Informed RF for 5G and Beyond
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Surrey
Department Name: Communications Systems Res CCSR
Abstract
Modern wireless communications rapidly approach the verge of the spectrum availability and new disruptive technologies are urgently needed to meet the projected capabilities and demands for efficiency and privacy of 5G communications and beyond. We will exercise an original holistic design approach to build and test novel integrated digital/RF wireless architectures exploiting the full potential of unconventional degrees of freedom and enabling dramatically increased information capacity in small-cell networks. Our cross-disciplinary studies will inform and influence future wireless technologies, help address the societal demand for 'green' and intelligent communications, and create a body of scholarship to promote the UK's unique blend of innovative engineering, free spirit of entrepreneurialism and educational rigour.
Planned Impact
Who might benefit from this research?
This research will benefit the communication industry and improve UK's economic competiveness. It will positively affect the academic standing of UK's research in EPSRC's strategic areas of growth, namely RF and microwave communications, RF & Microwave devices and Digital Signal Processing. These strategic innovations and breakthroughs will benefit the network operators, equipment manufacturers, end users of wireless communication, government revenues as well as the general public.
How might they benefit from this research?
This research will exploit the potential of jointly designing the RF hardware and the digital signal processing algorithms with RF impairments and nonlinearities taken into account in order to better utilise the under-explored degrees of freedom in wireless communications and antenna design. This will ensure a feasible solution for spectrum scarcity problem that hinders the operation of the next generation of wireless communication technology requiring significantly higher data rates and supporting significantly larger number of users. The research outcomes have the potential to lead to new innovative informed RF solutions in future 5G standards and beyond. Network operators will benefit from low cost and more efficient solutions, equipment manufactures from new streams of better products, end users of wireless communication from better/improved services, UK government from increased revenues from wireless communication business.
This research will benefit the communication industry and improve UK's economic competiveness. It will positively affect the academic standing of UK's research in EPSRC's strategic areas of growth, namely RF and microwave communications, RF & Microwave devices and Digital Signal Processing. These strategic innovations and breakthroughs will benefit the network operators, equipment manufacturers, end users of wireless communication, government revenues as well as the general public.
How might they benefit from this research?
This research will exploit the potential of jointly designing the RF hardware and the digital signal processing algorithms with RF impairments and nonlinearities taken into account in order to better utilise the under-explored degrees of freedom in wireless communications and antenna design. This will ensure a feasible solution for spectrum scarcity problem that hinders the operation of the next generation of wireless communication technology requiring significantly higher data rates and supporting significantly larger number of users. The research outcomes have the potential to lead to new innovative informed RF solutions in future 5G standards and beyond. Network operators will benefit from low cost and more efficient solutions, equipment manufactures from new streams of better products, end users of wireless communication from better/improved services, UK government from increased revenues from wireless communication business.
Publications
Zhong J
(2018)
Iterative Frequency Domain Equalization for MIMO-GFDM Systems
in IEEE Access
Yurduseven O
(2020)
Lens-Loaded Coded Aperture with Increased Information Capacity for Computational Microwave Imaging
in Remote Sensing
Yang S
(2023)
Integrated Polarization and Spatial Modulation
in IEEE Transactions on Communications
Xiao L
(2018)
Transmit Antenna Combination Optimization for Generalized Spatial Modulation Systems
in IEEE Access
Xiao L
(2020)
A Compressive Sensing Assisted Massive SM-VBLAST System: Error Probability and Capacity Analysis
in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications
Xiao L
(2018)
Bayesian Compressive Sensing Assisted Space-Time Block Coded Quadrature Spatial Modulation
in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology
Xiao L
(2019)
Compressive Sensing Assisted Generalized Quadrature Spatial Modulation for Massive MIMO Systems
in IEEE Transactions on Communications
Wolosinski G
(2019)
Pre-matched Eigenmode Antenna With Polarization and Pattern Diversity
in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
Wen L
(2019)
Intrinsic Interference Use for FBMC-IOTA Systems
in Applied Sciences
Taheri S
(2017)
Efficient Implementation of Filter Bank Multicarrier Systems Using Circular Fast Convolution
in IEEE Access
| Description | 1. A near-optimum low-complexity hybrid beamforming algorithm has been designed. 2. A polarisation antenna has been designed with arbitrary axial ratio and title angle. This serves an enabler to exploit massive degree of freedom in the polarisation domain in order to maximize the spectrum efficiency and data transmission rate. Information theoretical studies have been carried out and digital signal processing algorithms have been conducted to capitalize the polarisation antenna design to achieve significant gain at system level. An effective modulation scheme has been developed by capitalizing on the novel polarisation reconfigurable antenna design and shown to achieve 50% improvement in spectrum efficiency compared to the state-of-the-art modulation techniques. 3. The DoFs in polarisation domain can be combined with those in OAM and SAM to further improve the spectrum efficiency of wireless systems. |
| Exploitation Route | Joint DSP and RF design will be conducted to capitalize the antenna design for system throughput maximization. |
| Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Electronics |
| Description | Our work conducted in this project makes people more aware of the fact that RF/antenna and DSP design need to be tightly integrated in order to maximize the full potential a system has to offer. It is a common belief that wireless system design is always about striking a balance between some conflicting KPIs such as spectrum efficiency, energy efficiency and coverage. A fundamental question naturally arises: Is it possible to improve them at the same time or do we always have to consider the design tradeoff? The outcomes of this project manifested the fact that those conflicting KPIs (spectrum efficiency, energy efficiency and coverage) can indeed be improved at the same time provided that additional electromagnetic degree of freedoms (DoFs) can be exploited and an integrated design approach is adopted. This discover will hopefully influence government's research funding policy to reach the target of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emssions by 2050. |
| Sector | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Environment |
| Impact Types | Societal,Economic,Policy & public services |
| Title | Methods and Apparatus for Optimising Hybrid Beamformers |
| Description | This invention relates to a hybrid beamforming technique to reduce the number of RF chains in MIMO systems. It achieves near-optimum performance and much reduced complexity compared to the state-of-the-art techniques. |
| IP Reference | |
| Protection | Copyrighted (e.g. software) |
| Year Protection Granted | 2016 |
| Licensed | No |
| Impact | A hardware prototype has been developed in low frequency band. The next step is to develop the prototype in the 26 GHz mm-wave band. |
| Title | Wireless Data Transmission using Polarised Electromagnetic Radiation |
| Description | We propose a new modulation scheme by exploiting the degree-of-freedom in the polarisation domain. In this disclosure, a method is developed to take advantage of the polarisation, title angle, and axial ratio of a wireless signal to carry additional information. When compared to the conventional modulation schemes the proposed method achieves significant better performance for a given same data rate or higher data rate for a given level of performance. By using the proposed technique in wireless systems one could can significantly improve the system's spectrum efficiency in terms of bits/s/Hz/antenna. |
| IP Reference | GB1812108.7 |
| Protection | Patent granted |
| Year Protection Granted | 2019 |
| Licensed | No |
| Impact | The invented method can dramatically improve the spectrum efficiency of wireless systems by 50%. |