A Blind Adaptive Step-Size Time-Domain Receiver for MC-CDMA Systems

Peerapol Yuvapoositanon
Centre of Electronic System Design and Signal Processing (CESdSP) Department of Electronic Engineering Mahanakorn University of Technology Nong-Chok, Bangkok, Thailand 10530 Email: peerapol@mut.ac.th

Sutat Suwannajan
Department of Electronic Engineering Mahanakorn University of Technology Nong-Chok, Bangkok, Thailand 10530 Email: sutats@hotmail.com

AbstractA blind adaptive step-size time-domain receiver for multi-carrier code-division multiple access (MC-CDMA) systems is presented. Adjustment rules for the receiver tap-weight as well as its step-size are based upon the stochastic approximation of the constant modulus (CM) criterion. The ability of the proposed receiver to detect the desired user in multipath fading channels at full load is assessed. Sensitivity to the various initial values of the step-size and the adaptation rates of the algorithm is also investigated. Keywords: Multi-carrier CDMA, Adaptive step-size, Constant Modulus Algorithm.

I. I NTRODUCTION Multi-carrier Code-Division Multiple Access (MC-CDMA) has long gained considerable interest to be an air interface scheme which has the potential to deliver the demanding 100 Mb/s - 1 Gb/s data rate as required in the fourth generation (4G) mobile communications systems [1]. MCCDMA emerged originally as an ingenious way to combine Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and CDMA and reap advantageous aspects from both multiplexing and multiple access schemes [2]. MC-CDMA has been studied extensively and been found favourable in providing frequency diversity [3], bandwidth efciency [4] and robustness for frequency-selective Rayleigh fading downlink channels [5]. By inheriting the multi-carrier legacy of OFDM, each MCCDMA subcarrier expects to see an individual frequencynonselective fading channel. One-tap frequency-domain equalisers are responsible in handling the magnitude and phase equalisation for such channels [1]. But unless the number of subcarriers is large enough or guard interval is inserted, the decent frequency-nonselective fading channels can easily turn into harsh frequency-selective ones [6], [4]. In this case, low complexity adaptive receivers are usually introduced to handle with the dispersive received signals. However, the precious bandwidth is shared unnecessarily to provide either training signals or channel state information (CSI) to the receiver. To minimise bandwidth wasting, variants of the constant modulus algorithm (CMA) are proposed for blind multiuser detectors for MC-CDMA systems [7], [8], [9], [10]. Recently, a blind MMSE receiver using the constrained minimum output

energy (CMOE) cost function is investigated in [11]. These receivers are however constructed in the frequency-domain which inevitably incurs the burden of including the Discrete or Fast Fourier Transform (DFT/FFT) operations. We propose in this paper a blind adaptive time-domain receiver for MC-CDMA systems which removes the necessity of training information sending from the transmitter as well as the inclusion of the DFT or FFT operations at the receiver end. The step-size and tap-weight of the proposed receiver are updated based upon the rule of minimising the CM cost function [12]. Simulations conrm the applicability of the proposed algorithm for a multipath fading MC-CDMA channel in full load situation. Insensitivity of the algorithm to initial settings of the step-size as well as the rate of stepsize adaptation are also shown. For notation, we use bold lower case for vectors, bold upper T case for matrices, denotes the convolution operation, () for transposition and E{} for the statistical expectation operator. II. S IGNAL M ODEL The MC-CDMA system initially proposed by [2] provides the model of transmitted MC-CDMA signal for user m as 1 sm (t) = Ts
N 1 k=0

Cm [k]am [i]ej(2fc t+2kLt/T s) ,

(1)

where Cm [k] is the frequency-domain spreading code for user m at subcarrier k, am [i] is the data symbol for user m at bit i with symbol interval T s , and fc is the carrier frequency. The spreading code C m [k] has the spreading gain N . The continuous-time transmitted signal s m (t) in (1) can be represented in the discrete-time version by assigning the sampling time to be T s /N and also applied to all M users. Therefore, the discrete-time version of transmitted signals from all users s[n] is then
M1

s[n] =
m

1 sm [n] = N

M1 N 1 m k=0

Cm [k]am [i]ej2kn/N ,

(2) where N denotes the number of subcarriers which is generally designed to be equal to the spreading gain of C m [k] [2].

The modulated signal s[n] is propagated through an FIR channel model with the channel impulse response {h[n]}, n {0, , Lh 1}. Hence, the received signal r[n] at a designated receiver is the result of a convolutional operation between the transmitted signal s[n] and h[n], i.e., r[n] = s[n] h[n]. At the receiver, the discrete-time received signal is therefore 1 r[n] = N
M1 N 1 m k=0

Fig. 1. Linear adaptive AS-CMA receiver structure for MC-CDMA systems. Note that the receiver f [i] is updated at every symbol.

Hm [k]Cm [k]am [i]ej2kn/N + g[n], A. Update Algorithm We consider the adaptation of both receiver tap-weight and step-size based on the constant modulus (CM) property of the transmitted symbols. The CM cost is denoted by J = E{(z 2 [i])2 } where representing the dispersion coefcient and is dened by the type of modulation of transmitted symbols [14]. The CMA algorithm involves nding f [i] which uses a stochastic gradient minimisation of J with respect to = 0. The update equation equaliser tap-weight f , i.e., J f of f [i] at the MC-CDMA symbol time i is given by f [i + 1] = f [i] [i](z 2 [i] )z[i]r[i]. (7)
f =f [i]

(3) where g[n] is an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) with 2 variance g . We are able to represent r[n] as a function of the combined channel-spreading code impulse response by rearranging (3) into
M1

r[n]

=
m=0 N 1

am [i]tm [n] + g[n],

(4)

j2kn/N represents where tm [n] = 1 k=0 Hm [k]Cm [k]e N the combined channel-spreading code response [13]. From (4), the chip-level received signal r[n] can then be written in the symbol-level one in the form of vector-matrix notation as

r[ i] = Ta[i] + g[i], where r[i] = a[i] = T = tm [i] = g[i] = [r[iN ], r[iN + 1], , r[(i + 1)N 1]] , [a0 [i], a1 [i], , aM1 [i]]T , [t0 [i] t1 [i] tM1 [i]],
T

(5)

Using adaptive step-size derivation scheme of [15], the blind mode step-size is updated in order to minimising the CM cost = 0 which J with respect to the step-size , i.e., J
=[i]

gives [i + 1] = [i] (z 2 [i] )z[i]rT [i]Y [i]

T +

(8)

[tm [iN ], tm [iN + 1] , tm [(i + 1)N 1] , [g[iN ], g[iN + 1], , g[(i + 1)N 1]]T .

where denotes the adaptation parameter and [ ] + denotes truncation to lower and upper step-size limits. Y [i] represents the derivative of f [i] and its update equation is given
=[i]

Note that r[i] collects r[n] via the serial-to-parallel (S/P) operation in order to feed the symbol-level receiver as described in the next section. III. D EVELOPMENT OF A B LIND A DAPTIVE S TEP - SIZE R ECEIVER We develop the time-domain adaptive MC-CDMA receiver based on the fact that the transmitted and received MC-CDMA signals can be theoretically interpreted as Direct-sequence (DS)-CDMA ones [13]. The function of the receiver f l [i] is therefore to concurrently despread, demodulate and equalise the received signal r[n] to give a l [i]: the symbol estimate of the lth user. At the receiver, all updates are performed every symbol i and the symbol-spaced input for the receiver is r[i]. The symbol estimate a l [i] is derived from the soft-decision output zl [i] by al [i] = sgn(zl [i]) = sgn flT [i]r[i] (6) where sgn() denotes the sign function of decision device. The block diagram of the proposed receiver structure is shown in Fig. 11 .
1 For the sake of notation simplicity and yet without loss of generality, we shall from now on drop the subscript l from fl .

by Y [i] = I [i](3z 2 [i] )r[i]rT [i] Y [i](z 2 [i])z[i]r[i]. (9) Equations (7), (8) and (9) constitute the adaptive step-size CMA (AS-CMA) time-domain receiver for MC-CDMA systems which is identical to the AS-CMA algorithm of the DSCDMA receiver [12]. IV. U NBIASED M EAN S QUARED E RROR Since there is no prior information such as phase and amplitude of the desired user transmission available at the receiver, the blind estimates are subject to experience the gain ambiguity [16]. For meaningful performance evaluation, the conditionally unbiased mean squared error (UMSE) is introduced as a measuring function as UMSE = E{(z[i]/q al [i])2 }, (10)

where q denotes the gain factor of the estimate z[i] provided that z[i] = qal [i] + g [i] and g [i] is the representative of the ltered interference plus noise signal. The UMSE will be used as a performance index for both blind and non-blind receivers in the next section.

V. S IMULATIONS We considered a downlink MC-CDMA system with four active users without additive guard interval or cyclic prex (CP). The spreading gain for all users were N = 4. WalshHadamard codes c m [n] {+ 1 , 1 }, for n = 0, . . . , 3 Nc Nc and m = 0, . . . , 3, were generated and then fed into the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) operation to give the frequencydomain spreading codes C m [k]. Since downlink transmission was adopted, all users propagated through the same four-ray multipath raised cosine channel and no near-far situation is observed. We assumed without loss of generality that the location of the delay of the dominant path was known at the receiver. The rectangular waveform was used as the pulse shaping lter. The AWGN was assumed to SNR=20 dB at the symbol level. We considered the performance comparison in detecting the desired user transmission of three algorithms for adaptive MCCDMA receivers, i.e., the Least Mean Square (LMS) algorithm [17], the standard CMA algorithm [18] and the proposed ASCMA algorithm. The Minimum Mean Squared Error (MMSE) receiver is used to provide the UMSE bound as described in Section IV and is denoted as [13]
2 fMMSE = TTT + g I 1

10

Mean Squared Error Trajectories

CMA, =1 10 CMA, =1 103

CMA, =1 102 UMSE 10

1

ASCMA, [0]=1 10 3 ASCMA, [0]=1 10 2 ASCMA, [0]=1 10 LMS, =1 10

1

10

MMSE

50

100 150 Number of Symbols

200

Fig. 2. UMSE trajectories of the AS-CMA receiver for different [0] with = 1 103 as compared to CMA, LMS and MMSE receivers. Despite a 100-fold variation in [0] setting, comparable convergence behaviours are noticed. Slightly faster convergence rate is shown for larger setting of [0].
Stepsize Trajectories [0]=1e2 [0]=1e3 [0]=1e5

10

T.

(11)
10
1

Choice of initialisation is crucial to assist all blind algorithms, i.e., CMA and AS-CMA receivers, in avoiding local minima and converge with high probability to the desired solution [14], [19]. Initialising f [0] of both blind receivers with the time-domain spreading code of the desired (rst) user c0 = [c0 [0], c0 [1], c0 [2], c0 [3]]T is a reasonable choice due to the availability of such code at the receiver. We started by xing the adaptation parameter to 1 10 3 and examined the behaviours of the AS-CMA receiver at different settings of the initial step-size [0]. Fig. 2 shows respectively three unbiased mean-squared error trajectories of different initialised step-sizes [0] = {110 5, 1103, 1 102 } as compared to those of other receivers. Setting [0] too high may result in divergence of the algorithm. Each plot was averaged over 100 Monte Carlo runs for 250 transmitted symbols. The UMSE trajectories of the standard CMA receivers are also plotted for = {110 4, 1103 , 1102 }. With the 1,000-fold [0] variation, all trajectories of the step-sizes for the proposed AS-CMA receiver in Fig. 3 show an approximately identical behaviour in convergence. As compared to CMA, the AS-CMA receiver tends to converge faster given that an initial step-size for AS-CMA being equal to a xed one for CMA. AS-CMA is able to adapt its step-size in order to minimise the CM cost while the speed of CMA depends heavily on its predetermined step-size. As compared to LMS, the convergence speed of AS-CMA is expected to be slower due to its non-linear cost function. However, it is shown that the steady-state UMSE performance of the AS-CMA coincides with that of LMS given the virtue that no training information is required for AS-CMA. After symbol i = 100, all trajectories stay at the same level. It is noticed that the algorithm converges slightly faster at

10 [n] 10

10

10

50

100 150 Number of Symbols

200

250

Fig. 3. The trajectories of step-sizes [n] of AS-CMA receiver for different [0] with = 1 103 . All trajectories converge to the same location at approximately 0.1.

larger initial setting of step-sizes. A similar result has also been observed for the non-blind adaptive step-size LMS (ASLMS) algorithm shown in [20]. Fig. 3 shows the trajectories of step-sizes of AS-CMA. Clearly, different trajectories with each initialisation is barely distinguishable since all trajectories go to the same location. It also suggests that the steady-state n= step-size to be [n] 0.1. We shall now proceed to examine the performance of the AS-CMA receiver at different s. Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 show trajectories of UMSE and [n] respectively at different settings of = {1 104 , 1 103 , 1 102 } while [0] was set at 1 105 . Clearly, changing does affect the convergence speed of the algorithm. Larger s give faster convergence speed than smaller ones but with the penalty of noisy steady-

10

Mean Squared Error Trajectories

ASCMA, =1 10

ASCMA, =1 103 ASCMA, =1 104 10

1

the proposed AS-CMA receiver is relatively insensitive to the 1,000-fold variation of initial step-sizes and 100-fold adaptation rate settings of the AS-CMA algorithm. The performance comparison has shown consistency of AS-CMA with the existing non-blind time-domain receivers. R EFERENCES

UMSE

LMS, =1 101

10

MMSE

50

100 150 Number of Symbols

200

Fig. 4. UMSE trajectories of the AS-CMA receiver for different s with [0] = 1 102 as compared to CMA, LMS and MMSE receivers. As predicted, varying affects convergence speed of the receiver. Larger s give faster convergence speed than smaller ones but with the penalty of noisy steady-state UMSE.
Stepsize Trajectories 10
0

=1e2 =1e3 =1e4

10

10 [n]

10

10

10

50

100 150 Number of Symbols

200

250

Fig. 5. The trajectories of step-sizes [n] of AS-CMA for different with [0] = 1 105 . Notice the comparable steady-state locations of each trajectory of [n] which associated with a 100-fold variation of s.

state UMSE. However, each [n] still converges in the vicinity of 0.1 despite a 100-fold difference of s. Although unique global convergence of AS-CMA receiver has not yet been proven, the consistency in convergence of different adaptation rates suggests the insensitivity of adaptation rate of the ASCMA receiver for MC-CDMA systems. VI. C ONCLUSION In this paper, a blind adaptive step-size time-domain receiver for MC-CDMA is introduced. The step-size and tap-weight of the proposed receiver are updated based upon the rule of minimising the CM cost function. It is shown that the receiver can be employed for a downlink frequency-selective fading MC-CDMA channel. Simulation results suggest that

[1] S. Hara and R. Prasad, Multicarrier Techniques for 4G Mobile Communications, Artech House universal personal communications series, Boston, 2003. [2] N. Yee, J. P. Linnartz, and G. Fettweis, Multicarrier cdma in indoor wireless networks, in Proc. Int. Symp. Personal Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC), Yokohama, Japan, 1993, pp. 109113. [3] D. N. Kalofonos, M. Stojanovic, and J. G. Proakis, Performance of adaptive MC-CDMA detectors in rapidly fading rayleigh channels, IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun., vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 229239, MArch 2003. [4] X. Gui and T.S. Ng, Performance of asynchronous orthogonal multicarrier CDMA system in frequency selective fading channel, IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 47, no. 7, pp. 10841091, July 1999. [5] S. Hara and R. Prasad, Design and performance of multicarrier CDMA system in frequency-selective rayleigh fading channels, IEEE Trans. on Vehic. Technol., vol. 48, no. 5, pp. 15841595, September 1999. [6] S. L. Miller and B. J. Rainbolt, MMSE detection of multicarrier CDMA, IEEE J. Select. Areas Commun., vol. 18, no. 11, pp. 2356 2362, November 2000. [7] J. Mguez and L. Castedo, Blid multiuser interference cancellation in multicarrier CDMA: a linearly constrained constant modulus approach, in Proc. Int. Symp. Personal Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC), Boston, MA, September 1998, vol. 2, pp. 523 527. [8] D.-J. Kim, J.-E. Kim, and C.-E. Kang, The new approach to mitigate MAI in MC-CDMA systems, in IEEE VTS 50th Vehicular Technology Conference, Fall., Amsterdam, September 1999, vol. 1, pp. 171 175. [9] D. Darsena, G. Gelli, L. Paura, and F. Verde, Blind multiuser detection for MC-CDMA systems, in Proc. Asilomar Conf. on Signals, Systems and Computers, Pacic Grove, CA, November 2002, vol. 2, pp. 1419 1423. [10] S.-J.Chern, C.-Y. Chang, and H.-C. Liu, Multiuser wavelet based MCCDMA receiver with linerly constrained constant modulus IQRD-RLS algorithm, in Proc. Int. Symp. Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 2002, vol. 1, pp. I193 I196. [11] H. Cheng and S. C. Chan, Blind linear MMSE receivers for MCCDMA systems, IEEE trans. Circuits and Systems-I, vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 367376, February 2007. [12] P. Yuvapoositanon and J. A. Chambers, Adaptive step-size constant modulus algorithm for DS-CDMA receivers in nonstationary environments, Signal Processing, vol. 82, pp. 311315, 2002. [13] S. Nahm and W. Sung, Time-domain equalization for the orthogonal multi-carrier cdma systems, in Proc. Global Telecommunications Conference (GLOBECOM), London, UK, 1996, pp. 15831587. [14] C. R. Johnson Jr., P. Schniter, I. Fijalkow, L. Tong, J. D. Behm, M. G. Larimore, D. R. Brown, R. A. Casas, T. J. Endres, S. Lambotharan, A. Touzni, H. H. Zeng, M. Green, and J. R. Treichler, The core of FSECMA behavior theory, in Unsupervised Adaptive Filtering, S. Haykin, Ed., vol. 2, pp. 13112. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2000. [15] A. Benveniste, M. M tivier, and P. Priouret, Adaptive Algorithms and e Stochastic Approximations, Volume 22 of Applications of Mathematic, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1990. [16] P. Schniter, Blind Estimation without Priors: Performance, Convergence, and Efcient Implementation, Ph.D. thesis, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 2000. [17] S. Haykin, Adaptive Filter Theory, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs N.J, 1986. [18] D. N. Godard, Self-recovering equalization and carrier tracking in twodimensional data communication systems, IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 28, no. 11, pp. 18671875, 1980. [19] P. Yuvapoositanon, Blind Adaptive Techniques for Direct-Sequence Code Division Multiple Access Receivers, Ph.D. thesis, Imperial College, University of London, England, 2002. [20] V. J. Matthews and Z. Xie, A stochastic gradient adaptive lter with gradient adaptive step size, IEEE Trans. Signal Processing, vol. 41, no. 6, pp. 20752087, 1993.