MULTIPLE ACESS TECHNIQUES FOR WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS

Multiple access schemes are used to allow many mobile users to share simultaneously a finite amount of radio spectrum . Sharing of spectrum is required to achieve high capacity by simultaneously allocating the available bandwidth to multiple users.

INTRODUCTION:
In wireless communications systems, it is often desirable to allow the subscriber to send simultaneously information to the base station while receiving information from base station. This effect is called DUPLEXING. Duplexing may be done using frequency or time division techniques. Frequency division multiplexing provides two distinct bands of frequencies. Forward band and reverse band Forward band: provides traffic from BSMS Reverse band: provides traffic from MSBS

 In FDD,duplex channel consists of two simplex channel(a forward and reverse) and a device called duplexer is used inside each subscriber unit and base station to allow simultaneous bi directional radio transmission and reception.

Frequency separation between forward and reverse channel is constant.

TDD uses time instead of frequency to provide both forward and

reverse link.
In TDD, multiple users share a single radio channel by taking turns in the time domain. Individual users are allowed to access the channel in assigned time slots and each duplex channel has both a forward time slot and reverse time slot to facilitate bi-directional communications.

Illustration of FDD and TDD techniques:

 There are several trade off between FDD and TDD approach.
FDD is geared towards radio communications that allocate individual radio frequencies for each user. TDD enables each transceiver to operate either as a transmitter or a receiver on same frequency and eliminates the need for separate forward and reverse frequency bands. Because of the rigid timing required for time slotting, TDD is generally limited to cordless phone or short range portable access.

 The three major access techniques:

Frequency division multiplexing access(FDMA), Time division multiplexing access (TDMA) Code division multiple access(CDMA)

These techniques can be grouped as

narrowband wideband systems depending on available bandwidth.

 Narrowband systems: Narrowband is used to relate the bandwidth of a single channel to the expected coherence bandwidth of the channel. In narrowband multiple access systems, the available radio spectrum is divided into a large number of narrowband channels.

The channels are usually operated using FDD, and to minimize the interference between FC & RC the frequency separation is made as great as possible In narrow band FDMA, a user is assigned a particular channel which is not shared by other users and if FDD is used ,the system is called FDMA/FDD.

 Narrowband TDMA allows users to share the same radio channel but allocates a unique time slot to each user in a cyclical fashion on the channel. For narrowband TDMA systems, there generally are large number of radio channels allocated using either FDD/TDD. Such systems are called TDMA/FDD or TDMA/TDD access systems.

 Wideband systems: In wideband systems, the transmission bandwidth of a single channel is much larger than the coherence bandwidth of the channel.(B >> Bc)

Here a large number of transmitters are allowed to transmit on the same channel.

 TDMA allocates time slots to the many transmitters on the same channel and allows only one transmitter to access the channel at any instant of time
where as spread spectrum CDMA allows all the transmitters to access the channel at the same time. TDMA and CDMA systems may use either FDD or TDD.

Frequency division multiple access:

FDMA assigns individual channels to individual users.

 These channels are assigned on demand to users who request service. During the period of the call, no other user can share the same channel In FDD systems, the users are assigned a channel as a pair of frequencies, one for forward channel and other for reverse channel.

FEATURES OF FDMA ARE AS FOLLOWS: If an FDMA channel is not in use, then it sits idle and cannot be used by other users to increase or share capacity.
After the assignments of voice channel, the base station and mobile station transmit simultaneously and continuously. FDMA is a continuous transmission scheme.

 The bandwidths of FDMA channels are relatively narrow i.e. FDMA is implemented in narrowband systems.
FDMA systems have higher cell site system costs as compared to TDMA systems. FDMA mobile unit uses duplexers. This result in an increase in the cost of FDMA subscribers units and base stations. FDMA requires tight RF filtering to minimize adjacent channel interference. Ts>>tau, thus ISI is less and little or no equalization is required Complexity is less

Nonlinear effects in FDMA:

In a FDMA,many channels share the same antenna at the base station. The power amplifiers or the power combiners when operated at or near saturation for maximum power efficiency are non linear. The non linearity's cause signal spreading in frequency domain and generate intermodulations(IM) frequencies.IM is undesired RF radiation which can interfere with other channels in FDMA systems. Spreading of the spectrum results in adjacent channel interference.

Inter modulation is the generation of undesirable harmonics.

 The number of channels that can be simultaneously supported in FDMA systems is given by

Bt = total spectrum allocation Bguard = guard band Bc = channel bandwidth

Time division multiple access:

TDMA systems divide the radio spectrum into time slots, and each slot only one user is allowed to either transmit or receive.

 Here each user occupies a cyclically repeating time slot, so a channel may be thought of as a particular time slot that recovers every frame where N time slots compromise a frame
TDMA systems transmit data in a buffer and burst method hence transmission is noncontious Hence digital data and digital modulation must be used with TDMA

TDMA frame structure:

 A frame consists of a number of slots.

Each frame is made up of preamble, information and tail bits. In TDMA/TDD ,half of the time slots in the frame information message would be used for the forward link channels and rest half for reverse link channel. In TDMA/FDD an identical/similar frame structure would be used solely for either forward or reverse link (fc is different for F link and R Link). In TDMA frame, preamble contains the address and synchronizing bits/information. Guard times are utilized to allow synchronization of the receivers between different slots and frames.

FEATURES OF TDMA ARE AS FOLLOWS:

TDMA shares a single carrier frequency with several users, where each user makes use of non over lapping time standards.
Data transmission for users of TDMA system is not continuous but occurs in bursts. Handoff process is much simpler in TDMA(because of discontinous Transmissions). TDMA uses different time slots for transmission and reception, thus duplexers are not required. Adaptive equalization is necessary in TDMA systems. In TDMA, guard size must be minimized. High synchronization is required because of burst transmision. It is not possible to allocate different number of time slot per frame to different users.

Efficiency of TDMA:
Efficiency of TDMA is the measure of the percentage of transmitted data that contains information as opposed to providing overhead for the access scheme. The frame efficiency f , is the percentage of bits per frame which contain transmitted data(source and channel coding bits)

The frame efficiency can be found as follows. No. of overhead bits per frame is

Where
Nr=no. of reference bits Nt=no.of traffic bursts br=overhead bits per reference burst Bp=over head bits per preamble Bg=no. of equivalent bits in each guard interval.

Total bits per frame bT is where

Tf=frame duration R=channel bit rate

The frame efficiency is thus

 No. of channels in TDMA system: Multiplying the number of TDMA slots per channel by the number of channels available

where m = maximum no of TDMA users on each radio channel.

Spread spectrum multiple Access:

Spread spectrum multiple access(SSMA) uses signals which have transmission bandwidth that is several orders of magnitude greater than the minimum required RF bandwidth. A pseudo noise(PN) Sequence converts a narrow bandwidth signal to a wideband noise like signal before transmission. Provides immunity to multipath interference and robust multiple access capability. Not very bandwidth efficient when used by a single user but efficient in a multiuser environment

 There are two main types of spread spectrum multiple access:

Frequency hopped multiple access(FHMA) Code division multiple access(CDMA)

FREQUENCY HOPPED MULTIPLE ACCESS: Frequency hopped multiple access is a digital multiple access system in which the carrier frequencies of the individual users are varied in a pseudorandom fashion within a wideband channel.

 FHMA allows multiple users to simultaneously occupy the same spectrum at the same time, where each users dwell at a specific narrowband channel at a particular instance of time, based on particular PN code of the user.
The digital data of each user is broken into uniform sized bursts which are transmitted on different channels within the allocated spectrum band. The instantaneous bandwidth of any one transmission burst is much smaller than the total spread bandwidth. The difference between FHMA and FDMA is that the frequency hopped signal changes channel at rapid intervals.

 A FHMA provides a level of security, especially when large number of channels are used. FH signal is immune to fading. Error control coding and interleaving can be combined to guard against erasures which can occur when two or more users transmit on the same channel at the same time. Bluetooth and homeRF wireless technologies have adopted FHMA for power efficiency and low cost implementation.

Code division multiple access:

In code division multiple access systems, the narrowband message signal is multiplied by a very large bandwidth signal called the spreading signal. The spreading signal is a pseudo noise code sequence that has a chip rate which is orders of magnitudes greater than the data rate of the message. All users in a CDMA system use the same carrier frequency and may transmit simultaneously.

 THE FEATURES OF CDMA ARE AS FOLLOWS: Many users of CDMA system share the same frequency.

Either TDD/FDD may be used. Unlike TDMA or FDMA,CDMA has a soft capacity limit.

Multipath fading may be substantially reduced because the signal is spread over a large spectrum Channel data rates are very high in CDMA systems. Since CDMA uses co-channel cells, it can use macroscopic spatial diversity to provide soft handoff. Self jamming is a problem in CDMA systems.

Hybrid spread spectrum technologies:

Hybrid FDMA/CDMA(FCDMA):This technique can be used as an alternative to the DS-CDMA techniques .

 The available wideband spectrum is divided into a number of subspectras with smaller bandwidths. Each of these smaller sub channels becomes a narrowband CDMA system having processing gain lower than the original CDMA system. This hybrid system has an advantage in that the required BW need not be contiguous and different users can be allotted different sub spectrum bandwidths depending on their requirements. The capacity of this CDMA /FDMA technique is calculated as the sum of capacities of a system operating in the sub spectra.

 HYBRID DIRECT/FREQUENCY HOPPED MULTIPLE ACCESS(DS/FHMA): This technique consists of a direct sequence modulated signal whose center frequency is made to hop periodically in a pseudo random fashion

 Direct sequence, frequency hopped systems have an advantage in that they avoid the near-far effect. TIME DIVISION CDMA(TCDMA): Different spreading codes are assigned to different cells. Within each cell, only one CDMA user is transmitting in each cell. When a handoff takes place, the spreading code of the user is changed to that of the new cell. Using TCDMA has an advantage in that it avoids the near-far effect since only one user transmits at a time within a cell.

 TIME DIVISION FREQUENCY HOPPING(TDFH): This technique has an advantage in severe multipath or when severe co-channel interference occurs. It has been adopted for the GSM standard. Avoids co-channel interference. The use of TDFH can increase the capacity of GSM by several fold.

Space division multiple access(SDMA):

SDMA controls the radiated energy for each user in space.

 SDMA serves different users by using spot beam antennas. These different areas covered by the antenna beam may be served by the same frequency or different frequencies.

Sectorized antennas are primitive applications of SDMA. Later adaptive antennas are likely to be used.
The base stations has complete control over the power of all the transmitted signals on forward link. The reverse link presents the most difficulty in cellular systems for several reasons.
Because of different radio propagation paths between each user and base station, transmitted power must be dynamically controlled to any single user from driving up interference level for all other users. Tx pwr is limited by battery consumption at the SS unit which limits the power control on reverse link

Capacity of cellular systems:

Channel capacity for a radio system can be defined as the maximum number of channels or users that can be provided in a fixed frequency band. Radio capacity is a parameter which measures spectrum efficiency of wireless systems.

This parameter can be determined by C/I and Bc (Channel bandwidth).

In a cellular systems, the interference is of 2 types Reverse channel interference(Interference due to subscriber units in the surrounding cells at BS Rx) Forward channel interference (Interference due to surrounding co channel base stations at subscriber unit)

 Consider Forward channel interference problem: The minimum ratio of D/R that is required to provide a tolerable level of co-channel interference is the cochannel reuse ratio

The co-channel reuse ratio is given by

D distance between the 2 co-channel cells R cell radius

 The carrier to interference ratio is given by

Where M closest co channel cells n0 path loss exponent in the desired cell
D0 distance from the desired base station to the mobile Dk distance of kth cell from the mobile nk path loss exponent to the kth interfering BS

 Illustration of forward channel interference for a cluster size N =4

 Consider 6 closest interfering cells with same distance D and n

C/I is given by
Assuming that the maximum interference occurs when mobile is at the edge of the cell then D0=R, and if C/I for each user >(C/I)min
Therefore

The radio capacity of a cellular system is defined as N is related to Q = 3N From the above equations ,we can conclude that

 C/I is also given by Now if we assume D0=R, then

Therefore

The radio capacity of a cellular system is defined as N is related to Q = 3N From the above equations ,we can conclude that

 Further if Bt and m are kept constant ,it can be written as

Further
(C/I)= EbRb/I = EcRc/I From the above equations, it can be written as

Capacity of digital cellular TDMA:

TDMA systems improve capacity by a factor of 3 to 6 times as compared to analog cellular radio systems. Powerful error control and speech coding enable better link performance in high interference environment. By exploiting speech activity, some TDMA systems are able to utilize each radio channel. Mobile assisted handoff(MAHO)allows subscribers to monitor the neighboring base stations. TDMA also makes it possible to introduce adaptive channel allocation. GSM,PDC have adopted digital CDMA for high capacity.

Capacity of cellular CDMA:

Capacity of cellular CDMA is interference limited, while it is BW limited in FDMA and TDMA.

Therefore any reduction in the interference will cause a linear increase in the capacity of CDMA.
Interference can be reduced by the use of multi sectorised antennas which results in spatial isolation of users. The directional antennas receive signals from only a fraction of current users, thus leading to the reduction of interference.

CDMA capacity can be increased by operating in discontinuous transmission mode(DTX).

In DTX mode , the Tx is turned off during the periods of silence in speech

 For evaluating the capacity of a CDMA system ,first consider a single cell system.

Let the no. of users be N,

The SNR at the base station receiver can be represented in terms of Eb/N0

 Taking noise into considerations,

The no of users that can access the systems is thus given as

further

 The number of users that can access the system is given as

Interference can be reduced by using antenna sectorization. Eb/No within a sector is given by

When the number of users is large and the system is interference limited rather than noise limited, the number of users is

CDMA power control:

In CDMA, the system capacity is maximized if each mobile transmitter power level is controlled so that its signal arrives at the cell site with minimum required S/I. If the signal power of all the mobile transmitters within an area covered by a cell site are controlled, then the total signal power received at the cell site will be equal to average received power times the number of mobiles operating in region of coverage.

Capacity of CDMA with multiple cells:

In CDMA cellular systems , neighboring cells share the same frequency and each base station controls the transmit power of each of its own in-cell users.

A particular base station is unable to control the power of users in neighboring cells and these users add to noise floor and decrease capacity on the reverse link of the particular cell .

 Illustration of users within a CDMA cellular radio systems:

 Fig shows how the users in adjacent cells may be distributed over the coverage area
Transmit powers of each out-of-cell user will add to the in-cell interference (where users are under power control) at the base station receiver The amount of out-of-cell interference determines the frequency reuse factor, f, of a CDMA cellular system Each cell shares same frequency and maximum possible Value of f = 1 is achieved

 The frequency reuse factor of a CDMA cellular system on reverse link is.

No is the total interference power received

from N-1 in-cell users Nai is the average interference power for a user located in the ith adjacent cell Ui is the number of users in the ith adjacent cell

and frequency reuse efficiency F

the average interference power for a user located in the ith adjacent cell

Nij power received at the BS from the jth user in the ith cell

 A geometric technique called concentric circle cellular geometric is used to determine how the propagation path loss impacts the frequency reuse of a CDMA system considering the interference from both in cell and out of cell users

 This technique specifies cell of interest to be circular cell located at the centre and the interfering cells are wedge shaped and arranged in layers Let centre cell have Radius = R

d0 be the close in distance such that all users in the cell are >= d0
All the users in the cell are located at distance d from BS such that d0<= d <=R First layer of adjacent interfering cells is found on R<=d<=3R Similarly second layer 3R<=d<=5R 1)R<=d<=(2i+1)R and ith layer is located on (2i-

In each surrounding layer, there are Mi adjacent cells , where i Layer number

 The concentric circle cellular geometry was proposed by Rapport. The area of the centre cell,(if d0<R) Further, For the first layer

Weighting factors:
The concentric circle geometry allows the interfering layers to be broken into 2 sub layers. An inner sub layer which is on and outer sub layer
The partioning of layers provides 2 sectors within each wedge shaped cell in a given layer. Inner sector(small fraction of area of cell, fewer users) Outer sector(greater fraction of area of cell, more users)

 To account for a wide range of user distributions in the interfering layers, weighting factors are used to redistribute users in the inner & outer sectors of adjacent cell If K is the user density, then total no of users within the center cell is
U=KA

If all cells have same number of users , I layer KA users Area of inner and outer sectors of first layer is

For each first layer to possess U =KA users apply weight factors such that

K user density W1in weighting factors for the user density within the inner W1out weighting factors for the user density within the outer
If W1in=1 & W1out =1 then 3/8 of users are in inner sector and 5/8 users in outer sector

 To find the capacity of multicell CDMA systems, the concentric circle geometry can be used in conjunction with a propagation path loss model to determine the interference from adjacent cell users. The in-cell interference power N0 is

Where P0power received from any one of the U users in the centre cell Assume all adjacent cells contain U users and receiving P0 power from each user of its cell and id at a distance d from BS In the forbidden zone it is assumed not to contain users

 Approximation for d is made while computing the power of the adjacent cell user to its BS By considering the figure, using the law of cosines,

The interference power at the centre of the cell from jth user in the ith interfering cell is

where P0 =interference power received. n path loss exponent ,d is a function of theta

 f can range from 0.316 to 0.707 depending on the path loss exponent and distribution of users. Single Cell CDMA system offers ideal frequency reuse of f=1

Capacity of space division multiple access:

For interference limited CDMA operating in an AWGN channel, with perfect power control with no interference from adjacent cells and with omnidirectional antennas, the average bit error rate, Pb, for a user can be found from the Gaussian approximation.

K-number of users in the cell N - spreading factor Q(x) Standard Q-function

Illustration showing different antenna Patterns:

 The Omni directional receiver antennas will detect signals from all users in the systems and thus will receive greatest amount of noise. The sectored antennas will divide the received noise into a smaller value and will increase the number of users in CDMA. The adaptive antenna is able to form a spot beam for each user in the cell of interest, and base station tracks each user in the cell as it moves .

 Directive pattern can be formed at the base station using N element adaptive array antenna Assuming that a beam pattern, G() is formed such that max. gain is in the direction of the desired user
Beam pattern is as shown in the figure without variation in the elevation plane

 Let Pr;0 received power from the desired user on the reverse link
Pr;i received power from the K-1 interfering users at B.S Assuming total interference power I by a single user is given by

Eexpectation operator idirection of the ith user in the horizontal plane

 Further interference power by desired user if power incident from each user is same= Pc is

Further the average total interference if users are iid (independently and identically distributed through out cell) is given by,

K-number of users in the cell N - spreading factor D directivity of the antenna(3 to 10 dB)

An idealized flat topped pattern with 60 deg beam width and -6db side lobe level:

 As the antenna beam pattern is made more narrower D reduces proportionally The average bit error rate for user 0 is given by

and I

Thus Pb is dependent on beam pattern of a receiver

Further using the fact that additional interfernce from adjacent cells simply adds to the interference level in a multi cell environment

Where f=frequency re-use factor

A figure illustrating the average probability of error for different propagation path loss exponents: