Overview of Wireless Communications

& Networks

Instructor
Dr. M. Kulkarni
Professor, Dept. of ECE
[email protected]
1
 Course Plan
Module Contents Hours
An Overview of Wireless Communications & Networks,
1 6
Advanced Wireless Networks, SDR, Cognitive Radios etc.
Wireless Channel Models: Characteristics of Wireless
Channel, Signal Fading Statistics, Level Crossing Rate and
2 12
Average Fade Duration, Propagation Path-Loss Models,
Indoor Path-Loss Models, Fade Margin, and Link Margin.
An Overview of Digital Communication and Transmission,
Performance Parameters of Coding and Modulation
3 Scheme, Power Limited and Bandwidth-Limited Channel, 10
OSI Model, Multiplexing, Transmission Media,
Transmission Impairments
Fundamentals of Cellular Communications, Multiple
Access Techniques, Architecture of a Wireless Wide-Area
4 10
Network (WWAN), Mobility Management in Wireless
Networks.
Network Architectures, Communication Protocol Layers,
5 Routing Strategies, Network Reliability, Congestion Issues, 8
Wireless LANs.
GSM, CDMA, Cellular & WLAN Integration, Advanced
6 8
Topics in Wireless Research, 5G NWs, SDNs.
 Grading Policy

Course Element Percentage of Course Grade

Assignments, Quizzes,
25%(5+10+10)
Projects

Mid Sem. Exam 25%

End Sem. Exam 50%

Total 100%

Course Feedback: I always welcome constructive suggestions, so I would appreciate

Course Feedback: I always welcome constructive suggestions,
if you can drop a line
so Iand
wouldlet me know
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and let me know as of the course could
be improved. how the overall experience of the course could be improved.
 Reference Books
1. Andrea Goldsmith, Wireless Communications, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
2. Andreas.F. Molisch, “Wireless Communications”, John Wiley – India, 2006.
3. Simon Haykin & Michael Moher, “Modern Wireless Communications”, Pearson
Education, 2007
4. Rappaport. T.S., “Wireless communications”, Pearson Education, 2003.
5. Clint Smith. P.E., and Daniel Collins, “3G Wireless Networks”, 2nd Edition, Tata McGraw
Hill,2007.
6. Vijay. K. Garg, “Wireless Communication and Networking”, Morgan Kaufmann
Publishers, 2007.
7. Kaveth Pahlavan,. K. Prashanth Krishnamuorthy, "Principles of Wireless Networks", PHI,
2006.
8. William Stallings, "Wireless Communications and networks" Pearson / Prentice Hall of India,
2nd Ed., 2007.
9. .Harry R. Anderson,“Fixed Broadband Wireless System Design” John Wiley,India,2003
 Wireless Communication
 Transmitting/receiving voice and data using
electromagnetic waves in open space
 The information from sender to receiver is carried over
a well-defined frequency band (channel)
 Each channel has a fixed frequency bandwidth and
Capacity (bit-rate)
 Different channels can be used to transmit information
in parallel and independently.
 Assume a spectrum of 120 KHz is allocated over a base
frequency for communication between stations A and B
Each channel occupies 40 KHz

5
6
 Electromagnetic spectrum
Frequency bands
•A band is a small section of the spectrum of radio communication
frequencies, typically used for the same purpose.
•Bands are divided at wavelengths of 10n metres, or frequencies of
3×10n hertz.

Band Number Symbols Frequency Range Wavelength Range

4 VLF 3 to 30 kHz 10 to 100 km

5 LF 30 to 300 kHz 1 to 10 km
6 MF 300 to 3000 kHz 100 to 1000 m
7 HF 3 to 30 MHz 10 to 100 m
8 VHF 30 to 300 MHz 1 to 10 m
9 UHF 300 to 3000 MHz 10 to 100 cm
10 SHF 3 to 30 GHz 1 to 10 cm
11 EHF 30 to 300 GHz 1 to 10 mm
12 THF 300 to 3000 GHz 0.1 to 1 mm

7
Band Name Common Use
Very Low Frequency (VLF) (Sub-)Marine communications,
Low Frequency (LF) wireless, heart rate monitors,
geophysics
Medium Frequency (MF) AM (medium-wave) broadcasts,
amateur radio, avalanche beacons..
High Frequency (HF) Long-distance aircraft/ship
communications…
Very High Frequency (VHF) FM, television broadcasts, aircraft
comms…
Ultra High Frequency (UHF) Television broadcasts, microwave
links, mobile phones, wireless LAN,
Bluetooth, Zigbee, GPS, …
Super High Frequency (SHF) Satellite communications, microwave
links, radars, satellite TV, radio
astronomy…
Extremely High Frequency (EHF) Radio astronomy, microwave radio
relay, microwave remote sensing…
Terahertz or Tremendously High Terahertz imaging, condensed matter
Frequency (THF) physics …
8
 Types of Wireless Communication
Mobile
 Cellular Phones (GSM / cdma2000.1x)
Portable
 IEEE 802.11b (WiFi),
 IEEE 802.15.3 (UWB)
Fixed
 IEEE 802.16 (WirelessMAN)
Typical Frequencies FM Radio ~ 88 MHz
TV Broadcast ~ 200 MHz
GSM Phones ~ 900 MHz / 1800 MHz
GPS ~ 1.2 GHz
PCS Phones ~ 1.8 GHz
Bluetooth ~ 2.4 GHz
WiFi ~ 2.4 GHz
9
10
11
Radio Wave Propagation
• Propagation in free space
• Propagation in terrestrial environment
– Propagation loss: P ~ r- , >2
– Reflection, diffraction and scattering
– Speed = 299,792,458 m/s
– Isotropic(Radio transmission is omnidirectional (waves spread out from the
transmitting antenna in all directions)
• Received power at a particular location decays with distance: P ~ r-α, α >2
 Low frequencies: radio waves pass through obstacles easily
 High frequencies: radio waves get reflected by obstacles and are more
prone to absorption by rain drops
 Reflection: When the propagating radio wave hits an object which is very
large compared to its wavelength, the wave gets reflected by that object.
 Diffraction: When a wave hits an impenetrable object of size comparable to
its wavelength, the wave bends at the edges of the object, thereby
propagating in different directions.
 Scattering: When a wave travels through a medium, which contains many
objects with dimensions small when compared to its wavelength, the wave
gets scattered into several weaker outgoing signals.
12
A Glimpse of Wireless Channels

• propagation loss
• multipath
 mobility

 How to model the fading channel?

 How to achieve reliable communications over fading channels?

13
14
 Why Wireless Comm?
Freedom from wires
– No cost of installing wires or rewiring
– No bunches of wires running here and there
– “Auto magical” instantaneous communications
without physical connection setup, e.g., Bluetooth, WiFi
Global Coverage
– Communications can reach where wiring is infeasible or costly, e.g., rural
areas, old buildings, battlefield, vehicles, outer space (through Comm. Sat)

Stay Connected
– Roaming allows flexibility to stay connected anywhere and any time
– Rapidly growing market attests to public need for mobility and uninterrupted
access
Flexibility
– Services reach you wherever you go (Mobility).
– Connect to multiple devices simultaneously (no physical connection reqd.
15
Wireless vs Mobile
NOTE : Wireless does not necessarily mean mobile
 Wireless Systems may be
– Fixed (e.g., Metropolitan Area Network)
– Portable (e.g.wireless interaction between TV & VCR)
– Mobile (e.g., mobile phone)

Types of Wireless Comm.

Radio Transmission
– Easily generated, omni-directionally travel long distances, easily
penetrate buildings
– Problems:
• frequency-dependent / relative low BW for data comm./ tightly licensed
Microwave Transmission
– Widely used for long distance comm. / Gives a high SNR, relatively
inexpensive
– Problems:
• don’t pass through buildings well / weather and frequency-dependent
16
Infrared and Millimeter Waves
– Widely used for short-range comm.
– Unable to pass through solid objects
– Used for indoor wireless LANs, not for outdoors
Lightwave Transmission
– Unguided optical signal, such as laser
– Connect two LANs in two buildings via laser mounted on their roof
– Unidirectional, easy to install, don’t require license
– Problems:
• unable to penetrate rain or thick fog
• laser beam can be easily diverted by turbulent air
Wireless Systems : Range Comparison

17
 Increasing dependence on telecommunication services for
business and personal reasons
 Consumers and businesses are willing to pay for it
 Basic Mantra: Stay connected – anywhere, anytime.

Challenges
Efficient Hardware

– Low power Transmitters, Receivers, Signal Processing Tools

Efficient use of finite radio spectrum

– Cellular frequency reuse, medium access control protocols,...

Integrated services
– voice, data, multimedia over a single network
– service differentiation, priorities, resource sharing,... 18
 ….Challenges
 Network/Radio Challenges
 Gbps data rates with “no” errors 5 AdHoc

 Energy efficiency
 Scarce/bifurcated spectrum GShort-Range
 Reliability and coverage
 Heterogeneous networks
 Seamless internetwork handoff

 Device/SoC Challenges BT
Radio
 Performance
 Complexity Cellular
GPS

 Size, Power, Cost Cog

 High frequencies/mmWave Mem WiFi

 Multiple Antennas
 Multiradio Integration CPU mmW
19
 Coexistance
 Software-Defined (SD) Radio:
Is this the solution to the device challenges?
BT A/D
FM/XM

Cellular GPS
A/D
DVB-H

Apps DSP
Processor WLAN A/D
Media
Processor Wimax
A/D

 Wideband antennas and A/Ds span BW of desired signals

 DSP programmed to process desired signal: no specialized HW
Today, this is not cost, size, or power efficient
20
Sub-Nyquist sampling may help with the A/D and DSP
requirements
“Airwaves are full”
On the Horizon:
“The Internet of Things”

50 billion devices by 2020

Source: FCC

21
 Internet of Things:
 Enabling every electronic device to be
connected to each other and the Internet

 Includes smartphones, consumer electronics,

cars, lights, clothes, sensors, medical
devices,…

 Value in IoT is data processing in the cloud

Different requirements than smartphones: low rates/energy consumption
22
23
Growth : Technology take-up time to 50M users

24
User Growth

25
Traffic Growth

Year Global Internet Traffic

1992 100 GB per day
1997 100 GB per hour
2002 100 GB per second
2007 2,000 GB per second
2017 46,600 GB per second
26
2022 150,700 GB per second
There will be nine times more mobile data traffic in the 27
Middle East and Africa in 2024.
…Other Challenges
 Network support for user mobility (mobile scenarios)
 – location identification, handover,...
 Maintaining quality of service over unreliable links
 Connectivity and coverage (internetworking)
 Cost efficiency
 Fading
 Multipath
 Higher probability of data corruption
 – Hence, need for stronger channel codes
 Need for stronger Security mechanisms
28
 – privacy, authentication,…
29
Future of Wired and Wireless Technologies

30
The Indian Affordability factor
• India has > 1.1 billion people and 200 million households
• Today, India has more mobile phones (~ 350 million) than
fixed line phones (~ 65 million)
• Landline Phones:
– Cost Rs 30,000 to install per line
– Monthly revenue should be Rs.1,000 for economic viability.
• Not affordable by more than 3% of the households
unless we have a cheap solution!
• Need to go wireless in order to increase tele-density.
 India's mobile-phone industry is adding about 10 million new users a
month (mostly in the cities).
 Declining prices for mobile-phone handsets will likely keep sales rising
into the future.
 • Mobile handset costs could drop to less than Rs. 1,000 from Rs. 2,500,
if local companies start to manufacture the handsets.

31
The future of mobiles in India !

32
Point-to-Point Communication Systems

33
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39
Evolution of Current Systems
 Wireless systems today
 3G Cellular: ~200-300 Kbps.
 WLANs: ~450 Mbps (and growing).
 Next Generation is in the works
 4G Cellular: Likely OFDM/MIMO
 4G WLANs: Wide open, 3G just being finalized
 Technology Enhancements
 Hardware: Better batteries. Better circuits/processors.
 Link: Antennas, modulation, coding, adaptivity, DSP, BW.
 Network: Not much: more efficient resource allocation
 Application: Soft and adaptive QoS.

40
 Future Generations

Fundamental Design Breakthroughs Needed

41
42
 Are we at the Shannon
limit of the Physical Layer?
We are at the Shannon Limit
 “The wireless industry has reached the theoretical limit of
how fast networks can go” K. Fitcher, Connected Planet

 “We’re 99% of the way” to the “barrier known as Shannon’s

limit,” D. Warren, GSM Association Sr. Dir. of Tech.
Shannon was wrong, there is no limit
 “There is no theoretical maximum to the amount of data
that can be carried by a radio channel” M. Gass, 802.11
Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide
 “Effectively unlimited” capacity possible via personal cells
(pcells). S. Perlman, Artemis. 43
What would Shannon say?
We don’t know the Shannon
capacity of most wireless channels
 Time-varying channels.
 Channels with interference or relays.
 Cellular systems
 Ad-hoc and sensor networks
 Channels with delay/energy/Cost constraints.

Shannon theory provides design insights

and system performance upper bounds
 Current/Next-Gen
Wireless Systems
 Current:
 4G Cellular Systems (LTE-Advanced)
 4G Wireless LANs/WiFi (802.11ac)
 mmWave massive MIMO systems
 Satellite Systems
 Bluetooth
 Zigbee
 WiGig (60GHz Wi-Fi: set of 60 GHz wireless NW protocols.
IEEE 802.11ad, upcoming IEEE 802.11ay)
 Emerging
 5G Cellular and WiFi Systems
 Ad/hoc and Cognitive Radio Networks Much room
 Energy-Harvesting Systems For innovation
 Chemical/Molecular
 Spectral Reuse
Due to its scarcity, spectrum is reused
In licensed bands and unlicensed bands

BS

Cellular Wifi, BT, UWB,…

Reuse introduces interference

 Cellular Systems:
Reuse channels to maximize capacity
 Geographic region divided into cells
 Freq./timeslots/codes/space reused in different cells (reuse 1 common).
 Interference between cells using same channel: interference mitigation key
 Base stations/MTSOs coordinate handoff and control functions
 Shrinking cell size increases capacity, as well as complexity, handoff, …

BASE
STATION
MTSO
 4G/LTE Cellular
 Much higher data rates than 3G (50-100 Mbps)
 3G systems has 384 Kbps peak rates
 Greater spectral efficiency (bits/s/Hz)
 More bandwidth, adaptive OFDM-MIMO,
reduced interference
 Flexible use of up to 100 MHz of spectrum
 10-20 MHz spectrum allocation common
 Low packet latency (<5ms).
 Reduced cost-per-bit (not clear to customers)
 All IP network
5G Upgrades from 4G
 Future Cellular Phones
Burden for this
Everything performance
wireless is on the backbone network
in one device
Bangalore

BS BS

LTE backbone is the Internet

Internet
LosAngeles
Nth-Gen Phone Nth-Gen
Cellular System Cellular

BS

Much better performance and reliability than today

- Gbps rates, low latency, 99% coverage, energy efficiency
 Wifi Networks
Multimedia Everywhere, Without Wires

802.11ac

• Streaming video
• Gbps data rates
• High reliability Wireless HDTV
• Coverage inside and out and Gaming
 Wireless LAN Standards
 802.11b (Old – 1990s)
 Standard for 2.4GHz ISM band (80 MHz)
 Direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS)
 Speeds of 11 Mbps, approx. 500 ft range Many
WLAN
 802.11a/g (Middle Age– mid-late 1990s) cards
 Standard for 5GHz band (300 MHz)/also 2.4GHz have
 OFDM in 20 MHz with adaptive rate/codes (a/b/g/n)
 Speeds of 54 Mbps, approx. 100-200 ft range

 802.11n/ac/ax (current/next gen)

 Standard in 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band
 Adaptive OFDM /MIMO in 20/40/80/160 MHz
 Antennas: 2-4, up to 8
 Speeds up to 1 Gbps (10 Gbps for ax), approx. 200 ft range
 Other advances in packetization, antenna use, multiuser MIMO
 Why does WiFi performance suck?
Carrier Sense Multiple Access:
if another WiFi signal
detected, random backoff

Collision Detection: if collision

detected, resend

 The WiFi standard lacks good mechanisms to mitigate

interference, especially in dense AP deployments
 Multiple access protocol (CSMA/CD) from 1970s
 Static channel assignment, power levels, and carrier sensing
thresholds
 In such deployments WiFi systems exhibit poor spectrum
reuse and significant contention among APs and clients
 Result is low throughput and a poor user experience
 Multiuser MIMO will help each AP, but not interfering APs
Self-Organizing Networks for WiFi

SoN - Channel Selection

- Power Control
Controller
- etc.

 SoN-for-WiFi: dynamic self-organization network

software to manage of WiFi APs.
 Allows for capacity/coverage/interference mitigation
tradeoffs.
 Also provides network analytics and planning.
 Satellite Systems

 Cover very large areas

 Different orbit heights
GEOs (39000 Km) versus LEOs (2000 Km)
 Optimized for one-way transmission
Radio (XM, Sirius) and movie (SatTV, DVB/S) broadcasts
Most two-way systems went bankrupt
 Global Positioning System (GPS) ubiquitous
Satellite signals used to pinpoint location
Popular in cell phones, PDAs, and navigation devices
 Bluetooth
 Cable replacement RF technology (low cost)
 Short range (10m, extendable to 100m)
 2.4 GHz band (crowded)
 1 Data (700 Kbps) and 3 voice channels, up
to 3 Mbps
 Widely supported by telecommunications,
PC, and consumer electronics companies
 Few applications beyond cable replacement
8C32810.61-Cimini-7/98
IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee Radios
 Low-rate low-power low-cost secure radio
 Complementary to WiFi and Bluetooth
 Frequency bands: 784, 868, 915 MHz, 2.4 GHz
 Data rates: 20Kbps, 40Kbps, 250 Kbps
 Range: 10-100m line-of-sight
 Support for large mesh networking or star clusters
 Support for low latency devices
 CSMA-CA channel access
 Applications: light switches, electricity meters,
traffic management, and other low-power sensors.
 Spectrum Regulation
o Spectrum a scarce public resource, hence allocated
o Spectral allocation in US controlled by FCC
(commercial) or OSM (defense)
o FCC auctions spectral blocks for set applications.
o Some spectrum set aside for universal use
o Worldwide spectrum controlled by ITU-R
o Regulation is a necessary evil.
Innovations in regulation being considered worldwide
in multiple cognitive radio paradigms
 Standards
 Interacting systems require standardization
 Companies want their systems adopted as standard
 Alternatively try for de-facto standards

 Standards determined by TIA/CTIA in US

 IEEE standards often adopted
 Process fraught with inefficiencies and conflicts

 Worldwide standards determined by ITU-T

 In Europe, ETSI is equivalent of IEEE

Standards for current systems are summarized in Appendix D.

 Emerging Systems
 New cellular system architectures
 mmWave/massive MIMO communications
 Software-defined network architectures
 Ad hoc/mesh wireless networks
 Cognitive radio networks
 Wireless sensor networks
 Energy-constrained radios
 Distributed control networks
 Chemical Communications
 Applications of Communications in Health, Bio-
medicine, and Neuroscience
 Rethinking “Cells” in Cellular
How should cellular
Coop Small
MIMO Cell systems be designed for
Relay
- Capacity
- Coverage
DAS - Energy efficiency
- Low latency
 Traditional cellular design “interference-limited”
 MIMO/multiuser detection can remove interference
 Cooperating BSs form a MIMO array: what is a cell?
 Relays change cell shape and boundaries
 Distributed antennas move BS towards cell boundary
 Small cells create a cell within a cell
 Mobile cooperation via relays, virtual MIMO, network coding.
Software-Defined Network Architectures
Video Security Cloud Computing
M2M App layer
Vehicular
Networks
Health

Freq. Power Self QoS CS

Allocation
ICIC Opt. Threshold
Control Healing

Network Optimization
UNIFIED CONTROL PLANE

HW layer
Distributed Antennas

WiFi Cellular mmWave

… Ad-Hoc
Networks
 Ad-Hoc Networks

 Peer-to-peer communications
 No backbone infrastructure or centralized control
 Routing can be multihop.
 Topology is dynamic.
 Fully connected with different link SINRs
 Open questions
 Fundamental capacity region
 Resource allocation (power, rate, spectrum, etc.)
 Routing
 Cognitive Radios
CRTx CRRx
IP
NCR
NCR CR CR NCRRx
NCRTx

MIMO Cognitive Underlay Cognitive Overlay

 Cognitive radios support new users in existing
crowded spectrum without degrading licensed users
 Utilize advanced communication and DSP techniques
 Coupled with novel spectrum allocation policies

 Multiple paradigms
 (MIMO) Underlay (interference below a threshold)
 Interweave finds/uses unused time/freq/space slots
 Overlay (overhears/relays primary message while
cancelling interference it causes to cognitive receiver)
 Wireless Sensor Networks
Data Collection and Distributed Control
• Smart homes/buildings
• Smart structures
• Search and rescue
• Homeland security
• Event detection
• Battlefield surveillance

 Energy (transmit and processing) is the driving constraint

 Data flows to centralized location (joint compression)
 Low per-node rates but tens to thousands of nodes
 Intelligence is in the network rather than in the devices
 Energy-Constrained Radios
 Transmit energy minimized by sending bits slowly
 Leads to increased circuit energy consumption

 Short-range networks must consider both transmit

and processing/circuit energy.
 Sophisticated encoding/decoding not always energy-
efficient.
 MIMO techniques not necessarily energy-efficient
 Long transmission times not necessarily optimal
 Multihop routing not necessarily optimal
 Sub-Nyquist sampling can decrease energy and is
sometimes optimal!
 Where should energy come from?

• Batteries and traditional charging mechanisms

• Well-understood devices and systems

• Wireless-power transfer
• Poorly understood, especially at large distances and
with high efficiency

• Communication with Energy Harvesting Radios

• Intermittent and random energy arrivals
• Communication becomes energy-dependent
• Can combine information and energy transmission
• New principles for radio and network design needed.
 Distributed Control over Wireless
Automated Vehicles
- Cars
- Airplanes/UAVs
- Insect flyers

Interdisciplinary design approach

• Control requires fast, accurate, and reliable feedback.
• Wireless networks introduce delay and loss
• Need reliable networks and robust controllers
• Mostly open problems : Many design challenges
 Chemical Communications

 Can be developed for both macro (>cm) and

micro (<mm) scale communications
 Greenfield area of research:
 Need new modulation schemes, channel
impairment mitigation, multiple acces, etc.
 Applications in Health,
Biomedicine and Neuroscience
Neuroscience
-Nerve network
Body-Area (re)configuration
Networks -EEG/ECoG signal
processing
- Signal processing/control
for deep brain stimulation
- SP/Comm applied to
bioscience
Recovery from Nerve Damage

ECoG Epileptic Seizure Localization

EEG

ECoG
 References
1. Andrea Goldsmith, Wireless Communications, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
2. Harry R. Anderson,“Fixed Broadband Wireless System Design” John
Wiley,India,2003
3. Andreas.F. Molisch, “Wireless Communications”, John Wiley – India, 2006.
4. Simon Haykin & Michael Moher, “Modern Wireless Communications”,
Pearson Education, 2007
5. Rappaport. T.S., “Wireless communications”, Pearson Education, 2003.
6. Vijay. K. Garg, “Wireless Communication and Networking”, Morgan
Kaufmann Publishers, 2007.
7. William Stallings, "Wireless Communications and networks" Pearson / Prentice
Hall of India, 2nd Ed., 2007.
8. NPTEL Course on Wireless Communications, IIT Delhi