m;k) is as follows:
In Equations 5 and 6, it is denoted that Hl(m;m)=Hl(m). If the complex conjugate numbers of both sides of Equation 6 are obtained, and a right side can be expressed in terms of Xl(m) and Xl+1(m) as follows:
Y*l+1(m)=Xl(m)Hl+12*(m)+Xl+1(m){−Hl+11*(m)}+Il+11*(m)+Il+12*(m)+Wl+1*(m) (9)
As a result, when M=2 and K=1, and using the equation 5 and 6, the demodulated STBC-OFDM symbols can be represented as follows:
Yl(m)=Hl(m)Xl(m)+Il(m)+Wl(m) (10)
where Yl(m), Hl(m), Xl(m), Il(m) and Wl(m) are as follows:
In order to obtain diversity gain, linear combining (refer to reference numeral 140) is performed using Equation 10 as follows:
In Equation 11, a decision variable vector Zl(m) and an combining coefficient vector Gl(m) are as follows:
Equation 11 is arranged as follows:
Zl(m)=Γl(m)Xl(m)+Λl(m)Xl+1(m)+Ωl(m)+Wl(m) (14)
Zl+1(m)=Γl+1(m)Xl+1(m)+Λl+1(m)Xl(m)+Ωl+1(m)+Wl+1(m) (15)
In Equations 14 and 15, variables are as follows:
Γl(m)=|Hl1(m)|2+|Hl+12(m)|2 (16)
Λl(m)=Hl1*(m)Hl2(m)−Hl+11*(m)Hl+12(m) (17)
Ωl(m)=Hl1*(m){Il1(m)+Il2(m)}+Hl+12(m){Il+11*(m)+Ii+12*(m)} (18)
Wl(m)=Hl1*(m)Wl(m)+Hl+12(m)Wl+1*(m) (19)
Γl+1(m)=|Hl+11(m)|2+|Hl2(m)|2 (20)
Λl+1(m)=Hl1(m)Hl2*(m)−Hl+11(m)Hl+12*(m) (21)
Ωl+1(m)=Hl2*(m){Il1(m)+Il2(m)}−Hl+11(m){Il+11*(m)+Ii+12*(m)} (22)
Wl+1(m)=−Hl2*(m)Wl(m)−Hl+11(m)Wl+1*(m) (23)
In Equations 18 and 22, Ωl(m) and Ωl+1(m) represent the ICI components that are generated due to a time-varying channel. Λl(m) and Λl+1(m) represent the SCI caused by channel variation during two OFDM symbol periods. When Xl(m) is to be determined in Equation 14, Xl+1(m) acts as interference; and when Xl+1(m) is to be determined in Equation 15, Xl(m) acts as interference. Accordingly, Λl(m)Xl+1(m) and Λl+1(m)Xl(m) are referred to as the SCI, which is generated due to the time-varying characteristics of a channel, to distinguish between it and the ICI.
In the STBC-OFDM system, both ICI and SCI occur in the decision symbols of Equations 14 and 15 due to the time-varying characteristics of a channel, so that the magnitude of noise increases, thus increasing an decision-error probability. In this case, the power of the ICI, PICI, and the power of the SCI, PSCI, can be obtained using the following Equations 24 and 25 in the case of two transmitting antennas and one receiving antenna.
In the above Equations, fd is a Doppler frequency and Tsym is an OFDM symbol period. J0(•) represents the zeroth-order Bessel function of the first kind. Equation 24 represents the maximum value that may occur in the case of a classical Doppler channel model. When two transmitting antennas and two receiving antennas are employed, the powers are as follows:
When the STBC-OFDM system is used on a time-varying channel in such a way as described above, the gain of a combined channel at a receiving end is estimated and, thereafter, the SCI can be eliminated.
Al(m)={sign(Γl(m)−Γl+1(m))+1}/2 (28)
Al+1(m)={sign(Γl+1(m)−Γl(m))+1}/2 (29)
Both Al(m) and Al+1(m) have values of 0 or 1, and using the values of Al(m) and Al+1(m), second temporary decision symbols are obtained as follows:
{grave over (X)}l+d(m)=Al+d(m)Xl+d%(m), d=0,1 (30)
At the next step, third temporary decision symbols expressed by Equations 31 and 32 are obtained by eliminating the SCI terms from Zl(m) and Zl+1(m) using the second temporary decision symbols (refer to 210).
{circumflex over (X)}l(m)=Π{Zl(m)−{tilde over (Λ)}l(m){hacek over (X)}l+1(m)}Al+1(m) (31)
{circumflex over (X)}l+1(m)=Π{Zl+1(m)−{tilde over (Λ)}l*(m){hacek over (X)}l(m)}Al(m) (32)
In the above equations, Λl%(m) represents the estimated value of Λl(m). Finally, the final data symbols expressed as Equation 33 are obtained from Equations 30 to 32 (refer to 220).
{circumflex over (X)}l+d(m)={circumflex over (X)}l+d(m)+{hacek over (X)}l+d(m), d=0,1 (33)
Next, a pre-process elimination technique for eliminating the SCI, in which encoding is performed at a transmitting end to prevent the generation of the SCI terms, will be described. As seen from Equations 14 and 15, the SCI term of Zl(m) obtained from an m-th sub-channel in an the l-th symbol period is generated by a data symbol Xl+1(m) transmitted on the m-th sub-channel in an (l+1)-th symbol period and the SCI term of Zl+1(m) is generated by a data symbol Xl(m) transmitted on the m-th sub-channel in an l-th symbol period. Accordingly, using the above-described fact, the SCI can be eliminated at the same bandwidth efficiency with the automatic elimination method of the ICI. That is, to eliminate the SCI from Zl(m), transmission is performed with Xl+1(m) being set to 0, or to eliminate the SCI from Zl+1(m), transmission is performed with Xl(m) being set to 0. In this case, to satisfy the above-described requirement while using the structure of the STBC-OFDM system without change, the following STBC encoding conditions are applied.
Sl1USl2=Xl
Sl+11USl+12=Xl* (34)
Sl1ISl2=Sl+11ISl+12={Ø}
In Equation 34, Sli and Xl are complex sets that have the factors of Sli and Xl as elements, respectively, and have a size N, and Sli and Xl are represented as Sli={Sli(0), Sli(1), . . . , Sli(N−1)} and Xli={Xli(0), Xli(1), . . . , Xli(N−1)}. The simplest of many encoding methods that can be applied to the STBC-OFDM system to prevent the SCI while satisfying all the above-described requirements can be Sl1=Xl, Sl+11={Ø} and Sl2={Ø}, Sl+12=Xl*, or Sl1={Ø}, Sl+11=Xl* and Sl2=Xl, Sl+12={Ø}. The method represents a structure that transmits a signal using one antenna in an l-th OFDM symbol period and a signal using the remaining antenna in an (l+1)-th symbol period. As a result, the interference between the antennas due to the time-variation of a channel disappears, and a simple MRC type combination is formed at a receiving end.
Meanwhile, since the Peak-to-Average power Ratio (PAR) of an OFDM signal increases in proportion to the number of sub-channels on which data are transmitted, a comb type encoding method can be employed to reduce the PAR of a transmission signal while obtaining the same SCI effect.
a and 5b illustrate two representative methods satisfying the above-described encoding conditions, with a case in which N=4 being taken as an example.
The data symbol vectors encoded using Equations 35 and 36 are as follows:
Sl1=[Xl(0), 0, Xl(2), . . . , Xl(N−2), 0]T (37)
Sl2=[0, Xl(1), 0, Xl(3), . . . , 0, Xl(N−1)]T (38)
Sl+11=Sl2* (39)
Sl+12=Sl1* (40)
If there is a correlation between two antennas, diversity gain decreases. To prevent this phenomenon, Equations 39 and 40 can be modified. That is, a signal is transmitted in an l-th OFDM symbol period using Equations 37 and 38, and shift is made such that a data symbol, which is assigned to the l-th symbol period, can be assigned to another sub-carrier in the (l+1)-th symbol period, in which case cyclic shift is made in such a way that Sl+11=R{Sl2}N/2,Sl+12=R{Sl1}N/2 such that all the sub-carriers have the lowest correlation. This modified method is illustrated in
Sl+11(m)=Sl2*((m+N/2)mod N) (41)
Sl+12(m)=Sl1*((m+N/2)mod N) (42)
In the above description, {•}mod N is a function that obtains the remainders of division by N. In the case of using Equations 41 and 42, the decision symbol is given from Equation 14 or 15, as follows:
Zl(m)=Γl2×1(m)Xl(m)+{Ωl2×1(m)}+Wl2×1(m) (43)
From Equation 43, it can be understood that the SCI term has disappeared. At this time, the number of sub-carriers actually used in a OFDM symbol decreases to ½, so that the effect in which the power of the ICI term {Ωl(m)} decreases is additionally obtained. Although, in the above description, a case in which the number of transmitting antennas is two and the number of receiving antennas is one is taken as an example, the concept can be extended to a case in which the number of receiving antennas is more than one.
Since the STBC-OFDM system employs a plurality of continuous OFDM symbols, the SCI is generated due to a time-varying channel. Such SCI can be eliminated by space-frequency block coding that assigns orthogonal code to a sub-carrier axis other than a time axis. The STBC-OFDM system exhibits the most ideal performance in the case in which the frequency responses of adjacent sub-carriers are the same (Hli(m)=L=Hli(m+M−1). However, since an infinite number of sub-carriers is not employed when the entire bandwidth is divided in STBC-OFDM, a difference occurs between the frequency responses of adjacent sub-carriers, which generates distortion in a form identical to that of the SCI in the STBC-OFDM system. As a result, the inference signal can be compensated for by applying Equation 33 derived from Equation 28 or Equation 40 derived from Equation 34 to the STBC-OFDM system.
As described above, the method of eliminating the reception interference signal of an STBC-OFDM system in a high-speed mobile channel according to the present invention is advantageous in that it can compensate for the SCI using a simple receiver structure in the STBC-OFDM system, thus allowing the STBC-OFDM system to be used in a high-speed mobile environment.
Furthermore, the STBC-OFDM system is advantageous in that it can prevent the generation of the SCI using a transmitting end encoder having a ½ coding rate, so that additional equipment is not necessary at a receiving end, thus reducing the ICI and the PAR.
Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been disclosed for illustrative purposes, those skilled in the art will appreciate that various modifications, additions and substitutions are possible, without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention as disclosed in the accompanying claims.