Doctoral Degrees (Electronic Engineering)

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https://hdl.handle.net/10413/6867

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Design and analysis of miniaturized substrate integrated waveguide reconfigurable filters for mm-wave applications.
(2023) Mutepfe, Cleophas Douglas Kudzai.; Srivastava, Viranjay Mohan.
Microwave filters are an integral part of communication systems. With the advent of new technologies, microwave devices, such as filters, need to have superior performance in terms of power handling, selectivity, size, insertion loss etc. During the past decade, many applications have been added to the communication networks, resulting in communication systems having to operate at high frequencies in the region of THz to achieve the stringent bandwidth requirements. To achieve the requirements of the modern communication system, tunability and reconfigurability have become fundamental requirements to reduce the footprint of communication devices. However, the communication systems that are more prevalent such as planar circuits have either a large footprint or are not able to handle large amounts of power due to radiation leakage. In this thesis, Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) technology has been employed. The SIW has the same properties as the conventional rectangular waveguide; hence it benefits from the high quality (Q) factor and can handle large powers with small radiation loss. The Half-mode (HMSIW), Quarter-mode (QMSIW), and Eighth-mode (EMSIW) cavity resonators have been designed and used for the miniaturization of the microwave filters. The coupling matrix method was used to implement a filter that uses cross-coupled EMSIW and HMSIW cavity resonators to improve the selectivity of the filter. Balanced circuit techniques have been used to design the circuits that preserve communication systems integrity whereby the Common Mode (CM) signal was suppressed using Deformed Ground Structure (DGS) and a center conductor patch with meandered line. For the designed dual-band filter, the common mode signal was suppressed to -90 dB and - 40 dB for the first and second passband, respectively. The insertion loss observed is 2.8 dB and 1.6 dB for the first and second passband, respectively. For tunability of the filter, a dual-band filter utilizing triangular HMSIW resonators has been designed and reconfigurability is achieved by perturbing the substrate permittivity by dielectric rods. The dielectric rods’ permittivity was changed to achieve tunability in the first instance, and then the rods’ diameter changed in the second instance. For the lowerband, frequency is tunable from 8.1 GHz to 9.15 GHz, while the upper band is tuned from 14.61 GHz to 16.10 GHz. A second order SIW filter with a two layer substrate was then designed to operate in the THz region. For reconfigurability, Graphene was sandwiched between the Silicon Di-Oxide substrate and the top gold plate of the filter, and the chemical potential of Graphene was then varied by applying a dc bias voltage. With a change in dc voltage the chemical potential of Graphene changes accordingly. From the results, a chemical potential change of 0.1 eV to 0.6 eV brings about a frequency change from 1.289 THz to 1.297 THz.
Deep learning-based space-time coding wireless MIMO receiver optimization.
(2022) Mthethwa, Bhekisizwe Mzimkhulu.; Xu, Hongjun.
With the high demand for high data throughput and reliable wireless links to cater for real-time or low latency mobile application services, the wireless research community has developed wireless multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) architectures that cater to these stringent quality of service (QoS) requirements. For the case of wireless link reliability, spatial diversity in wireless MIMO architectures is used to increase the link reliability. Besides increasing link reliability using spatial diversity, space-time block coding schemes may be used to further increase the wireless link reliability by adding time diversity to the wireless link. Our research is centered around the optimization of resources used in decoding space-time block coded wireless signals. There are two categories of space-time block coding schemes namely the orthogonal and non-orthogonal space-time block codes (STBC). In our research, we concentrate on two non-orthogonal STBC schemes namely the uncoded space-time labeling diversity (USTLD) and the Golden code. These two non-orthogonal STBC schemes exhibit some advantages over the orthogonal STBC called Alamouti despite their non-linear optimal detection. Orthogonal STBC schemes have the advantage of simple linear optimal detection relative to the more complex non-linear optimal detection of non-orthogonal STBC schemes. Since our research concentrates on wireless MIMO STBC transmission, for detection to occur optimally at the receiver side of a space-time block coded wireless MIMO link, we need to optimally perform channel estimation and decoding. USTLD has a coding gain advantage over the Alamouti STBC scheme. This implies that the USTLD can deliver higher wireless link reliability relative to the Alamouti STBC for the same spectral efficiency. Despite this advantage of the USTLD, to the best of our knowledge, the literature has concentrated on USTLD wireless transmission under the assumption that the wireless receiver has full knowledge of the wireless channel without estimation errors. We thus perform research of the USTLD wireless MIMO transmission with imperfect channel estimation. The traditional least-squares (LS) and minimum mean squared error (MMSE) used in literature, for imperfect pilot-assisted channel estimation, require the full knowledge of the transmitted pilot symbols and/or wireless channel second order statistics which may not always be fully known. We, therefore, propose blind channel estimation facilitated by a deep learning model that makes it unnecessary to have prior knowledge of the wireless channel second order statistics, transmitted pilot symbols and/or average noise power. We also derive an optimal number of pilot symbols that maybe used for USTLD wireless MIMO channel estimation without compromising the wireless link reliability. It is shown from the Monte Carlo simulations that the error rate performance of the USTLD transmission is not compromised despite using only 20% of the required number of Zadoff-Chu sequence pilot symbols used by the traditional LS and MMSE channel estimators for both 16-QAM and 16-PSK baseband modulation. The Golden code is a STBC scheme with spatial multiplexing gain over the Alamouti scheme. This implies that the Golden code can deliver higher spectral efficiencies for the same link reliability with the Alamouti scheme. The Alamouti scheme has been implemented in the modern wireless standards because it adds time diversity, with low decoding complexity, to wireless MIMO links. The Golden code adds time diversity and improves wireless MIMO spectral efficiency but at the cost of much higher decoding complexity relative to the Alamouti scheme. Because of the high decoding complexity, the Golden code is not widely adopted in the modern wireless standards. We, therefore, propose analytical and deep learning-based sphere-decoding algorithms to lower the number of detection floating-point operations (FLOPS) and decoding latency of the Golden code under low- and high-density M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (M-QAM) baseband transmissions whilst maintaining the near-optimal error rate performance. The proposed sphere-decoding algorithms achieve at most 99% reduction in Golden code detection FLOPS, at low SNR, relative to the sphere-decoder with sorted detection subsets (SD-SDS) whilst maintaining the error rate performance. For the case of high-density M-QAM Golden code transmission, the proposed analytical and deep learning sphere-decoders reduce decoding latency by at most 70%, relative to the SD-SDS decoder, without diminishing the error rate performance.
The impact of visibility range and atmospheric turbulence on free space optical link performance in South Africa.
(2022) Layioye, Okikiade Adewale.; Afullo, Thomas Joachim Odhiambo.; Owolawi, Pius Adewale.
In the recent years, the development of 5G and Massive Internet of Things (MIoT) technologies are fast increasing regularly. The high demand for a back-up and complimentary link to the existing conventional transmission systems (such as RF technology) especially for the “last-mile” phenomenon has increased significantly. Therefore, this has brought about a persistent requirement for a better and free spectrum availability with a higher data transfer rate and larger bandwidth, such as Free Space Optics (FSO) technology using very high frequency (194 𝑇𝐻𝑧−545 𝑇𝐻𝑧) transmission system. There is currently unavailable comprehensive information that would enable the design of FSO networks for various regions of South Africa based on the impact of certain weather parameters such as visibility range (mainly in terms of fog and haze) and atmospheric turbulence (in terms of Refractive Index Structure Parameter (RISP)) on FSO link performance. The components of the first part of this work include Visibility Range Distribution (VRD) modeling using suitable probability density function (PDF) models, and prediction of the expected optical attenuation due to scattering and its cumulative distribution and modeling. The VRD modelling performed in this work, proposed various location-based PDF models, and it was suggested that the Generalized Pareto distribution model best suited the distributions of visibility in all the cities. The result of this work showed that the optical attenuation due to scattering within the coastal and near-coastal areas could reach as high as 169 𝑑𝐵/𝑘𝑚 or more, while in the non-coastal areas it varies between 34 𝑑𝐵/𝑘𝑚 and 169 𝑑𝐵/𝑘𝑚, which suggests significant atmospheric effects on the FSO link, mostly during the winter period. The BER performance analysis was performed and suitable mitigating techniques (such as 4 × 4 MIMO with BPSK and L-PPM schemes) were suggested in this work. The general two-term exponential distribution model provided a good fit to the cumulative distribution of the atmospheric attenuation due to scattering for all the locations. In order to ascertain how atmospheric variables contribute or affect the visibility range, which in turn determines the level of attenuation due to scattering, a time series prediction of visibility using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) technique was investigated, where an average reliability of about 83 % was achieved for all the stations considered. This suggests that climatic parameters highly correlate to visibility when they are all combined together, and this gave significant predictions which will enable FSO officials to develop and maintain a strategic plan for the future years. The modules of the second part of this work encompass the determination of the Atmospheric Turbulence Level (ATL) for each of the locations in terms of RISP (𝐶𝑛2) and its equivalent scintillation index, and then the estimation of the optical attenuation due to scintillation. The cumulative distributions of the optical attenuation due to scintillation and its modeling were also carried out. This research work has been able to achieve the prediction of the ground turbulence strength (through the US-Army Research Laboratory (US-ARL) Model) in terms of RISP using climatic data. In an attempt to provide a more reliable study into the atmospheric turbulence strength within South Africa, this work explores the characteristic behavior of several meteorological variables and other thermodynamic properties such as inner and outer characteristic scales, Monin-Obhukov length, potential temperature gradient, bulk wind shear and so on. According to the predicted RISP from meteorological variables (such as temperature, relative humidity, pressure, wind speed, water vapour, and altitude), location-based and general attenuation due to scintillation models were developed for South Africa to estimate the optical attenuation. The attenuation due to scintillation results show that the summer and autumn seasons have higher ATL, where January, February and December have the highest mean RISP across all the locations under study. Also, the comparison of the monthly averages of the estimated attenuations revealed that at 850 nm more atmospheric turbulence with specific attenuations between 21.04 𝑑𝐵/𝑘𝑚 and 24.45 𝑑𝐵/𝑘𝑚 were observed in the coastal and near-coastal areas than in the non-coastal areas. The study proposes the two-term Sum of Sine distribution model for the cumulative distribution of the optical attenuation based on scintillation, which should be adopted for South Africa. The obtained results in this work for the contributions of scattering and turbulence to the optical link, and the design of the link budget will serve as the major criteria parameters to further compare the outcomes of these results with that of the available terrestrial FSO systems and other conventional transmission systems like RF systems.
Novel improvements of empirical wireless channel models and proposals of machine-learning-based path loss prediction models for future communication networks.
(2022) Elmezughi, Mohamed Khalifa Mohamed.; Afullo, Thomas Joachim Odhiambo.
Path loss is the primary factor that determines the overall coverage of networks. Therefore, designing reliable wireless communication systems requires accurate path loss prediction models. Future wireless mobile systems will rely mainly on the super-high frequency (SHF) and the millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequency bands due to the massively available bandwidths that will meet projected users’ demands, such as the needs of the fifth-generation (5G) wireless systems and other high-speed multimedia services. However, these bands are more sensitive and exhibit a different propagation behavior compared to the frequency bands below 6 GHz. Hence, improving the existing models and developing new models are vital for characterizing the wireless communication channel in both indoor and outdoor environments for future SHF and mmWave services. This dissertation proposes new path loss and LOS probability models and efficiently improves the well-known close-in (CI) free space reference distance model and the floating-intercept (FI) model. Real measured data was taken for both line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) communication scenarios in a typical indoor corridor environment at three selected frequencies within the SHF band, namely 14 GHz, 18 GHz, and 22 GHz. The research finding of this work reveals that the proposed models have better performance in terms of their accuracy in fitting real measured data collected from measurement campaigns. In addition, this research studies the impact of the angle of arrival and the antenna heights on the current and improved CI and FI models. The results show that the proposed improved models provide better stability and sensitivity to the change of these parameters. Furthermore, the mean square error between the models and their improved versions was presented as another proof of the superiority of the proposed improvement. Moreover, this research shows that shadow fading’s standard deviation can have a notable reduction in both the LOS and NLOS scenarios (especially in the NLOS), which means higher precision in predicting the path loss compared to the existing standard models. After that, the dissertation presents investigations on high-ordering the dependency of the standard CI path loss model on the distance between the transmitting and the receiving antennas at the logarithmic scale. Two improved models are provided and discussed: second-order CI and third-order CI models. The main results reveal that the proposed two models outperform the standard CI model and notable reductions in the shadow fading’s standard deviation values as the model’s order increases, which means that more precision is provided. This part of the dissertation also provides a trade-off study between the model’s accuracy and simplicity.
Design and analysis of metamaterial based microstrip patch antennas for wireless applications.
(2023) Ajewole, Bukola Doyinsola.; Kumar, Pradeep.; Afullo, Thomas Joachim Odhiambo.
Due to the tremendous growth of wireless communication applications, there is an enormous demand for more compact antennas with high speed, wider coverage, high gain, and multi-band properties. The microstrip patch antennas (MPAs) and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antennas with high gain and multi-band properties are suitable to fulfil these requirements. MPAs have been found to possess unique qualities such as light weight, low profile, easy fabrication, and integration. However, the low gain, narrow bandwidth, and mutual coupling in the MIMO antennas limit the performance of MIMO systems. Several techniques have been studied and implemented over the years, but they are not without limitations. The utilization of artificial materials such as metamaterials has proven to be efficient in overcoming the limitations of MPAs. Due to the advancement in modern technology, it is necessary to study and use recently developed metamaterial structures. Metamaterials (MeTMs) are artificially engineered materials with electromagnetic properties that are not found in nature. MeTMs are used due to their electric and magnetic properties. The goal of this thesis is to design and investigate a novel metamaterial structure which can be integrated into the microstrip patch antennas for improving their performance. The design, simulation, and measurement of the metamaterial is carried out on the Computer Simulation Technology (CST) studio suite, Advance Design Systems (ADS) software, MATLAB, and the Rohde and Schwarz network analyzer etc. In this thesis, a novel I-shaped metamaterial (ISMeTM) structure is proposed, designed, and investigated. The proposed novel ISMeTM unit cell structure in this work has a characteristic shape that distinguishes it from earlier multi-band MeTMs in the literature. The structure's unit cell is designed to have an overall compact size of 10 mm × 10 mm. The structure generates transmission coefficients at 6.31 GHz, 7.79 GHz, 9.98 GHz, 10.82 GHz, 11.86 GHz, 13.36 GHz, and 15. 5 GHz. These frequency bands are ideal for multi-band satellite communication systems, C, X, and Ku-bands, and radar applications etc. The performance of the MPA is improved in this work, by integrating a novel square split ring resonator (SSRR) metamaterial. The performance of the proposed antenna is investigated and analyzed. The SSRR is designed to have a dimension of 25 x 21.4 x 1.6 mm2 which is the same dimension as the radiating patch of the MPA. The SSRR is etched over the antenna, and it operates at single operating frequency of 5.8 GHz with improved gain from 4.04 to 5.3 dBi. Further, the MPA with improved parameters for multiband wireless systems is designed, analyzed, fabricated, and measured. The proposed design utilizes the ISMeTM array as superstrate with the area of 70 x 70 mm2. The superstrate is etched over a rectangular MPA exhibiting multi-band properties. This antenna resonates at 6.31, 9.65, 11.45 GHz with increased bandwidth at 240 MHz, 850 MHz, and 1010 MHz. The overall gain of the antenna increases by 74.18%. The antenna is fabricated and measured. The simulated results and the measured results are found to be in good agreement. The mutual coupling and low gain problems in MIMO patch antennas is also addressed in this thesis. A 3 x 5-unit cell array of the ISMeTM is used as a superstrate over a two port MIMO patch antenna. The two port MIMO antenna with the superstrate provides triple-band operation and operates over three resonance frequencies at 6.31, 9.09, and 11.41 GHz. A mutual coupling reduction of 26 dB, 33 dB, and 22 dB for the first band, second band and third band, respectively is attained. In this thesis, a novel I-shaped metamaterial structure is introduced, which produces multiband operation. The presented metamaterial is suitable for various multiband wireless communication applications. The integration of a square split ring resonator metamaterial enhances the performance of the antenna. Using the I-shaped metamaterial a high gain multiband microstrip antenna is designed. The I-shaped metamaterial array is utilized to improve the performance of the MIMO antenna. Various antenna parameters confirm that the presented MIMO antenna is suitable for multiband wireless communications.
Resource allocation in non-orthogonal multiple access technologies for 5G networks and beyond.
(2022) Chege, Simon Kariuki.; Walingo, Tom Mmbasu.
The increasing demand of mobile and device connectivity poses challenging requirements for 5G wireless communications, such as high energy- and spectral-efficiency and low latency. This necessitates a shift from orthogonal multiple access (OMA) to Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) techniques, namely, power-domain NOMA (PD-NOMA) and code-domain NOMA (CD-NOMA). The basic idea behind NOMA schemes is to co-multiplex different users on the same resource elements (time slot, OFDMA sub-carrier, or spreading code) via power domain (PD) or code domain (CD) at the transmitter while permitting controllable interference, and their successful multi-user detection (MUD) at the receiver albeit, increased computational complexity. In this work, an analysis on the performance of the existing NOMA schemes is carried out. Furthermore, we investigate the feasibility of a proposed uplink hybrid-NOMA scheme namely power domain sparse code multiple access (PD-SCMA) that integrates PD-NOMA and CD-NOMA based sparse code multiple access (SCMA) on heterogeneous networks (HetNets). Such hybrid schemes come with resource allocation (RA) challenges namely; codebook allocation, user pairing and power allocation. Therefore, hybrid RA schemes namely: Successive Codebook Ordering Assignment (SCOA) for codebook assignment (CA), opportunistic macro cell user equipment (MUE)- small cell user equipment (SUE) pairing (OMSP) for user pairing (UP), and a QoS-aware power allocation (QAPA) for power allocation (PA) are developed for an energy efficient (EE) system. The performance of the RA schemes is analyzed alongside an analytical RA optimization algorithm. Through numerical results, the proposed schemes show significant improvements in the EE of the small cells in comparison with the prevalent schemes. Additionally, there is significant sum rate performance improvement over the conventional SCMA and PD-NOMA. Secondly, we investigate the multiplexing capacity of the hybrid PD-SCMA scheme in HetNets. Particularly, we investigate and derive closed-form solutions for codebook capacity, MUE multiplexing and power capacity bounds. The system’s performance results into low outage when the system’s point of operation is within the multiplexing bounds. To alleviate the RA challenges of such a system at the transmitter, dual parameter ranking (DPR) and alternate search method (ASM) based RA schemes are proposed. The results show significant capacity gain with DPR-RA in comparison with conventional RA schemes. Lastly, we investigate the feasibility of integrating the hybrid PD-SCMA with multiple-input multipleoutput (MIMO) technique namely, M-PD-SCMA. The attention to M-PD-SCMA resides in the need of lower number of antennas while preserving the system capacity thanks to the overload in PDSCMA. To enhance spectral efficiency and error performance we propose spatial multiplexing at the transmitter and a low complex joint MUD scheme based on successive interference cancellation (SIC) and expectation propagation algorithm (EPA) at the receiver are proposed. Numerical results exhibit performance benchmark with PD-SCMA schemes and the proposed receiver achieves guaranteed bit error rate (BER) performance with a bounded increase in the number of transmit and receive antennas. Thus, the feasibility of an M-PD-SCMA system is validated.
Modeling and estimation of scattering attenuation and scintillation effects on optical wireless communication systems in South Africa.
(2021) Kolawole, Olabamidele Olanrewaju.; Afullo, Thomas Joachim Odhiambo.; Mosalaosi, Mosalaosi.
Optical wireless communication (OWC) is a viable complementary solution for next-generation communication networks saddled with meeting the great demands of high data rates and fast internet connectivity. Its numerous advantages include: high data throughput; secure transmission; license-free spectrum; relative low cost of deployment; flexible network connectivity; etc. However, OWC system performance is severely degraded by atmospheric conditions such as fog and scintillation. Most of the proposed FSOC and hybrid FSOC systems in the literature are limited in their capacity to predict the extent to which atmospheric disturbances will impact on the performance of FSOC links in each location where they are to be deployed. This is because of the complexities involved in accessing and analyzing the information on the unique meteorological and climatic characteristics of the locations of interest prior to FSOC link deployment. This important information is necessary for determining the fade margin required by FSOC systems to withstand atmospheric disturbances in various locations of deployment. The effects of other atmospheric conditions such as gas absorption, molecular scattering, and aerosol absorption on the transmission wavelengths of interest (850 and 1550 nm) are negligible, and as such, were not considered in this study. This research, therefore, focuses on the investigation and modeling of scattering attenuation and irradiance fluctuations based on the unique climatic peculiarities of nine major cities in each of the provinces of South Africa where OWC links are to be deployed. These cities are Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Kimberley, Mafikeng, Mbombela, Polokwane, and Port Elizabeth. Meteorological data of visibility, wind speed, relative humidity, temperature, fractional sunshine, and atmospheric pressure from 1st January 2010 till 30th June 2018, for each of the locations of interest, are statistically processed and used in the investigation, estimation, and modeling of atmospheric phenomena affecting the performance of OWC signals. To achieve this, visibility modeling and prediction for OWC systems are performed using regression analysis. The results obtained show that various simple and multiple linear regression models reliably forecast visibility from other meteorological parameters considered in this study. The model's selection may be influenced not only by its performance but also by the parameters' availability. While caution is taken to avoid model over-specification, multiple linear regression models are preferable over simple regression models. The significance of the results obtained is the validated alternatives the simple and multiple linear regression models provide while saving costs and avoiding the complexities of measuring FSO visibility in the investigated locations. The relationship between atmospheric visibility and aerosol scattering attenuation has been established by various aerosol scattering models based on the Mie scattering theory. This is made possible because the radii of aerosol particles in the atmosphere are approximately equal to the infra-red wavelengths of optical signals. Thus, the cumulative distribution of visibility and aerosol scattering attenuations based on the Ijaz fog and Kim models for transmission wavelengths of 850 and 1550 nm in nine cities in South Africa are presented. The Ijaz fog and Kim models are also used in computing the probabilities of exceedance, deceedance, and encountering of different aerosol scattering attenuations for 850 and 1550 nm. The impact of these specific attenuations on free space optical communication (FSOC) link performance are investigated for all the various locations of interest. The results show that during foggy weather, the optical signals transmitted at 1550 nm encounter more scattering attenuation than those transmitted at the 850 nm wavelength. The reverse is the case during clear weather periods. Modeling of the minimum required visibility cumulative distribution functions (CDF) during foggy and clear weather conditions for both optical wavelengths is also presented. These CDFs are employed in evaluating the FSOC link availabilities in various cities in South Africa.
Quadrature spatial modulation aided single-input multiple-output-media based modulation: application to cooperative network and golden code orthogonal super-symbol systems.
(2022) Bamisaye, Ayodeji James.; Quazi, Tahmid Al-Mumit.
SIMO-MBM (single-input multiple-output media-based modulation) overcomes the limitations of SIMO (single-input multiple-output) systems by reducing the number of antennas required to achieve a high data rate and improved error performance. In this thesis, the quadrature dimension of the spatial constellation is used to improve the overall error performance of the conventional SIMO-MBM and to achieve a higher data rate by decomposing the amplitude/phase modulation (APM) symbol into real and imaginary components, similar to quadrature spatial modulation (QSM). The average bit error probability of the proposed technique is expressed using a lower bound approach and validated using the results of Monte Carlo simulation (MCS). The proposed system also investigates the effect of antenna correlation in combination with channel amplitude to select a sub-optimal mirror activation pattern. The results of MCS show a 3.5dB improvement at 10b/s/Hz with m 𝑚𝑟𝑓=2 and a 7dB improvement at 12b/s/Hz with 𝑚𝑟𝑓=2 over the traditional SIMO-MBM scheme. The effect of imperfect channel estimation on the proposed scheme is investigated, with a trade-off of 2dB in coding gain due to channel estimation errors. Cooperative Networking (CN) improves wireless network reliability, link quality, and spectrum efficiency by collaborating among nodes. The decode and forward relaying technique is used in this thesis to investigate the performance of QSM aided SIMO-MBM in a Cooperative Network (CN). This technique uses two source nodes that simultaneously transmit a unique message block on the same time slot to the relay node, which then decodes the received message block from both transmitting nodes before re-encoding and re-transmitting the decoded message block in the next time slot to the destinations in order to significantly improve the QSM aided SIMO-MBM’s error performance. Using network coding (NC) techniques, each Node can decode the data of the other Node. To enhance network performance, complexity, robustness, and minimize delays, data is encoded and decoded in NC; algebraic techniques are applied to the detected message to collect the various transmissions. The proposed scheme's theoretical average error probability was defined using a lower bound technique, and the results of Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) validated the result. The MCS results achieved exhibit a significant improvement of 8 dB at 6 b/s/Hz and 12 dB at 8 b/s/Hz over the conventional QSM aided SIMO-MBM scheme. The media-based modulation (MBM) technique can achieve significant throughput, increase spectrum efficiency, and improve bit-error-rate performance (BER). In this thesis, the use of MBM in single-input multiple-output systems is examined using radio frequency (RF) mirrors and Golden code (GC-SIMO). The goal is to lower the system's hardware complexity by maximizing the linear relationship between RF mirrors and spectral efficiency in MBM in order to achieve a high data rate with less hardware complexity. The GC scheme's encoder uses orthogonal pairs of the super-symbol, each transmitted via a separate RF mirror at a different time slot to achieve full rate full diversity. In the results of MCS obtained, at a BER of 10−5, the GC-SIMO-MBM exhibits a significant performance of approximately 7dB and 6.5 dB SNR gain for 4 b/s/Hz and 6 b/s/Hz, respectively, compared to GC-SIMO. The proposed scheme's derived theoretical average error probability is validated by the results of the Monte Carlo simulation.
Index modulation for next-generation wireless networks.
(2020) Oladoyinbo, Segun Emmanuel.; Pillay, Narushan.; Xu, Hongjun.
The desirability of high throughput and superior system performance for multimedia services requires schemes that can achieve high spectral efficiency. However, this imposes high system/hardware complexity due to the large number of antennas required at the transmitter. This led to the development of several innovative multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques in the research community, such as generalized spatial modulation (GSM). GSM is a spatial modulation (SM) based scheme, which employs transmit antenna combinations coupled with identical symbols to convey additional information. This made the use of multiple transmit antennas possible in index modulation, improving the setback/limitation of hardware complexity experienced in the conventional MIMO and SM schemes. Furthermore, in the literature, an improved spectral efficient quadrature spatial modulation (QSM) based scheme termed generalized quadrature spatial modulation (GQSM) is proposed. In GQSM, the antennas at the transmitter are divided into groups and a unique symbol is employed across multi-active transmit antenna groups. Hence, GQSM requires less transmit antennas to achieve a high data rate when compared to its counterparts. However, GQSM requires multiple radio frequency (RF) chains, considering unique symbols are employed in each transmit antenna group. This motivates us to investigate single-symbol GQSM (SS-GQSM), which employs identical symbols across each group requiring a single RF chain. Recently, the application of RF mirrors termed media-based modulation (MBM) was introduced to the research community as a technique to enhance the spectral efficiency at a reduced hardware complexity. This motivates us to investigate MBM with single-symbol GSM to enhance its error performance and to mitigate the drawback of the requirement of multiple RF chains. In addition, link adaptation has been stated in literature as a technique, which can enhance the performance of a single-input multiple-output (SIMO)/MIMO scheme. MBM achieves a high data rate coupled with enhanced system performance. However, to the author's best knowledge, link adaptation has not been investigated with MBM. This motivates us to propose an adaptive algorithm that employs different candidate transmission modes to enhance the reliability of the SIMO system. The proposed scheme is called adaptive SIMOMBM (ASIMOMBM). Lately, two-way cooperative relaying has been proven as a spectral efficient relaying system. This technique employs two or more source nodes, which transmit information to the relay node simultaneously. Considering the advantages of GQSM stated earlier, this motivates us to investigate two-way decode-and-forward relaying for the GQSM scheme to improve the error performance of the conventional GQSM system.
Iterative graphical algorithms for phase noise channels.
(2020) Rezenom, Seare Haile.; Takawira, Fambirai.
This thesis proposes algorithms based on graphical models to detect signals and charac- terise the performance of communication systems in the presence of Wiener phase noise. The algorithms exploit properties of phase noise and consequently use graphical models to develop low complexity approaches of signal detection. The contributions are presented in the form of papers. The first paper investigates the effect of message scheduling on the performance of graphical algorithms. A serial message scheduling is proposed for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) systems in the presence of carrier frequency offset and phase noise. The algorithm is shown to have better convergence compared to non-serial scheduling algorithms. The second paper introduces a concept referred to as circular random variables which is based on exploiting the properties of phase noise. An iterative algorithm is proposed to detect Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes in the presence of Wiener phase noise. The proposed algorithm is shown to have similar performance as existing algorithms with very low complexity. The third paper extends the concept of circular variables to detect coherent optical OFDM signals in the presence of residual carrier frequency offset and Wiener phase noise. The proposed iterative algorithm shows a significant improvement in complexity compared to existing algorithms. The fourth paper proposes two methods based on minimising the free energy function of graphical models. The first method combines the Belief Propagation (BP) and the Uniformly Re-weighted BP (URWBP) algorithms. The second method combines the Mean Field (MF) and the URWBP algorithms. The proposed methods are used to detect LDPC codes in Wiener phase noise channels. The proposed methods show good balance between complexity and performance compared to existing methods. The last paper proposes parameter based computation of the information bounds of the Wiener phase noise channel. The proposed methods compute the information lower and upper bounds using parameters of the Gaussian probability density function. The results show that these methods achieve similar performance as existing methods with low complexity.
Generalised differential golden code modulation: error performance analysis and bandwidth efficiency.
(2022) Otieno, Gevira Omondi.; Xu, Hongjun.
The receiver of a conventional differential modulation scheme performs detection without knowledge of the channel state information (CSI). This results in a 3dB performance loss compared to coherent modulation. In order to enhance this error performance, generalised differential modulation is utilised. This thesis firstly presents a generalised differential modulation scheme for the Golden code (GDMGC) based on quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). The average bit error probability (ABEP) for the GDM-GC scheme is derived and simulations on bit error rates (BER) are carried out in order to verify the derived theoretical framework, where it is shown that BER results lie well within the derived bounds. In addition, compared to coherent GC with maximum likelihood (ML) detection both 16QAM and 64QAM GDM-GC result in approximately 0.4 dB performance loss for a frame length of L = 400. However, the computational complexity of the GDM-GC scheme is reduced significantly in comparison to the coherent ML detector. Secondly, this thesis extends the generalised differential modulation scheme to multiple input symbol Golden code and proposes a multiple input symbol generalised differential Golden code (MIS-GD-GC) scheme. This scheme not only boosts error performance in comparison to conventional differential multiple input symbol Golden code (MIS-GC), but it lso produces multiple diversity order compared to the conventional Golden code. The simulations on BER for the MIS-GD-GC scheme not only compare very well to the derived theoretical bounds but also show that the BER draws closer to that of coherent MIS-GC when the frame length is increased. For instance, at a frame length of L = 400 , the error performance gap between MIS-GD-GC and its coherent counterpart is only 0.4 dB. Finally, driven by the need to develop a scheme that can allow for transmission of more data to help meet the demands of modern wireless communication systems, this thesis seeks to improve the bandwidth efficiency of the GDM-GC scheme. An enhanced bandwidth efficient generalised differential Golden code (EBE-GD-GC) scheme based on QAM is proposed and its ABEP derived. The simulated BER results for the EBE-GD-GC scheme are shown to lie well within the derived ABEP and achieve almost the same error performance as GDM-GC at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regions but with extra bit(s) of information sent in each transmitted space-time block code (STBC) compared to the typical GDM-GC scheme. In addition, compared to the conventional generalised differential Golden code, both 16QAM and 64QAM EBE-GD-GC result in < 1dB performance loss from a BER of 1 × 10−5.
Synthesis and characterisation of magnetic graphene-nanoparticle composites for water purification.
(2021) Malinga, Nduduzo Nkanyiso.; Jarvis, Alan Lawrence Leigh.
The synthesis of reduced graphene oxide is investigated in this work, with a focus on water purification. The work stems from the interest gained from the discovery of graphene and its high surface area. The study focused on the synthesis of reduced graphene oxide. This afforded the synthesis of reduced graphene oxide nanoparticles composites and doped reduced graphene oxide. The composites were produced with magnetic nickel, cobalt and cobalt ferrite nanoparticles. The doped reduced graphene oxide was synthesized using nitrogen and boron as dopants. The prepared samples were rGO, N-rGO, B-rGO, Co-rGO, Ni-rGO and FeCo-rGO. All the samples were characterized using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Fourier Transform Infra-red (FTIR) spectroscopy, Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Raman Spectroscopy and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). All the samples were found to have magnetic properties. The composites have superparamagnetic properties and FeCo-rGO had the highest magnetization at 12.54 emu.g-1. The conductivity results showed that the doped samples and composites had better conductivity than rGO with the Ni-rGO having the highest conductivity of 62695.82 S.m-1. All samples had conductivity which were similar to semiconductors. The prepared samples have high surface area and a large number adsorption sites and thus were used in applications of water purification in the removal of Cr(VI) ions from solution. The Co-rGO was found to have the ability to adsorb the Cr(VI) in form of CrO42- while other samples catalysed reduction of Cr(VI) to Cr(III). Thus Co-rGO was used in the removal of Cr(VI) ions from solution. The adsorption of Cr(VI) ions occurs through electrostatic interaction between CrO42- and Co-rGO. The optimum conditions for the removal of chromium ions were experimentally determined. The conditions, were a dosage of 300 mg.L-1, a pH of 8, contact time 90 minutes and temperature was 298 K. The removal efficiency was affected by the concentration of chromium ions and there was 90 % removal efficiency for the concentration of 20 mg.L-1
Design evolution of dual-material gate structure in cylindrical surrounding double-gate (CSDG) MOSFET using physics-based analytical modeling.
(2021) Dargar, Abha.; Srivastava, Viranjay Mohan.
The Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MOSFET) is the fundamental component in present Micro and Nano-electronics device applications, such as switching, memory devices, communication devices, etc. MOSFET’s dimension has shrunk down following Moore’s law to attain high-speed operation and packing density integration. The scaling of conventional MOSFET has been the most prominent technological challenge in the past few years because the decreasing device dimensions increase the charge sharing from the source to the drain and that in turn give rises to the reduced gate-control over the channel, hot carrier induced degradation, and other SCEs. These undesired effects devaluate the device performance that compels optimum device design analysis for particular operating conditions. Therefore, several innovative device design/architectures, including Double-gate, FinFET, Surrounding gate MOSFET, etc., have been developed to mitigate device scaling challenges. Comprehensive research can be traced long for one such promising gate-all-around MOSFET, i.e., Cylindrical Surrounding Double-Gate (CSDG) MOSFET centrally hollow concentric structure, provides an additional internal control gate that improves the device electrical performance and offers easy accessibility. There have been several developments in terms of improvements, and applications of CSDG MOSFET have been practiced since after its evolution. This thesis’s work has been targeted to incorporate the gate material engineering in the CSDG structure after appropriate analysis of device physics-based modeling. In particular to the proposed structure, the electric field, pinch off capacitance, and after that thickness of the device parameters’ dependence have been mathematically derived from attaining the objective. Finally, a model based on a dual-material gate in CSDG MOSFET has been proposed. The electrical field in CSDG MOSFET has been analyzed in detail using a mathematical derivation of device physics, including the Surface-Potential, threshold voltage, and the gate-oxide capacitances of the internal and external part of the device. Further, the gate-oxide capacitance of CSDG MOSFET, particularly to the device pinch-off condition, has been derived. Since the device operation and analysis at the shorter channel are not similar to conventional long-channel MOSFETs, the depletion-width variation has been studied. The identified notion has been applied to derive the approximate numerical solution and silicon thickness inducing parameters for CSDG MOSFET to deploy the improvements in the device performance and novel design modifications. As the gate-material and gate-stack engineering is an alternative to overcome the device performance degradation by enhancing the charge transport efficiency, the CSDG MOSFET in a novel Dual-Metal Gate (DMG) structure design has been proposed and analyzed using the solution of 2D Poisson’s equations in the geometrical boundary conditions of the device. The model expressions obtained solution using the proposed structure has been compared with a single metal gate structure. Finally, it has been analyzed that the proposed model exhibits an excellent match with the analytical model. The obtained DMG device structure advances the carrier velocity and transport efficiency, resulting in the surface-potential profile caused by dissimilar gate metal work-function. The superior device characteristics obtained employing a dual-material structure in CSDG are promising and can reduce the threshold voltage roll-off, suppress the hot-carrier effects and SCEs.
Uncoded space-time labeling diversity with three transmit antennas: symbol mapping designs and error performance analysis.
(2020) Ayanda, Dauda Olayinka.; Xu, Hongjun.
Abstract available in PDF.
Handover management strategies in LTE-advanced heterogeneous networks.
(2020) Omitola, Olusegun Oladosu.; Srivastava, Viranjay Mohan.
Meeting the increasing demand for data due to the proliferation of high-specification mobile devices in the cellular systems has led to the improvement of the Long Term Evolution (LTE) framework to the LTE-Advanced systems. Different aspects such as Massive Multiple-Input Multiple Output (MIMO), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), heterogeneous networks and Carrier Aggregation have been considered in the LTE-Advanced to improve the performance of the system. The small cells like the femtocells and the relays play a significant role in increasing the coverage and the capacity of the mobile cellular networks in LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) heterogeneous network. However, the user equipment (UE) are faced with the frequent handover problems in the heterogeneous systems than the homogeneous systems due to the users‟ mobility and densely populated cells. The objective of this research work is to analyse the handover performance in the current LTE/LTE-A network and to propose various handover management strategies to handle the frequent handover problems in the LTE-Advance heterogeneous networks. To achieve this, an event driven simulator using C# was developed based on the 3GPP LTE/LTE-A standard to evaluate the proposed strategies. To start with, admission control which is a major requirement during the handover initiation stage is discussed and this research work has therefore proposed a channel borrowing admission control scheme for the LTE-A networks. With this scheme in place, resources are better utilized and more calls are accepted than in the conventional schemes where the channel borrowing is not applied. Also proposed is an enhanced strategy for the handover management in two-tier femtocell-macrocell networks. The proposed strategy takes into consideration the speed of user and other parameters in other to effectively reduce the frequent and unnecessary handovers, and as well as the ratio of target femtocells in the system. We also consider scenarios such as the one that dominate the future networks where femtocells will be densely populated to handle very heavy traffic. To achieve this, a Call Admission Control (CAC)-based handover management strategy is proposed to manage the handover in dense femtocell-macrocell integration in the LTE-A network. The handover probability, the handover call dropping probability and the call blocking probability are reduced considerably with the proposed strategy. Finally, the handover management for the mobile relays in a moving vehicle is considered (using train as a case study). We propose a group handover strategy where the Mobile Relay Node (MRN) is integrated with a special mobile device called “mdev” to prepare the group information prior to the handover time. This is done to prepare the UE‟s group information and services for timely handover due to the speed of the train. This strategy reduces the number of handovers and the call dropping probability in the moving vehicle.
Application of cognitive radio based sensor network in smart grids for efficient, holistic monitoring and control.
(2018) Ogbodo, Emmanuel Utochukwu.; Dorrell, David George.; Abu-Mahfouz, Adnan M.
This thesis is directed towards the application of cognitive radio based sensor network (CRSN) in smart grid (SG) for efficient, holistic monitoring and control. The work involves enabling of sensor network and wireless communication devices for spectra utilization via the capability of Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) of a cognitive radio (CR) as well as end to end communication access technology for unified monitoring and control in smart grids. Smart Grid (SG) is a new power grid paradigm that can provide predictive information and recommendations to utilities, including their suppliers, and their customers on how best to manage power delivery and consumption. SG can greatly reduce air pollution from our surrounding by renewable power sources such as wind energy, solar plants and huge hydro stations. SG also reduces electricity blackouts and surges. Communication network is the foundation for modern SG. Implementing an improved communication solution will help in addressing the problems of the existing SG. Hence, this study proposed and implemented improved CRSN model which will help to ultimately evade the inherent problems of communication network in the SG such as: energy inefficiency, interference, spectrum inefficiencies, poor quality of service (QoS), latency and throughput. To overcome these problems, the existing approach which is more predominant is the use of wireless sensor network (WSNs) for communication needs in SG. However, WSNs have low battery power, low computational complexity, low bandwidth support, and high latency or delay due to multihop transmission in existing WSN topology. Consequently, solving these problems by addressing energy efficiency, bandwidth or throughput, and latency have not been fully realized due to the limitations in the WSN and the existing network topology. Therefore, existing approach has not fully addressed the communication needs in SG. SG can be fully realized by integrating communication network technologies infrastructures into the power grid. Cognitive Radio-based Sensor Network (CRSN) is considered a feasible solution to enhance various aspects of the electric power grid such as communication with end and remote devices in real-time manner for efficient monitoring and to realize maximum benefits of a smart grid system. CRSN in SG is aimed at addressing the problem of spectrum inefficiency and interference which wireless sensor network (WSN) could not. However, numerous challenges for CRSNs are due to the harsh environmental wireless condition in a smart grid system. As a result, latency, throughput and reliability become critical issues. To overcome these challenges, lots of approaches can be adopted ranging from integration of CRSNs into SGs; proper implementation design model for SG; reliable communication access devices for SG; key immunity requirements for communication infrastructure in SG; up to communication network protocol optimization and so on. To this end, this study utilized the National Institute of Standard (NIST) framework for SG interoperability in the design of unified communication network architecture including implementation model for guaranteed quality of service (QoS) of smart grid applications. This involves virtualized network in form of multi-homing comprising low power wide area network (LPWAN) devices such as LTE CAT1/LTE-M, and TV white space band device (TVBD). Simulation and analysis show that the performance of the developed modules architecture outperforms the legacy wireless systems in terms of latency, blocking probability, and throughput in SG harsh environmental condition. In addition, the problem of multi correlation fading channels due to multi antenna channels of the sensor nodes in CRSN based SG has been addressed by the performance analysis of a moment generating function (MGF) based M-QAM error probability over Nakagami-q dual correlated fading channels with maximum ratio combiner (MRC) receiver technique which includes derivation and novel algorithmic approach. The results of the MATLAB simulation are provided as a guide for sensor node deployment in order to avoid the problem of multi correlation in CRSN based SGs. SGs application requires reliable and efficient communication with low latency in timely manner as well as adequate topology of sensor nodes deployment for guaranteed QoS. Another important requirement is the need for an optimized protocol/algorithms for energy efficiency and cross layer spectrum aware made possible for opportunistic spectrum access in the CRSN nodes. Consequently, an optimized cross layer interaction of the physical and MAC layer protocols using various novel algorithms and techniques was developed. This includes a novel energy efficient distributed heterogeneous clustered spectrum aware (EDHC- SA) multichannel sensing signal model with novel algorithm called Equilateral triangulation algorithm for guaranteed network connectivity in CRSN based SG. The simulation results further obtained confirm that EDHC-SA CRSN model outperforms conventional ZigBee WSN in terms of bit error rate (BER), end-to-end delay (latency) and energy consumption. This no doubt validates the suitability of the developed model in SG.
Semi-empirical modelling of subtropical rain attenuation on earth-satellite microwave links.
(2018) Afolayan, Babajide Olugbenga.; Afullo, Thomas Joachim Odhiambo.; Alonge, Akintunde Ayodeji.
The exponential rise in demand for high fidelity content on multiple platforms has in recent years made increased use of the higher echelons of radio communication frequency inevitable. At these high frequencies, wavelength becomes small enough to compare with the size of rain drops and in some cases smaller than drop size. This implies that the impairment due to rain, which already usually forms the most severe form of impairment at higher radio frequency bands, will become even more acute and require rigorous parameterization. This thesis investigates both by rigorous measurements and by theoretical approaches, the attenuation effect of rainfall in a subtropical climate (Durban, South Africa) on a microwave earth-satellite link operating at 12.6 GHz. The link was set up and the received signal level monitored via spectrum analyser sweeps conducted every minute. A Joss-Waldvogel impact disdrometer was installed such that its diaphragm is located a few meters away from the link’s receive antenna. From such a location, all precipitation recorded by the disdrometer are assumed to have some effect on the link. The monthly variation in the received signal during clear air was investigated by taking into consideration the average monthly values of temperature, relative humidity and atmospheric pressure. By employing multiple regression, a linear expression was obtained that can be used to predict the change in received signal level in clear air over the link given the values of these three atmospheric parameters. The attenuation due to the rain events was extracted from the data by carrying out an even-by-event matching of rain rate spikes with the corresponding drop observed in the received signal level at and around the time of the precipitation. The average monthly received signal level during clear air was extracted from the spectrum analyser data and used as the base channel power to which the received signal during rain in the particular month is compared. The difference between the two is stored as the attenuation due to rain in that instant of measurement time. The attenuation data thus accumulated were entered into a computer algorithm and a regression fitting procedure carried out to deduce an empirical set of logarithmic and power law models that relate the total path attenuation to rain rate. The models were then validated by a largely favourable comparison with four existing models, one of which is the in-force ITU-recommended model for slant path attenuation estimations. Random number properties of rain attenuation statistics obtained from the measurement model were exploited to develop a Markov chain approach by which seasonal and annual slant path rain attenuation time series can be generated. By investigating the nature of the probability distributions of the seasonal and annual measured path attenuation statistics, which was found to be lognormal, the state probability matrix necessary for implementing a Markov chain prediction model for future patterns of rain attenuation on a similar link was obtained as the lognormal probability density function. The state transition probability vector for each time period was developed by extracting the fade slope statistics of the measured attenuation. The discrete-time Gaussian distributed fade slope PDF forms the basis for the state transition probability matrix. With these, Markov-generated time series of seasonal and annual slant path attenuation for up to five iterations were obtained. The results make useful data that can be used for long-term planning for rain fade mitigation in a subtropical climate easier to generate without the expense of measurements. The theoretical approach called the Synthetic Storm Technique was also applied to investigate the nature of slant path rain attenuation in Durban. Based on the rainfall pattern captured by the disdrometer, SST approximations for the four seasons of the subtropical year and for years of rain data collection were carried out. The results were compared with the values generated from the measurement model. It reveals that the two models exhibit significant agreement because in a majority of the cases, the A0.01 values obtained are very close. Comparison of the performance of SST as a theoretical model with that of the ITU-recommended method also reveals that the ITU performs slightly better as an alternative to measurement than the SST model. It was observed that during certain precipitation events, the satellite link registers significant attenuation levels several minutes before the disdrometer records any precipitation on the ground. This anomaly was investigated in this work and a few conclusions drawn. By proceeding on the assumption that the observed delay was due to the migrating rain cell interacting with the satellite beam several minutes before reaching the receive antenna, it was demonstrated that the time of delay between precipitation and attenuation is related to the rain height during that particular rain event. A simple mathematical analysis is presented that enables the rain height to be estimated from the delay time. The results obtained range between 1.4 km to 6.7 km which is similarity to rain height values obtained by the ITU model which range from 1.36 km to 6.36 km.
Index modulation for next generation wireless communications.
(2018) Adejumobi, Babatunde Segun.; Pillay, Narushan.; Mneney, Stanley Henry.
A multicarrier index modulation technique in the form of quadrature spatial modulation (QSM) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (QSM-OFDM) is proposed, in which transmit antenna indices are employed to transmit additional bits. Monte Carlo simulation results demonstrates a 5 dB gain in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) over other OFDM schemes. Furthermore, an analysis of the receiver computational complexity is presented. A low-complexity near-ML detector for space-time block coded (STBC) spatial modulation (STBC-SM) with cyclic structure (STBC-CSM), which demonstrate near-ML error performance and yields significant reduction in computational complexity is proposed. In addition, the union-bound theoretical framework to quantify the average bit-error probability (ABEP) of STBC-CSM is formulated and validates the Monte Carlo simulation results. The application of media-based modulation (MBM), to STBC-SM and STBC-CSM employing radio frequency (RF) mirrors, in the form of MBSTBC-SM and MBSTBC-CSM is proposed to improve the error performance. Numerical results of the proposed schemes demonstrate significant improvement in error performance when compared with STBC-CSM and STBC-SM. In addition, the analytical framework of the union-bound on the ABEP of MBSTBC-SM and MBSTBC-CSM for the ML detector is formulated and agrees well with Monte Carlo simulations. Furthermore, a low-complexity near-ML detector for MBSTBC-SM and MBSTBC-CSM is proposed, and achieves a near-ML error performance. Monte Carlo simulation results demonstrate a trade-off between the error performance and the resolution of the detector that is employed. Finally, the application of MBM, an index modulated system to spatial modulation, in the form of spatial MBM (SMBM) is investigated. SMBM employs RF mirrors located around the transmit antenna units to create distinct channel paths to the receiver. This thesis presents an easy to evaluate theoretical bound for the error performance of SMBM, which is validated by Monte Carlo simulation results. Lastly, two low-complexity suboptimal mirror activation pattern (MAP) optimization techniques are proposed, which improve the error performance of SMBM significantly.
Uncoded space-time labelling diversity : data rate & reliability enhancements and application to real-world satellite broadcasting.
(2019) Patel, Sulaiman Saleem.; Quazi, Tahmid Al-Mumit.; Xu, Hongjun.
Abstract available in PDF.
A distributed framework for the control and cooperation of heterogeneous mobile robots in smart factories.
(2017) Naidoo, Nicol.; Bright, Glen.; Stopforth, Riaan.
The present consumer market is driven by the mass customisation of products. Manufacturers are now challenged with the problem of not being able to capture market share and gain higher profits by producing large volumes of the same product to a mass market. Some businesses have implemented mass customisation manufacturing (MCM) techniques as a solution to this problem, where customised products are produced rapidly while keeping the costs at a mass production level. In addition to this, the arrival of the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) enables the possibility of establishing the decentralised intelligence of embedded devices to detect and respond to real-time variations in the MCM factory. One of the key pillars in the Industry 4.0, smart factory concept is Advanced Robotics. This includes cooperation and control within multiple heterogeneous robot networks, which increases flexibility in the smart factory and enables the ability to rapidly reconfigure systems to adapt to variations in consumer product demand. Another benefit in these systems is the reduction of production bottleneck conditions where robot services must be coordinated efficiently so that high levels of productivity are maintained. This study focuses on the research, design and development of a distributed framework that would aid researchers in implementing algorithms for controlling the task goals of heterogeneous mobile robots, to achieve robot cooperation and reduce bottlenecks in a production environment. The framework can be used as a toolkit by the end-user for developing advanced algorithms that can be simulated before being deployed in an actual system, thereby fast prototyping the system integration process. Keywords: Cooperation, heterogeneity, multiple mobile robots, Industry 4.0, smart factory, manufacturing, middleware, ROS, OPC, framework.

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