WI-CODING

Next Generation Wireless Broadband Access Systems and Advanced Coding Techniques

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The scientific and technological objectives of this SME-driven industry-academia multi-disciplinary proposal for Intra-European Fellowship (termed Wi-CODING) are to provide the means for transfer of knowledge from the Host organisation to the Fellow with the aim of “strengthening a leading independent position in education or enterprise” in the future endeavors of the Fellow. The project aims to implement this plan within the context of R&D efforts aimed at making significant advances in key technology areas relating to the next generation broadband wireless access (BWA) systems and linked to the specific end-user requirements as specified in the emerging IEEE 802.16m (WiMAX) standard. Wi-CODING plan is consistent with the professional expertise and future plans of the Fellow. From Fellow’s point of view, it is expected that practical knowledge gained during the Project will provide him with ammunition for taking leading roles in projects of similar nature and complexity after returning to the home country. This will create a unique opportunity for professional career development and widening Fellow’s activities into the area of practical implementation of BWA systems. From the Host Organisation’s point of view, a near-term impact of Wi-CODING will be the incorporation of the project research results into BWA products currently being developed by the Company. In a broader context, the solutions will help to cement Company’s leading role as a provider of BWA solutions, enhance IPR portfolio and create a foundation for future growth and expansion. As the implementation plan for the project is based upon the next generation of the WiMAX system, Wi-CODING envisages close interaction with IEEE802.16m standardisation activities, aiming to influence the emerging standard. The two sides of this proposal have complementary skills and interests and the project has been designed to foster a synergistic research collaboration that will continue beyond the project termination.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

EU funds are being used to develop novel techniques to improve the next generation of wireless broadband access systems.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Researchers, led by a team from the UK wireless company Rinicom, have succeeded in improving advanced signal processing and coding techniques to boost the performance of wireless systems, as exemplified by the current Wimax (worldwide interoperability for microwave access) system. Wimax is an international standard for wireless broadband access network with a cellular structure consisting of base-stations and fixed or mobile user terminals.

One of the main goals of the 'Next generation wireless broadband access systems and advanced coding techniques' (Wi-coding) project was to develop new coding techniques. The research team used an entirely new coding method called 'polar coding', a class of codes with low-complexity encoding and decoding algorithms, to achieve this. They investigated how to take polar coding from a theoretical idea and turn it into practice. Their initial work in this area included a critical assessment of polar codes as a potential competitor to the existing coding schemes used in the Wimax system. With 'encouraging' results, the researchers will continue to work on designing coding, modulation, and space-time coding schemes based on the polar coding paradigm.

Another project target was the development of a pre-distortion algorithm to correct amplifier non-linearities. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a means of allowing multiple users to share a common communication electromagnetic spectrum. It has become the air-interface of choice for modern wireless systems, but it suffers from a 'peak to average power ratio (PAPR)' problem which makes OFDM systems costly to implement. In OFDM systems, the PAPR of transmitted signals tends to be high which prevents the OFDM transmitter's high-power amplifier from operating efficiently. The Wi-coding research team developed a novel hybrid pre-distortion algorithm for OFDM systems and prepared a prototype of the pre-distorter, which will compensate for the non-linear behaviour of the power amplifier when it is saturated by a strong input signal.

To balance the academic and practical aspects of the project, the novel ideas were all developed and tested in the context of emerging next-generation wireless standards, such as Wimax.