Communications and Signal Processing Research Lab

Research Project Funded By  : National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority ( NTRA )

Primary Investigator :

Prof. Dr. Salwa Hussein Abdel Fattah EL-RAMLY

Professor Emeritus, Electronics and Communications. Engineering Department.

Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University

Project Duration : Two Years ( 15/3/2011- 14/3/2013 )

Group Members :

Project Description :

This research project proposal is a result of the efforts of a team of researchers, who have already established relations between them seeking to do research in the emerging technologies of Mobile Communications under the supervision of Dr. Salwa Elramly, Professor of Communications, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University.

They used to gather in the Communications & Signal Processing Research Laboratory of the Electronics & Communications Engineering Department to discuss the new trends & technologies in Advanced Digital Communication Systems. The Call for Proposals from NTRA encouraged them to submit one, dealing with the topics they found interesting.

The present proposal can be classified as Fundamental Research as it targets academic investigations of new technologies applied in modern digital communication systems which are MIMO and OFDM. The merits of these technologies made them basic to any system intended for future communication system to guarantee QoS (high data rate, low packet loss rate, reliability, high mobility, etc.).

The title of the proposal shows that the research plan covers topics chosen from two research areas launched by NTRA: Areas 3&6. Cognitive Radio (CR) and its closely related topics, Dynamic Spectrum Access and Software-defined radio (SDR) are chosen from area3. The reason for that is the impressive feature of CR as a solution suggested to solve the problem of Spectrum scarcity.  CR networks implementation relies upon SDR and adopts dynamic spectrum access for data transmission. It is also recommended to adopt MIMO - OFDM in CR physical layer.

CR is expected to coexist with some of the 4^th generation Mobile communication systems; in underlay, overlay or cooperative manner. This motivated us to include one of these systems in the proposal: DVB-T (chosen from area 6). Both of them adopt MIMO-OFDM, and they may share the same spectrum with CR.

The team members believe that the research must go in parallel tracks in the above mentioned topics, where the deep understanding of the physical layers of CR, and DVB-T (which are both based on the same technology of MIMO-OFDM) can lead to innovative designs and implementations enhancing the performance of the present ones.

The project proposal contains an educational part that will help graduates and under graduates to get acquainted with new technologies and systems of the emerging fourth generation wireless communication systems, which will be soon licensed in Egypt. This allows them share in installation, operation and maintenance of these systems.

The team members are young researchers (except PI), each of the PhD holders is specialized in one or more of the topics of the proposal, the MSc holders have prepared their thesis in one or more of these topics, and are preparing their PhD theses in one or more of the mentioned topics. So it is expected to have many innovative publications beside the MSc &PhD theses that will be achieved through this project.

• Project Duration :    Two years (15/3/2011 – 14/3/2013)
• Project Budget :    1.7 Million  Pounds

Motivation

The field of Wireless Communications is evolving in an exponential pace. Many new technologies and systems are introduced as being breakthroughs, after that they become outdated or deserted for the benefit of newer technologies and systems. May be the adoption of new systems is slowed down only by the desire to increase the revenues of the older systems before they disappear and leave their place to the newer ones.

In our faculty, we lead research in this domain, where many theses (MSc and PhD) have been prepared and many others are stillrunning. We have a good group of researchers whose members are Wireless Communication Systems, Signal Processing, Networks and Software Defined Radio specialists. By thus, the group can conduct research in a cooperative manner under the leadership of the PI (Prof. Dr. Salwa Elramly). The research group work is expected to be of high standard and aims at achieving research results to be published in international journals and conferences and consequently can be trusted by international entities to share in standardization groups of newer systems.

NTRA being the responsible authority of licensing new services, is expected to encourage research in these new technologies to help in:

1- Deciding upon the best technical offers submitted for these technologies to NTRA.

2- Sharing in ITU working standardization groups.

3- Enhancing the scientific knowledge level of graduate engineers to share in the application of these new services.

The call for proposals launched by NTRA was found to be a good opportunity for the research group members to achieve their ambitious goals and supply the Communications and Signal Processing Research laboratory, Faculty of Engineering, Ain-Shams University with some of the needed equipment to make their research be of better quality and help in the implementation of the algorithms and techniques they propose.

Project Objectives :

The project has two main objectives: research objectives and educational objectives

• Research Objectives

The ultimate goal of this research project is to acquire the knowledge, master the technology and attain the credibility which admits for the research group to share in the standardization of Cognitive Radio (CR) networks both in the physical and Medium Access Control (MAC) layers. The development of new algorithms and techniques will be proposed and investigated to promote the application of CR networks to solve the problems of their coexistence with DVB-T2). The research plan will go through two directions:

1- Working on CR networks.

2- Working on DVB-T2.

Innovative implementations of the new proposed algorithms in directions 1 and 2 will be conducted.

Each direction is detailed in the following.

Direction 1:  Working on CR Networks

This direction is composed of two tracks

Track1:The study of interferences encountered by CR and the ways to mitigate them through new physical layer designs. This can be done by dealing with the physical layer through the introduction of beamforming and  transmit power control algorithm.

Track2:Development of layer 2 multiple access techniques and layer 3 routing protocols for CR networks to achieve highthroughput and low latency due to the special features of CR networks.

Direction 2: Working on DVB-T2

Track3: Investigation of the different parameters affecting the performance of the DVB-T2 will be suggested. Some new algorithms will be proposed to ameliorate the performance of the DVB-T2 receiver. These innovations will be implemented on the WARP kit and tested to assess the performance. On the way of the above mentioned implementations, a WARP Laboratory will be installed in the Communications and Signal Processing Research Laboratory in Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University. A chart that shows the directions and tracks with their inter-relations is shown on page 62

• Educational Objectives

As is well known, the ITU agreed with NTRA to replace the analog TV broadcasting by the DVB-T one. This is a new technology which is not included in the undergraduate engineering courses, even in the postgraduate ones. This fact shows the necessity of introducing short training courses (in continuous education programs) for graduate engineers to share in the implementation, service provision and maintenance of this new service. Also the senior undergraduates can benefit from these courses to build their BSc graduation projects around this technology.

Impact of the Project on Community, End-User and/or Research :

The project has many impacts where it will:

1- Support a promising research group who can achieve good results, have scientific publications of high standard and share in the international standardization groups.

2- Support the Electronics and Communications Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University with some modern research equipment to help upgrading the facilities available in the Communications and Signal Processing laboratory, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University and encourage practical implementations of the new proposed algorithms and technologies.

3- Implementations of the new proposed algorithms and technologies.

4- Help graduate engineers to master the new technologies to be able to implement, and maintain the new developed wireless communication systems such as DVB-T2.

5- Promote the research in the area of wireless communication by encouraging more postgraduate students to prepare for MSc and PhD theses in subjects related to next generation networks.

6- Help industry in transition from analog TV to DVB.

7- Help NTRA to have a detailed study of the new fourth generation standards and emerging wireless technologies.

8- Help industry to build new components with reduced power consumption to prolong the battery life in the hand held sets.