MASTER THESIS PROJECT PROPOSALS: SIGNAL PROCESSING FOR WIRELESS AND SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS Prof. Claudio Sacchi Academic year 2015-2016
Outlines General rules; Project P1: LTE-A Small Cell Wireless Backhauling; Project P2: Novel radio access techniques for 5G access; Project P3: LTE Cell Synchronization; Project P4: Reconfigurable SDR satellite transceivers; Project P5: Iterative Detection for Turbo-coded Satellite OFDM; Project P6: Smart wireless vehicular networking; Project P7: SDR and SDN for terabit satellites; Project P8: SDR implementation of ASTC Co-Dec; Project P9: Full-Duplex satellite communications.
General rules The listed thesis projects are specifically available for Master Students coming from University of Trento, MSc. course on Telecommunications Engineering; BUT: if a Master student enrolled in another university (Italian, EU, extra-eu, etc.) was strongly committed to work on one of such projects, this is, in principle, allowed PROVIDED THAT he can find an internal supervisor of his/her University interested to the topic of the project as well and be ready to work in remote modality with my research group; Pre-requirements for the proposed thesis works are: Programming skill (MATLAB, SIMULINK, C, C++); Capability of critically analyzing literature and state-of-the-art; Capability of timely delivering software tools and reports; Serious commitment and attitude to autonomous research. Submission of papers to international journals and conferences at the end of the thesis project is welcome and strongly encouraged.
P1: LTE-A Small Cell Wireless Backhauling Wireless backhauling of LTE-A small cells using mm-wave (71-76 GHz, 81-86 GHz) LOS backhauling techniques; Project topics: Use of non-coherent wideband transmission based on advanced TH-IR techniques; Study of efficient interference mitigation and detection techniques for Point-to-Multi Point backhauling; Performance analysis in terms of efficiency of backhaul operation at networking level (throughput, goodput), not only limited to the analysis at link level (BER, PER). SOFTWARE TOOLS TO BE USED: MATLAB (link level simulations), NS3 (network-level simulations) Thesis in cooperation with University of Rome «Tor Vergata» (URTV) Supervisors: Claudio Sacchi and Fabrizio Granelli (UNITN) Co-supervisors: Talha F. Rahman (UNITN), Cosimo Stallo (URTV)
P2: Novel radio techniques for 5G access New waveforms for efficient radio access in 5G networks working in the mm-wave domain (38 GHz bandwidth); Project topics: Use of power efficient multicarrier multiple access with constant envelope, namely: CE-OFDMA; Combination of CE-OFDMA with spatial modulation in order to improve system diversity and spectral efficiency. SOFTWARE TOOLS TO BE USED: MATLAB Thesis in cooperation with University of Florence (UNIFI) Supervisors: Claudio Sacchi (UNITN) Co-supervisors: Talha F. Rahman (UNITN), Simone Morosi (UNIFI)
P3: LTE Cell Synchronization Secure cell identification and synchronization in LTE systems (with extension to LTE-A and small-cells); Project topics: Analysis of potential attacks to LTE cell synchronization and identification; Analysis of security and efficiency of the standard LTE cell identification mechanism based on crosscorrelation of binary m-sequences; Study and developments of novel solutions for LTE synchronization based on innovative signal processing methodologies and PN sequences belonging to large- cardinality sets (De Bruijn sequences) SOFTWARE TOOLS TO BE USED: MATLAB (sequence generation, signal processing tasks) and other open-source simulators for LTE performance testing (like: TUWIEN simulator) Thesis in cooperation with Università Politecnica delle Marche (Ancona, Italy) Supervisor: Claudio Sacchi (UNITN) Co-supervisor: Susanna Spinsante (Università Politecnica delle Marche)
P4: Reconfigurable SDR satellite transceivers Small satellites (cubesats) operating at low frequency bands (2 GHz); Project topics: Study of communications constraints and impairments of Cubesats; Software-Defined-Radio (SDR) based waveform reconfigurability: narrowband single-carrier, Spread Spectrum, OFDM and/or SC-FDMA: study of a formal criterion for PHYlayer reconfiguration; Simulation of a modular SDR-based reconfigurable satellite modem; Performance analysis by means of simulations and cost/benefits analysis (with tradeoff). SOFTWARE TOOLS TO BE USED: MATLAB Supervisors: Claudio Sacchi (UNITN)
P5: Iterative detection for turbo-coded satellite OFDM Broadband satellites using OFDM modulation, non-linearly distorted by High-Power-Amplifiers. Project topics: Implementation of state-of-the-art differential turbo-coded modulation for OFDM systems with related (non-coherent) iterative decoding; Nesting of iterative channel estimation and equalization in the iterative decoder; Channel distortions due to phase noise and nonlinear amplifier distortions; Performance analysis by means of simulations comparison with state-of-the-art solutions (coherent OFDM, CE-OFDM, etc.) SOFTWARE TOOLS TO BE USED: MATLAB/SIMULINK ESA Alphasat s Aldo Paraboni Q/V Band hosted payload Thesis in cooperation with Dalhousie University (CANADA) Supervisor: Claudio Sacchi (UNITN), Cosupervisor: Christian Schlegel (Dalhousie)
P6: Smart wireless vehicular networking Event detection for smart traffic management in smart cities; Project topic: Study of efficient protocols for wireless connections of vehicle to traffic management infrastructures in case of critical event occurrence (e.g. car jams or car crashes); Objectives of the thesis: efficient management of network traffic to efficiently manage car traffic even in safety-critical situations. SOFTWARE TOOLS TO BE USED: MATLAB, NS3, AND/OR OTHER OPEN-SOURCE NETWORK SIMULATORS Thesis in cooperation with Technion (ISRAEL) Supervisors: Claudio Sacchi, Fabrizio Granelli (UNITN), Co-supervisor: Reuven Cohen (Technion)
P7: SDR and SDN for Terabit Satellites Broadband multi-beam satellites operating in mmwave domain (EHF); Project topic: Use of Software-Defined Radio (SDR), cognitive network and Software-Defined Network (SDN) techniques in multi-user multi-beam terabit satellites; Objectives of the thesis: Efficient bandwidth exploitation, reduction of latencies, maximization of throughput close to 1 Tb/s. SOFTWARE TOOLS TO BE USED: MATLAB, NS3, AND EMULATIONS OVER OPEN-SOURCE SDR PLATFORMS (TO BE DISCUSSED) Thesis in cooperation with Dalhousie University (CANADA) and University of Rome Tor Vergata (ITALY) Supervisors: Claudio Sacchi, Fabrizio Granelli (UNITN), Co-supervisor: Christian Schlegel (Dalhousie), Cosimo Stallo (URTV)
P8: SDR implementation of ASTC Co-Dec Novel space-time coding for Software-Defined-Radio (SDR)- based MIMO-OFDM systems; Project topic: Implementation and testing of novel Algebraic Space-Time Coding (ASTC) and related decoding for MIMO-OFDM over open-source SDR platforms; Feasibility of SDR implementation of ASTC Co- Dec, test in real open-field RF environment. SOFTWARE TOOLS TO BE USED: OPEN SOURCE GNU-RADIO (OR MATLAB) AND FPGA-BASED USRP N210 HARDWARE PLATFORMS Thesis in cooperation with: Higher School of Communications of Tunis (TUNISIA) Supervisors: Claudio Sacchi, Fabrizio Granelli (UNITN), External supervisor: Ahmed Bannour (Higher School of Communications of Tunis)
P9: Full-duplex satellite communications Full-duplex LEO satellite communications for vehicular applications; Project topic: Analysis of full-duplex interference in satellite channels; Iterative interference cancellation and channel estimation in the RF and baseband domain; SDR-oriented implementation. SOFTWARE TOOLS TO BE USED: MATLAB SIMULINK Thesis in cooperation with Dalhousie University (CANADA) Supervisors: Claudio Sacchi (UNITN), Cosupervisor: Christian Schlegel (Dalhousie)