190 IEEETRANSACTIONSONWIRELESSCOMMUNICATIONS,VOL.1,NO.1,JANUARY2002 Equalization Concepts for EDGE WolfgangH.Gerstacker,Member,IEEE,andRobertSchober,StudentMember,IEEE Abstract—Inthispaper, anequalization conceptfor thenovel EDGE,additionalimportantsystemparameterssuchassymbol radio access scheme Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution rateandburstdurationremainunchanged. (EDGE)isproposedbywhichhighperformancecanbeobtained This paper focuses on suitable equalization concepts for at moderate computational complexity. Because high-level mod- EDGE. For equalization, the modification of the modulation ulation is employed in EDGE, optimum equalization as usually performedinGlobalSystemforMobileCommunications(GSM) scheme is of high significance. Optimum equalization, i.e., receivers is too complex and suboptimum schemes have to be maximum-likelihood(ML)sequenceestimation(MLSE)based considered. It is shown that delayed decision-feedback sequence on the Viterbi algorithm (VA), which is used in GSM and estimation (DDFSE) and reduced-state sequence estimation IS-136, would require an excessive computational complexity (RSSE) are promising candidates. For various channel profiles, and is not realizable with currently available digital signal approximationsforthebiterrorrateofthesesuboptimumequal- izationtechniquesaregivenandcomparedwithsimulationresults processors (DSPs). Therefore, alternative equalization strate- for DDFSE. It turns out that a discrete-time prefilter creating a gies have to be employed. In this paper, the applicability of minimum-phase overall impulse response is indispensible for a reduced-statetrellis-basedequalizerstoEDGE isinvestigated. favorable tradeoff between performance and complexity. Addi- Two algorithms belonging to this class of suboptimum equal- tionally, the influence of channel estimation and of the receiver izers are considered: delayed decision-feedback sequence inputfilterisinvestigatedandthereasonsforperformancedegra- dationcomparedtotheadditivewhiteGaussiannoisechannelare estimation (DDFSE), introduced by Duel-Hallen and Hee- indicated.Finally,theoverallsystemperformanceattainablewith gard [3], [4], and reduced-state sequence estimation (RSSE), theproposedequalizationconceptisdeterminedfortransmission proposed by Qureshi and Eyubogˇlu [5], [6] (see also [7]), withchannelcoding. which may be viewed as a generalization of DDFSE. Both IndexTerms—EDGE,equalization,mobilecommunications,re- schemes are well suited for implementation because of their duced-statetrellis-basedequalizers. highregularityincontrasttorelatedreduced-stateschemeslike the -algorithm [8] and similar schemes like that proposed by Foschini [9]. Also, in general, performance is significantly I. INTRODUCTION better than that of simpler schemes such as decision-feedback CURRENTLY, third-generation (3G) mobile communi- equalization(DFE)[10],[11]orlinearequalization[12]. cation systems are in the phase of standardization. Two TheperformanceofbothschemesfortheEDGEscenariois major approaches to 3G mobile communications have to be analyzed theoretically and by means of computer simulations. distinguished. The first one is the introduction of completely Inordertoenableacomparisonwiththeoreticallimits,alsothe new radio access schemes, such as universal mobile telecom- performanceofMLSEisdetermined.Forthis,thederivedthe- munications service (UMTS), which is based on wideband oretical bit error rate (BER) expressions are essential because code-division multiple access (WCDMA). In addition, one is withcurrentlyavailablecomputerworkstations,evenasimula- also interested in an evolution of the existing time-division tionofMLSEisimpossibleforEDGE. multiple access (TDMA) standards Global System for Mobile In general, reduced-state equalization has only an advan- Communications (GSM) and Industry Standard 136 toward tageous tradeoff between performance and complexity, if the significantly higher spectral efficiency. For this, a novel channelimpulseresponsewhichhastobeequalizedhasamin- commonphysical layer, EnhancedData ratesfor GSM Evolu- imum-phasecharacteristic[4]and[5].Therefore,theinfluence tion (EDGE), will be introduced for both TDMA schemes. A of an additional discrete-time prefilter, which transforms the detailed description of EDGE including features such as link overall impulse response into its minimum-phase equivalent, adaptation, incremental redundancy protocol, etc., is given in on equalizer performance is analyzed. Also, the effects of [1]and[2].EDGEimprovesspectralefficiencybyapplyingthe differentreceiverinputfiltersareconsidered. modulation format 8-aryphase-shift keying (8PSK) insteadof This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, the dis- binaryGaussianminimum-shiftkeying(GMSK),whichisused crete-timetransmissionmodelisintroduced.DDFSEandRSSE in GSM. In order to enable a smooth transition from GSM to are discussed in Section III. Here, also, strategies for prefilter calculationandapproximationsfortheBERsofbothschemes, ManuscriptreceivedDecember6,1999;revisedJune10,2000andDecember whichturnouttobequiteaccurate,areprovided.InSectionIV, 12,2000;acceptedMay20,2001.Theeditorcoordinatingthereviewofthis detailedtheoreticalandsimulationresultsaregivenforallrele- paperandapprovingitforpublicationisP.Driessen.Thisworkwassupported vantchannelconditionsforEDGEandtheexpectedlossdueto byLucentTechnologiesNetworkSystemsGmbH,Nürnberg,Germany. W.H.GerstackeriswithLehrstuhlfürNachrichtentechnikII,UniversitätEr- imperfectchannelestimationisderived.Furthermore,theinflu- langen-Nürnberg,D-91058Erlangen,Germany. ence of the receiver input filter and the discrete-time prefilter, R.SchoberiswiththeDepartmentofComputerEngineering,Universityof respectively, is analyzed. Also, statistics for the minimum Eu- Toronto,Toronto,ONM5S3G4Canada. PublisherItemIdentifierS1536-1276(02)00191-5. clidean distance are presented by which some insight can be 1536–1276/02$17.00©2002IEEE GERSTACKERANDSCHOBER:EQUALIZATIONCONCEPTSFOREDGE 191 Fig.1. Blockdiagramofthetransmissionmodelunderconsideration. gainedintothereasonsforperformancedegradationcompared By this choice of the transmit filter, the transmit spectra of totheadditivewhiteGaussiannoise(AWGN)channel.Finally, EDGE and GSM are approximately equal. Especially, the somesimulationresultsforcodedtransmissionwithimperfect spectralmasksofGSMarestillfulfilled[15]. channelestimationaregiven. BecauseEDGEwillusethesamefrequencybandsasGSM, the same channel models can be used for system simulations II. TRANSMISSIONMODEL and calculations. Thus, the channel profiles typical urban area (TU), rural area (RA), hilly terrain (HT), equalizer test (EQ), In the following, all signals are represented by their com- andstatic(ST)(nochanneldispersion),whicharespecifiedin plex-valued baseband equivalents. Apart from Section IV-E, [16],areselectedfornumericalresults.Inordertofacilitatecal- only uncoded transmission is considered. The block diagram culations, it is assumed until Section IV-E that the channel is of the system model is shown in Fig. 1. At the transmitter, in time-invariantduringeachburst,2 whichcorrespondstolowor eachtimestep,threebitsofinformationaremappedonto8PSK moderatevehiclespeeds,andthereceiverhasperfectknowledge symbols using Gray ofthechannelimpulseresponse. encoding.1 For transmit filtering, the linearized impulse Forthe receiverinput filter, we assume a filter withsquare- corresponding to GMSK with time-bandwidth product 0.3, root Nyquist frequency response. Two special cases meeting which is the modulation format of GSM,is employed. Hence, this condition are the whitened matched filter (WMF), which thetransmitfilterimpulseresponseisgivenby[13]and[14] belongs to the class of optimum input filters [17], and the square-root raised cosine (SRC) filter [18]. Both will be (1) consideredfornumericalresults. else The(continuous-time)receivedsignalisimpairedbyAWGN, with whichischaracterizedbythesingle-sidedpowerspectralden- sity .Thiscorrespondstothetestcaseofreceiversensitivity; thecasesofcochannelandadjacentchannelinterferencearenot consideredhere. (2) Thediscrete-timereceivedsignal,sampledattimes atthe else outputofthereceiverinputfilter,canbewrittenas where sisthesymbolduration.TheGaussianshaped (5) frequencyimpulse ofduration isgivenby Here, , denotethecoefficientsofthecom- bined discrete-time impulse response (CIR) of transmit filter, channel,andreceiverinputfilter. isthelengthoftheCIR.3 Themeanreceivedenergyperbitisgivenby (6) for (3) where is the logarithm with base two, is the al- where denotesthecomplementaryGaussianerrorintegral phabetsize,and isdefinedas E (7) (4) 1Actually,anadditionalrotationofthe8PSKsymbolsisperformedinEDGE 2Inprinciple,itsufficestoassumethatthechanneldoesnotchangewithin beforetransmitfiltering[13].However,theinfluenceofthisrotationonper- thepathregisterlengthoftheVA,ifuncodedtransmissionisconsidered. formanceisnegligible.Thus,forsimplicity,itisnottakenintoaccountforthe 3Inprinciple,theCIR isofinfinite length.For definition ofd[(cid:1)],thoseL systemmodel. consecutivetapsareselected,whichexhibitmaximumenergy[19]. 192 IEEETRANSACTIONSONWIRELESSCOMMUNICATIONS,VOL.1,NO.1,JANUARY2002 whereE denotesexpectation.Furthermore,asignalconstel- thereliabilityinformationprovidedbyasoft-outputRSSEare lation with unit variance has been assumed for (6). The com- giveninSectionIV-E. plex-valued zero-mean noise is Gaussian and white. This ForDDFSE,onlythefirst , tapsoftheCIRare holds for the optimum WMF [17] and also for an SRC filter usedfordefinitionofatrellisdiagramwith states, becausetheSRCfilterautocorrelationfunctionfulfillsthefirst whereasfortheremainingtapsper-survivorprocessing[25]is Nyquistcriterion,i.e.,itequalszerofor , , performedformetriccalculations.For and ,the [18]. limitingcasesofDFEandMLSE,respectively,result. In front of reduced-state equalization, a prefilter is option- WithRSSE,anevenfinertradeoffbetweenperformanceand ally inserted. The coefficients of the overall impulse response computationalcomplexityispossible.Foreachtapdelay , including the prefilter are denoted by , . ,thesignalconstellationispartitionedinto sub- It should be noted that ideal allpass prefiltering does neither setsusingUngerboecksetpartitioningandtrellisstates are changethechannellengthnorthechannelenergy, .For defined bythe concatenationof the respectivesubsetnumbers convenience,theoverallCIRisalsorepresentedbythevector , (8) (9) Inordertocreateawell-definedtrellis, Theestimated8PSKsymbolsaredenotedby ,where hastobevalid[5].ThenumberofstatesoftheRSSE isthedecisiondelayofthesequenceestimator,whichisgiven trellisisgivenby bythepathregisterlengthoftheVA.Finally,estimatedbitsare producedbyaninversemapping. (10) III. DDFSEANDRSSE For metric calculations, again per-survivor processing is ap- A. CharacteristicsofDDFSEandRSSE plied.Inthespecialcase , EDGEreceiversshouldbeabletocopewiththesamechannel ,DDFSEresults. conditionsasGSMreceivers.Thus,equalizershavetobetested Here,forthefirst tapdelays,eachsubsetcontainsonly for the GSM profiles mentioned in Section II. For the profiles onesignalpoint,whereasforeachofthelast delays,only HTandEQ,thediscrete-timeCIRhasaneffectivelengthof onesubsetexists,whichisidenticaltothesignalalphabet. ,whereasfortheremainingprofiles,fewertapsaresufficient foranaccuratecharacterization(e.g., forTU).Thelength B. PrefilteringforDDFSE/RSSE of the CIR together with the modulation format has a direct Inordertoobtainhighperformance,aminimum-phaseCIR impactonthefeasibilityofequalizationstrategies. is essential for DDFSE and RSSE [4], [5]. Therefore, a dis- In GSM, MLSE using the VA [17], which is the optimum crete-timeprefilter,whichideallyhasanallpasscharacteristic, equalizer in terms of sequence error probability, is widely shouldbeintroducedinfrontofequalizationinordertotrans- employed [20], [21]. The computational complexity of MLSE formtheCIRintoitsminimum-phaseequivalent.Whereasthe is directly related to the number of states of the underlying optimumfilterisrecursive,forapracticalimplementation,afi- trellisdiagram,whichisgivenby .Hence,MLSE nite impulse response (FIR) approximation is of interest. For has amaximum complexityof states forGSM. this,e.g.,theminimummean-squarederror(MMSE)DFEfeed- In contrast to that, complexity of MLSE is prohibitively high forward filter is suited [26]–[28]. In the limit case of infinite for EDGE. Even for TU, a full-state VA would require filter order and infinite signal-to-noise ratio, the MMSE-DFE states, which is currently far too complex for a practical feedforward filter tends to the optimum prefilter. Hence, for implementation.Thus,suboptimumequalizerconceptshaveto filter orders that are not too small, a reasonable approxima- be considered for EDGE. In this paper, reduced-state trellis- tioncanbeexpected.TheMMSE-DFEfilterscanbecalculated based equalizers are discussed. Among the schemes in this viathefastCholeskyfactorization[27]–[29].Recently,aneven class, DDFSE [3], [4] and RSSE [5]–[7] seem to be the most moreefficientalgorithmforFIRprefiltercalculation basedon promising candidates because of their high regularity and alinearprediction(LP)approachhasbeenproposed[30],[31]. good performance. Also, an extension of DDFSE and RSSE Here, the FIR prefilter of length is realized as a cas- for generation of additional soft output is possible, which is cadeoftwoFIRfilters highly desirable for subsequent channel decoding [20]–[22]. Forthis, the principles ofreduced-state equalizationand max- (11) imum-a-posteriori symbol-by-symbol estimation (MAPSSE) have to be combined, which is possible in a straightforward where is a discrete-time matched filter, matched to the way [20], [21]. Two well-known MAPSSE schemes are the (estimated) channel impulse response, and is a pre- Bahl–Cocke–Jelinek–Raviv (BCJR) algorithm [23], per- diction-error filter of length designed for (approximately) forming a forward and a backward recursion (suited for block whitening the output noise of . For calculation transmission), and the algorithm proposed by Lee [24], per- of , only the autocorrelation sequence of has to formingexclusivelyaforwardrecursion(suitedforcontinuous be known, which is proportional to the filter autocorrelation transmission). Simulation results for channel decoding using sequence of the discrete-time channel impulse response and GERSTACKERANDSCHOBER:EQUALIZATIONCONCEPTSFOREDGE 193 thus can be determined in a straightforward way. Then, the Here, denotes the joint probability density function(pdf) coefficients of result from the Yule-Walker equations of the coefficients of the overall CIR. In order to separate the [31], which can be solved via the Levinson-Durbin algorithm influence of fading and intersymbol interference (ISI) on per- [32]. It can be shown that the transfer function tends to formance,thenormalizedminimumsquaredEuclideandistance the transfer function of the ideal allpass filter for . [39],isintroduced,withanormalizationfactor , For moderate finite filter orders, a reasonable approximation where isthemeanreceivedenergyperbit results [31]. foragivenCIR withenergy Thetotalnumberofrequiredoperationsforthisapproachfor prefiltercomputationis .Itshould (15) be noted that the complexity of the MMSE-DFE approach is given by and, thus, is also quadratic in the filter lengths, but the constants are With(6)( isvalid),(13),and(15),weobtainforthe quite large [29]. This is in contrast to the LP approach, which quotientunderthesquarerootin(14) seems to be preferable for a practical implementation. Using the LP approach, FIR prefilters with lengths up to can be calculated in a practical receiver without violating the limitationsimposedbyareal-timeenvironment. (16) C. PerformanceAnalysis Introducing(16)in(14)yields For a fixed CIR , the BER of MLSE, DDFSE, and RSSE canbeapproximatedby[4],[5],and[17]4 (17) (12) In(17),foragiven ,theinfluenceofISIonBERisrepresented bythenormalizedsquaredEuclideandistance andthat Here, isdefinedin(4)and istheminimumEu- offadingbytheenergyratio .Thepdf’sof clideandistancebeingafunctionoftheoverallCIR(including and fordifferentchannelprofileswillbeinvestigated prefilter, if applied), the modulation format, and the selected inSectionIV-D. equalizationalgorithm. isaconstantfactor,whichiscloseto ForthenumericalresultsofSectionIV,themultidimensional unity in most cases for the given channel profiles, modulation integral in (17) has been evaluated by Monte Carlo integra- format, and mapping; therefore, may be well approximated tion[40],i.e., in(17)hasbeenaveragedoverasufficient byone. isthevarianceofinphaseandquadraturecompo- number of random channel realizations drawn from an en- nent of semblewithpdf ,6 resultingin (13) (18) can be calculated using the Dijkstra algorithm Here, and denotetheenergyandthenormal- [33]–[35], which performs a path search inthe state transition ized minimum squared Euclidean distance of the overall CIR diagram of the equalizer and is highly efficient for minimum- correspondingtothe thchannelrealization,respectively.It phaseCIRs.5 Itshouldbenotedthattheminimumphaseprop- turnedoutthat issufficientforreliableresults. erty is no restriction in the case of MLSE because of MLSE does not depend on the channel phase, i.e., the CIR can be transformed into its minimum-phase equivalent before IV. NUMERICALRESULTS distancecomputationwithoutlossofgenerality;inthecaseof A. BERforDifferentEqualizationSchemesandChannel DDFSE or RSSE, a minimum-phase CIR is required by any Profiles meansforhighperformance(SectionIV-A). InFigs.2–6,BERsareshownforallrelevantchannelprofiles Inourcaseofrandom,time-invariantchannels,theBERex- and equalization algorithms, assuming an SRC receiver input pressionof(12)hastobeaveraged filter with rolloff factor . The influence of different receiver input filters on performance will be examined later. WeconsiderallpossibleDDFSEschemesincludingthespecial (14) casesofDFEandMLSE,andthreeRSSEschemes,whichare characterizedby: 4Inthecitedreferences,anexpressionoftheformof(12)isgivenonlyforthe symbolerrorrate(SER).Nevertheless,itisstraightforwardtoshowthat(12)is 1) , i.e., alsovalidforBER,withdifferentconstantsCthanforSER. (denotedasRSSE2); 5AnadditionalimportantattributeoftheDijkstraalgorithmisthataftercon- vergence the exactminimum distanceis available and not only an estimate, 6Pleasenotethathereanexplicitknowledgeofthepdfisnotrequired.Only whichisincontrasttosomerelatedschemes[36]–[38]. thechannelmodelhastobespecified. 194 IEEETRANSACTIONSONWIRELESSCOMMUNICATIONS,VOL.1,NO.1,JANUARY2002 Fig.2. BERversus10log (E(cid:22) =N )fordifferentequalizationschemesfor Fig. 3. BER versus 10log (E(cid:22) =N ) for different equalization schemes HTprofile(withandwithoutallpassprefiltering).“—”:DDFSE(DFE–MLSE, for TU profile (with allpass prefiltering). “—”: DDFSE (DFE–MLSE, BER BERimprovesasK 2 f1;...;7gincreases)(theory).“–”:RSSE(RSSE2, improvesasK2f1;...;7gincreases)(theory).“–”:RSSE(RSSE2,RSSE4, RSSE4,RSSE2(cid:2)2)(theory).“(cid:14)–(cid:14)”:DDFSE(K =1)(simulation).“ – ”: RSSE2(cid:2)2)(theory).“(cid:14)–(cid:14)”:DDFSE(K=1)(simulation).“ – ”:DDFSE DDFSE(K=2)(simulation).“r–r”:DDFSE(K=3)(simulation). (K =2)(simulation).“r–r”:DDFSE(K =3)(simulation). 2) ,i.e., (denotedasRSSE2 2); 3) , i.e., (denotedasRSSE4). Mainly, calculated results are presented. For the DDFSE schemes , a comparison to simulation results is madeinordertoverifyourtheoreticalconsiderations. The BERs for HT (Fig. 2) show that an allpass prefilter is mandatory for reduced-state schemes with moderate numbers of states. Without prefilter, a severe performance degradation occurs.7 Similarobservationshavealsobeenmadein[41]and [42],whereithasbeenshownviaanalyticallydeterminedden- sitiesofzerosofthe transformofCIR thatfortheprofiles HT,TU,andEQ,onaverage,asignificantpercentageofchannel zerosliesoutsidetheunitcircle. It should be noted that for the case of no prefiltering, only simulationresultscouldbeobtainedbecausetheDijkstraalgo- rithmdidnotconvergeformanychannelrealizationswithnon- Fig. 4. BER versus 10log (E(cid:22) =N ) for different equalization schemes minimum-phaseCIR.Withprefiltering,fastconvergencecould for EQ profile (with allpass prefiltering). “—”: DDFSE (DFE–MLSE, BER beobservedforallconsideredchannelprofiles. improvesasK2f1;...;7gincreases)(theory).“–”:RSSE(RSSE2,RSSE4, Becauseofthe poorperformanceofreduced-stateequaliza- RSSE2(cid:2)2)(theory).“(cid:14)–(cid:14)”:DDFSE(K=1)(simulation).“ – ”:DDFSE (K =2)(simulation).“r–r”:DDFSE(K =3)(simulation). tion without prefiltering, this case is not considered in the se- quel.Foreachofthefollowingresults,idealallpassfilteringhas been assumed. According to Fig. 2, with prefiltering, the loss especiallyforsmall andisnottakenintoaccountintheBER of DDFSE ( ) compared to MLSE is limited to 1.6 dB approximationof(17). for HT at ; for and , only slight AmongtheconsideredRSSEschemes,RSSE2 2achieves improvements can be obtained compared to . Hence, the best performance for HT, which is essentially identical to seems to provide the best tradeoff between that of DDFSE with , whereas RSSE2 and performanceandcomplexityforDDFSE. RSSE4performasgoodasDDFSEwith .Thus, Obviously, calculated and simulated results for DDFSE in afurthercomplexityreductionandperformanceimprovementis Fig.2areofthesameorder.Themaximumdifferenceisabout possiblebyRSSEcomparedtoDDFSE .Forcompar- 1.3dB,mainlycausedbyerrorpropagation,whichplaysarole ison,theBERofthestatic(ST)channelequalizedbyMLSEis alsoincludedinFigs.2–5. Figs.3and4showBERsfortheprofilesTUandEQ,respec- 7ThisisalsovalidforTUandEQ,ashasbeenprovedbyfurthersimulations notshowninthispaper. tively. Simulated and calculated BERs agree even better than GERSTACKERANDSCHOBER:EQUALIZATIONCONCEPTSFOREDGE 195 Fig. 5. BER versus 10log (E(cid:22) =N ) for different equalization schemes Fig.7. BERversus10log (E(cid:22) =N )forDDFSE(K = 2)withadditional for RA profile (with allpass prefiltering). “—”: DDFSE (DFE–MLSE, BER allpassfilteringforallprofiles.“—”:SRCreceiverinputfilterwith(cid:11) = 0:3. improvesasK 2f1;...;7gincreases)(theory).“–”:RSSE(RSSE2,RSSE4, “–”:WMF. RSSE2(cid:2)2)(theory).“(cid:14)–(cid:14)”:DDFSE(K=1)(simulation).“ – ”:DDFSE (K =2)(simulation).“r–r”:DDFSE(K =3)(simulation). thesimulatedBERsforDFEapproachthetheoreticalcurvefor large . This is due to the decreasing influence of error propagation. Forallprofiles,asignificantlossinperformancecomparedto theSTchannelcanbeobserved.Becauseinherentpathdiversity is maximum for EQ and minimum for RA, these two profiles correspond to best (behind the reference case ST) and worst equalizerperformance,respectively(Fig.7). B. InfluenceofImperfectChannelEstimation FortheresultsofSectionIV-A,theavailabilityoferror-free channel estimates at the receiver has been assumed. In a real system, DDFSE/RSSE has torely onnoisy channel estimates. For channel estimation, a standard ML approach is usually employed [43]–[45]. In GSM/EDGE, the specified training sequences guarantee an optimal noise suppression of ML channel estimation, if the length of the estimated CIR is limited to and is valid. Then, the estimated channelcoefficientsaregivenby Fig. 6. BER versus 10log (E(cid:22) =N ) for different equalization schemes (19) for ST profile (with allpass prefiltering). “—”: DDFSE (DFE–MLSE, BER improvesasK 2f1;...;7gincreases)(theory).“–”:RSSE(RSSE2,RSSE4, RSSE2(cid:2)2)(theory).“(cid:14)–(cid:14)”:DDFSE(K=1)(simulation).“ – ”:DDFSE wheretheestimationerrors areGaussianandmutuallyun- (K =2)(simulation).“r–r”:DDFSE(K =3)(simulation). correlatedandhaveequalvariances for HT and DDFSE seems to be again the most fa- (20) vorablechoiceamongtheDDFSEschemes.AsforHT,RSSE2 and RSSE4 perform as good as DDFSE , while per- where denotesthelengthofthetrainingsequence,whichis formance of DDFSE can be attained in principle by forGSM/EDGE. RSSE2 2. Theinfluenceofimperfectchannelestimationonthequality TheBERsforRA(Fig.5)showessentiallyalineardecrease ofsequenceestimationhasbeenanalyzedtheoreticallyin[46]. over becausetheRAprofileresemblesaflat An asymptotic upper bound on the BER of sequence estima- RiceanfadingchannelwithsmallRiceanfactor.Withallconsid- tionispresentedin[46],accordingtowhichchannelestimation eredequalizationschemesexceptforDFE,aperformancesim- errorsare equivalenttolossesinpowerefficiencyofsequence ilar to that of MLSE can be attained. This holds also for the estimation.Ifthesequenceestimatorrequires for ST channel Fig. 6. Furthermore, it is obvious from Fig. 6 that a given target BER in case of ideal channel knowledge, then 196 IEEETRANSACTIONSONWIRELESSCOMMUNICATIONS,VOL.1,NO.1,JANUARY2002 in case of ML channel estimation using optimum training se- quences (21) isnecessaryforthetargetBER[46,eq.10].For , (22) i.e., imperfect channel estimation results in an equivalent loss in power efficiency of dB. For , ML channel es- timationresultsincorrelatedchannelestimationerrrors.Inthis case,theperformancelossduetochannelestimationcannotbe determinedinastraightforwardway. Afterinitialchannelestimation,ingeneral,channeltracking is necessary during sequence estimation in order to cope with thetimevariationsoftheCIR.Nevertheless,anadditionalper- formancelossduetothetimevariationsoftheCIRisinevitable Fig.8. BERversus10log (E(cid:22) =N )forDDFSE(K = 2)withadditional andhastobedeterminedviasimulationsSectionIV-E.Ingen- allpassfilteringforTUprofileanddifferentreceiverinputfilters(WMFand SRCwithdifferent(cid:11)). eral,anerrorflooroccursfornonidealchanneltracking[47]. C. InfluenceofReceiverInputFilter Inthefollowing,theinfluenceofthereceiverinputfilteron performance is examined. First, the performance of DDFSE with an SRC filter and with a WMF, in- dividuallydesignedforeachoftherandomchannelrealizations are compared. According to Fig. 7, differences are only small foreachofthefiveprofiles.ForTU,adeviationofabout0.7dB canbeobservedat andforEQ,0.4dBat . For ST, RA, and HT, differences are even smaller. Fur- ther investigations showed that the gap between both cases is maximum (but still moderate) for DFE and decreases with in- creasingnumberofstatesofthetrellis-basedequalizer.Thisis becausetheWMF8 concentratesenergybetterinthefirsttapsof theCIRthanthecombinationofSRCanddiscrete-timeallpass filter; concentration of energy is especially relevant for equal- izerswithfewstates. Hence,afixedSRCfilterseemstobeanear-optimumchoice, while complexity is significantly lower than for the optimum WMF,whichhastobecontinuouslyadapted.Itshouldbenoted Fig. 9. Pdf’s of d (hhh)=d for MLSE and different channel profiles. that the frequency response of an optimum WMF often has a low-pass-like characteristic with a 3-dB cutoff frequency at .ThisjustifiestheapplicationofanSRCfilter.An- remainingprofilesandequalizers.Becauseafilterwith otherfrequentlyusedsuboptimumreceiverinputfilterconsists is more difficult to implement in practice, is recom- ofthecascadeofamatchedfilter,whichismatchedonlytothe mended. transmitfilterandanoisewhiteningfilter.Forthepresentappli- cation,weprefertheSRCfilterbecauseitissimplertoimple- D. StatisticalDistributionofMinimumEuclideanDistance mentandoffersanear-optimumperformance. Fig. 9 shows pdf’s for the ratio Next,theinfluenceoftherollofffactor isanalyzed.Fig.8 for MLSE and the profiles RA, TU, HT, and EQ. For RA, showsBERcurvesfordifferentrollofffactors ;theresultsare the pdf reveals a sharp peak at 0.93. This can be verified, validforTUandDDFSE .Obviously,BERdecreases taking into account that RA in principle is identical to a flat with decreasing . The curves for and are fading scenario. Hence, is essentially almostidentical.9 Similarresultscouldalsobeobtainedforthe given by . Via the Dijkstra algorithm, 8Here,thephaseoftheWMFisselectedinthatwaythataminimum-phase could be obtained, whereas for the AWGN overallCIRresults. channel and 8PSK, is valid [18]. This 9Itshouldbementionedthatalsoforsmallrollofffactorssuchas(cid:11)=0:1, resultsinaratioofapproximately0.93,i.e.,anasymptoticloss L=7tapsforthediscrete-timeCIRaresufficientinordertohaveonlynegli- gibletapsfork (cid:21)Landk <0,respectively. of0.32 dB. GERSTACKERANDSCHOBER:EQUALIZATIONCONCEPTSFOREDGE 197 For TU and EQ, the normalizedEuclidean distance often is identical to that of the AWGN channel.10 In contrast, the pdf forHThaspeaksat1andat0.93.Thiscanbeexplainedasfol- lows.ForHT,pathswithlargedelayshaveonlysmallpowers(in contrasttoEQ),i.e.,theiramplitudesareoftenclosetozero.For thiscase,CIRssimilartotheRAcaseappear,causingthepeakat 0.93.Ontheotherhand,ifthesepathsarenotnegligible,theCIR hasaquiterandomshape,whichimplicatesthepeakat1.0. The pdf’s of the energy (normalized to ) are de- pictedinFig.10forallfourprofiles.Itisclearlyvisiblethatdi- versityincreasesintheorderRA,TU,HT,andEQ.ForEQ,very smallenergiesarequiterare,whereastheyoccurfrequentlyfor RA,whereanapproximatelyexponentialdistributionresults. Finally,thepdfoftheproduct is shown in Fig. 11, which primarily is of interest for per- formanceevaluation(17).Obviously,thedistributionsarevery similar to those for . This fact together with the re- sultsforthenormalizedsquaredEuclideandistanceaccordingto Fig.10. Pdf’sofE (hhh)=E(cid:22) fordifferentchannelprofiles. Fig.9indicatethatperformanceismainlyinfluencedbyfading, notbyISI,ifproperequalizationschemesareapplied. E. SystemPerformanceIncludingChannelEstimationand ChannelCoding Inthefollowing,theproposedequalizationconceptisapplied toanEnhancedGeneralPacketRadioService(EGPRS)trans- mission,whichispartoftheEDGEstandard.Ninemodulation andcodingschemes(MCSs)arespecifiedforEGPRS[48].Four schemes (MCS-1–MCS-4) employ GMSK modulation, which isalsoappliedinGSM.Forgoodchannelconditions,ahigher throughput can be achieved with MCS-5–MCS-9, which are basedon8PSKmodulationandcharacterizedbyindividualcode rates.Each8PSKschemeemploysthesameconvolutionalcode withcoderate1/3.Inordertoobtainthedesiredcoderate,punc- turingisapplied.Forthefollowingsimulationresults,weselect MCS-5andMCS-7,correspondingtoadatacoderate11 of0.37 and 0.76, respectively. Each encoded block is interleaved and assignedtotwoorfourbursts,dependingontheselectedMCS (MCS-5, MCS-7: 4bursts). Each burstconsists of2 58data Fig.11. Pdf’sofE (hhh)=E(cid:22) (cid:1)d (hhh)=d forMLSEanddifferent symbols,26trainingsymbols,whicharelocatedinthemiddle channelprofiles. of the burst (midamble), and three tail symbols at either end. Theinterleavingtables ofthe EDGEstandard havebeen care- to (approximately) transform the CIR into its minimum-phase fullyoptimized.Usingdifferenttablesmayentailasignificant equivalent,afixedFIRprefilteriscalculatedforeachburstvia performancedegradation. the LP approach [30], [31], which uses the estimated channel For receiver input filtering, an SRC filter with rolloff factor impulseresponse.Fortrackingofthetime-variantdiscrete-time hasbeenselectedSectionIV-C.Becauseadditionalre- overallchannelimpulseresponse,theleast-mean-square(LMS) liabilityinformationishighlybeneficialforchanneldecoding,a algorithm[50]isemployed. BCJR-typesoft-outputRSSEalgorithmasproposedin[20]and Fig. 12 shows the resulting BERs after channel decoding [21]isusedforequalization.Astatenumberof ischosen versus for the TU3 profile, where “3” indi- (RSSE2),whichseemstobeespeciallyinterestingforapractical catesavelocityofthemobilestationof km/h.Frequency implementation withonly moderate complexity.Two different hopping has been used in order to obtain a high diversity equalization processes are performed. Both start from the mi- for channel coding. For each of the four bursts contained in damble,thefirstoneproceedsinnegativetimedirectionandthe a block, a different frequency is used. Hence, the channel secondoneinpositivetimedirectionalso[49].Forchanneles- impulse responses of different bursts in a block are mutually timation, the standard ML approach [43] is adopted. In order statistically independent and interleaving is highly beneficial. At , MCS-5 performs dB better than 10ThisingeneraltendstoholdforrandomlygeneratedCIRswithapproxi- MCS-7. On the other hand, MCS-7 is twice as efficient as matelyevenlydistributedenergyoverthewholetimespan,asfurthercalcula- tionshaveshown. MCS-5 in terms of information bit rate (MCS-7: 44.8 kb/s, 11Forencodingofheaderinformation,differentcoderatesareused. MCS-5: 22.4 kb/s). A comparison of Figs. 3 and 12 shows 198 IEEETRANSACTIONSONWIRELESSCOMMUNICATIONS,VOL.1,NO.1,JANUARY2002 for km/h especially at low BERs. Also, nonideal pre- filteringcausesaperformancelossespeciallyforlongnonmin- imum-phaseCIRs,whichfrequentlyarisefortheEQprofile.All the described effectscannot be avoidedin a practical receiver. TheyexplainwhythesimulatedBERcurveforuncodedtrans- missionofFig.13isworsethantheresultspresentedinFig.4 forwhichpracticaleffectsarenottakenintoaccount. Hence,theresultspresentedinSectionIVcanserveasguide- linesforthedesignofequalizationforEDGE,buttheycannot replaceadetailedsimulationofapracticalreceiverincludingall nonidealeffectsandcomponents. V. CONCLUSION In this paper, equalization for EDGE has been considered. Because of the high-level modulation applied in EDGE, in contrasttoGSM,MLSEcannotbeemployedforequalizationin Fig. 12. BER after channel decoding versus 10log (E(cid:22) =N ) for RSSE2 apracticalscheme.Ashasbeendemonstratedbyanalyticaland for TU3 profile (MCS-5 and MCS-7, frequency hopping, imperfect channel simulation results, DDFSE or RSSE with only a few number estimation).BERofuncodedtransmissionisalsoshownforcomparison. of states together with prefiltering are attractive solutions. A state number of for DDFSE and of or forRSSEseemstobesufficientforaperformanceratherclose to the theoretical limit given by the performance of MLSE. Furthermore,ithasbeenshownthatareceiverinputfilterwith an SRC frequency response performs close to the optimum WMF,whilecomplexityissignificantlylower.Also,ithasbeen demonstratedviapdf’softheminimumEuclideandistancethat theperformancelosscomparedtotheAWGNchannelismainly caused by fading, not by ISI, if well-designed trellis-based equalizers are applied. Finally, the effects of channel coding and channel estimation have been considered. It is shown that the loss due to ML channel estimation is limited, however, especiallyathighvehiclespeedsimperfecttrackingoftheCIR causesaconsiderabledegradationwhichmaybecompensated bypowerfulchannelcoding. REFERENCES Fig. 13. BER after channel decoding versus 10log (E(cid:22) =N ) for RSSE2 forEQ50profile(MCS-5andMCS-7,frequencyhopping,imperfectchannel [1] A.Furuskär,S.Mazur,F.Müller,andH.Olofsson,“EDGE:Enhanced estimation).BERofuncodedtransmissionisalsoshownforcomparison. dataratesforGSMandTDMA/136evolution,”IEEEPers.Commun., vol.6,pp.56–66,June1999. [2] R.vanNobelen,N.Seshadri,J.Whitehead,andS.Timiri,“Anadaptive thatpowerfulchannelcodingyieldsasignificantimprovement radiolinkprotocolwithenhanceddataratesforGSMevolution,”IEEE Pers.Commun.,vol.6,pp.54–63,Feb.1999. in power efficiency. Without channel coding, but with ideal [3] A. Duel and C. Heegard, “Delayed decision-feedback sequence esti- channel estimation, dB is required mation,”inProc.23rdAnnu.AllertonConf.Communications,Control, for ,i.e.,MCS-5yieldsagainof dB.Fig.12 Computing,Oct.1985. [4] A.Duel-HallenandC.Heegard,“Delayeddecision-feedbacksequence containsalsoasimulatedBERcurveforuncodedtransmission estimation,”IEEETrans.Commun.,vol.37,pp.428–436,May1989. with imperfect channel estimation which confirms the results [5] M.V.EyubogˇluandS.U.Qureshi,“Reduced-statesequenceestimation of Fig. 3 and indicates a loss due to channel estimation errors withsetpartitioninganddecisionfeedback,”IEEETrans.Commun.,vol. 36,pp.13–20,Jan.1988. of dB at . This loss is in good accordance [6] ,“Reduced-statesequenceestimationforcodedmodulationonin- withthetheoreticalanalysisofSectionIV-B. tersymbolinterferencechannels,”IEEEJ.Select.AreasCommun.,vol. Fig. 13 shows BER versus for the EQ50 7,pp.989–995,Aug.1989. [7] P. R. Chevillat and E. Eleftheriou, “Decoding of trellis-encoded sig- profile.Frequencyhoppinghasnotbeenapplied,i.e.,thesame nalsinthepresenceofintersymbolinterferenceandnoise,”IEEETrans. frequency is used for each burst belonging to a block. There- Commun.,vol.37,pp.669–676,July1989. fore,theavailablediversityislimitedandthepotentialgainof [8] J.B.AndersonandS.Mohan,“Sequentialcodingalgorithms:Asurvey andcostanalysis,”IEEETrans.Commun.,vol.COM-32,pp.169–176, channelcodingtogetherwithinterleavingislowerthanforthe Feb.1984. previousexample.Becauseofthevelocityof km/h,adi- [9] G.Foschini,“Areducedstatevariantofmaximumlikelihoodsequence rectcomparisonwiththeresultsofSectionIV-Aisnotpossible detection attaining optimum performance for high signal-to-noise ra- tios,”IEEETrans.Inform.Theory,vol.IT-23,pp.605–609,Sept.1977. forwhichtimeinvarianceofthechannelduringeachbursthas [10] P. Monsen, “Feedback equalization for fading dispersive channels,” been assumed. Imperfect LMS channel tracking causes a loss IEEETrans.Info.Theory,vol.IT-17,pp.56–64,Jan.1971. GERSTACKERANDSCHOBER:EQUALIZATIONCONCEPTSFOREDGE 199 [11] C.A.BelfioreandJ.H.Park,“Decision-feedbackequalization,”Proc. [38] J.M.CioffiandC.M.Melas,“Evaluatingtheperformanceofmaximum IEEE,vol.67,pp.1143–1156,Aug.1979. likelihoodsequencedetectioninamagneticrecordingchannel,”inProc. [12] R.W.Lucky,J.Salz,andE.J.WeldonJr,PrinciplesofDataCommuni- IEEEGlobalTelecommunicationConf.,Houston,TX,Dec.1986,pp. cation. NewYork:McGraw-Hill,1968. 1066–1070. [13] “TdocSMG2WPB325/98,”ETSI,Nov.1998. [39] S. Benedetto, E. Biglieri, and V. Castellani, Digital Transmission [14] P. Jung, “Laurent’s representation of binary digital continuous phase Theory. EnglewoodCliffs,NJ:Prentice-Hall,1987. modulatedsignalswithmodulationindex1/2revisited,”IEEETrans. [40] P.J.DavisandP.Rabinowitz,MethodsofNumericalIntegration,2nd Commun.,vol.42,pp.221–224,Feb.–Apr.1994. ed. SanDiego,CA:Academic,1984. [15] H.OlofssonandA.Furuskär,“AspectsofintroducingEDGEinexisting [41] W.H.GerstackerandR.Schober,“Analyticalresultsonthestatistical GSMnetworks,”inProc.IEEEInt.Conf.UniversalPersonalCommu- distributionofthezerosofmobilechannels,”inProc.IEEEInt.Symp. nications,1998,pp.421–426. Personal,Indoor,andMobileRadioCommunications,London,U.K., [16] “GSMRecommendations05.05Version5.3.0,”ETSI,Dec.1996. Sept.2000,pp.304–309. [17] G.D.ForneyJr,“Maximum-likelihoodsequenceestimationofdigital [42] R.SchoberandW.H.Gerstacker,“Onthedistributionofzerosofmo- sequences in the presence of intersymbol interference,” IEEE Trans. bilechannelswithapplicationtoGSM/EDGE,”IEEEJ.Select.Areas Info.Theory,vol.IT-18,pp.363–378,May1972. Commun.,vol.19,pp.1289–1299,July2001. [18] J.G.Proakis,DigitalCommunications,3rded. NewYork:McGraw- [43] S. N. Crozier, D. D. Falconer, and S. A. Mahmoud, “Least sum of Hill,1995. squarederrors(LSSE)channelestimation,”Inst.Elect.Eng.Proc.-F, [19] C. Luschi, M. Sandell, P. Strauch,and R.-H Yan, “Adaptive channel vol.138,pp.371–378,Aug.1991. memorytruncationforTDMAdigitalmobileradio,”inProc.IEEEInt. [44] K.-H. Chang and C. N. Georghiades, “Iterative joint sequence and WorkshopIntelligentSignalProcessingandCommunicationSystems, channel estimation for fast time-varying intersymbol interference Melbourne,Australia,Nov.1998,pp.665–669. channels,”inProc.Int.Conf.Communications,Seattle,WA,June1995, [20] W.KochandA.Baier,“Optimumandsub-optimumdetectionofcoded pp.357–361. data disturbed by time-varying intersymbol interference,” in Proc. [45] S.A.FechtelandH.Meyr,“Optimalparametricfeedforwardestimation IEEEGlobalTelecommunicationConf.,SanDiego,CA,Dec.1990,pp. offrequency-selectivefadingradiochannels,”IEEETrans.Commun., 807.5.1–807.5.6. vol.42,pp.1639–1650,Feb.–Apr.1994. [21] P.Höher,“TCMonfrequency-selectivefadingchannels:Acomparison [46] A.Gorokhov,“OntheperformanceoftheViterbiequalizerinthepres- ofsoft-outputprobabilisticequalizers,”inProc.IEEEGlobalTelecom- enceofchannelestimationerrors,”IEEESignalProcessingLett.,vol.5, municationConf.,SanDiego,CA,Dec.1990,pp.401.4.1–401.4.6. pp.321–324,Dec.1998. [22] S. Müller, W. Gerstacker, and J. Huber, “Reduced-state soft-output [47] K.A.HamiedandG.L.Stüber,“AnadaptivetruncatedMLSEreceiver trellis-equalizationincorporatingsoftfeedback,”inProc.IEEEGlobal forJapanesepersonaldigitalcellular,”IEEETrans.Veh.Technol.,vol. TelecommunicationConf.,London,U.K.,Nov.1996,pp.95–100. 45,pp.41–50,Feb.1996. [23] L.R.Bahl,J.Cocke,F.Jelinek,andJ.Raviv,“Optimaldecodingoflinear [48] S.Nanda,K.Balachandran,andS.Kumar,“Adaptationtechniquesin codesforminimizingsymbolerrorrate,”IEEETrans.Info.Theory,vol. wirelesspacketdataservices,”IEEECommun.Mag.,vol.38,pp.54–64, IT-20,pp.284–287,Mar.1974. Jan.2000. [24] L.-N.Lee,“Real-timeminimal-bit-errorprobabilitydecodingofcon- [49] S. Ariyavisitakul, “A decision feedback equalizer with time-reversal volutionalcodes,”IEEETrans.Commun.,vol.COM-22,pp.146–151, structure,”IEEEJ.Select.AreasCommun.,vol.10,pp.599–613,Apr. 1974. 1992. [25] R.Raheli,A.Polydoros,andC.-K.Tzou,“Per-survivorprocessing:A [50] S.Haykin,AdaptiveFilterTheory,3rded. EnglewoodCliffs,NJ:Pren- general approach to MLSE in uncertain environments,” IEEE Trans. tice-Hall,1996. Commun.,vol.43,pp.354–364,Feb.–Apr.1995. [26] W.GerstackerandJ.Huber,“ImprovedequalizationforGSMmobile communications,” in Proc. Int. Conf. Telecommunications, Istanbul, Apr.1996,pp.128–131. Wolfgang H. Gerstacker (S’93–A’98–M’99) was [27] M. Schmidt and G. P. Fettweis, “FIR prefiltering for near minimum born in Nürnberg, Germany, in 1966. He received phasetargetchannels,”inProc.6thCanadianWorkshopInformation theDipl.-Ing.andDr.-Ing.degreesinelectricalengi- Theory,June1999. neeringfromtheUniversityofErlangen-Nürnberg, [28] B.Yang,“AnimprovedfastalgorithmforcomputingtheMMSEdeci- Erlangen,Germany,in1991and1998,respectively. sion-feedbackequalizer,”Int.J.Electron.Commun.,vol.53,no.1,pp. From1992to1998,hewasaResearchAssistant 1–6,1999. withtheTelecommunicationsInstituteoftheUniver- [29] N.Al-DhahirandJ.M.Cioffi,“Fastcomputationofchannel-estimate sityofErlangen-Nürnberg.Since1998,hehasbeen basedequalizersinpacketdatatransmission,”IEEETrans.SignalPro- aConsultantformobilecommunicationsandaLec- cessing,vol.43,pp.2462–2473,Nov.1995. turerindigitalcommunicationswiththeUniversity [30] W. Gerstacker and F. Obernosterer, “Process and Apparatus for ofErlangen-Nürnberg.From1999to2000,hewasa ReceivingSignalsTransmittedOveraDistortedChannel,”Eur.Patent VisitingResearchFellowwiththeUniversityofCanterbury,Christchurch,New 99301299.6,Feb.1999. Zealand,sponsoredbyafellowshipfromtheGermanAcademicExchangeSer- [31] W.H.Gerstacker,F.Obernosterer,R.Meyer,andJ.B.Huber,“Aneffi- vice(DAAD).Hiscurrentresearchinterestsincludeequalizationandchannel cientmethodforprefiltercomputationforreduced-stateequalization,” estimation,blindtechniques,space-timecoding,andnoncoherentdetectional- inProc.IEEEInt.Symp.Personal,Indoor,andMobileRadioCommu- gorithms. nications,London,U.K.,Sept.2000,pp.604–609. [32] J.Makhoul,“Linearprediction:Atutorialreview,”Proc.IEEE,vol.63, pp.561–580,Apr.1975. [33] T.Larsson, “Astate-space partitioningapproach totrellisdecoding,” ChalmersUniv.Technology,Göteborg,Sweden,Tech.Rep.222,1991. RobertSchober(S’98)wasborninNeuendettelsau,Germany,in1971.Here- [34] B.SpinnlerandJ.Huber,“Designofhyperstatesforreduced-statese- ceivedtheDiplom(Univ.)andDr.-Ing.degreesinelectricalengineeringfrom quenceestimation,”inProc.Int.Conf.Communications,Seattle,WA, theUniversityofErlangen-Nürnberg,Erlangen,Germany,in1997and2000, June1995,pp.1–6. respectively. [35] E. Horowitz and S. Sahni, Fundamentals of Data Structures. New Duringhisstudies,hewassupportedbyascholarshipofthe“Studienstiftung York:Pitman,1976. desdeutschenVolkes.”FromNovember1997toMay2001,hewasaResearch [36] J. Huber, Trelliscodierung in der Digitalen Übertragungs- andTeachingAssistantwiththeTelecommunicationsInstituteII(DigitalTrans- technik—Grundlagen und Anwendungen (in German). Berlin, missionandMobileCommunications),UniversityofErlangen-Nürnberg.Since Germany:Springer-Verlag,1992. May2001,hehasbeenaPostdoctoralFellowwiththeUniversityofToronto, [37] J.M.Cioffi,“Anerroreventlengthconjecture,”inProc.Conf.Specific Toronto,ON,Canada,sponsoredbyafellowshipfromtheGermanAcademic Problems in Communication and Computation, Palo Alto, CA, Sept. ExchangeService(DAAD).Hiscurrentresearchinterestsareintheareaofnon- 1986. coherentdetection,equalization,space-timecoding,andmultiuserdetection.