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Fast Iterative Semi-Blind Receiver For URLLC in Short-Frame Full-Duplex Systems With CFO
Fast Iterative Semi-Blind Receiver For URLLC in Short-Frame Full-Duplex Systems With CFO
Abstract— We propose an iterative semi-blind (ISB) receiver enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine-type
structure to enable ultra-reliable low-latency communications communications (mMTC) and ultra-reliable low-latency com-
in short-frame full-duplex (FD) systems with carrier frequency munications (URLLC) [1]–[5]. URLLC, supporting the
offset (CFO). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first
paper to propose an integral solution to channel estimation and transmission of information with stringent requirements on
CFO estimation for short-frame FD systems by utilizing a single reliability and latency, is a key technology for numerous
pilot. By deriving an equivalent system model with the CFO emerging applications, such as tactile Internet, factory automa-
included implicitly, a subspace-based blind channel estimation tion, virtual reality, intelligent transport systems, etc [1]–[5].
is proposed at the initial stage, followed by CFO estimation and However, URLLC design has a great challenge: how to reduce
channel ambiguities elimination. Then, the refinement of channel
and the CFO estimates is conducted iteratively. The integer and the end-to-end latency while achieving similar reliability,
fractional parts of CFO in the full range are estimated as a which has attracted much attention from researchers.
whole and in closed-form at each iteration. The proposed ISB There are several surveys in the literature, which provided
receiver significantly outperforms the previous methods in terms helpful insights of URLLC design. It is claimed in [1] that
of frame error rate, mean square errors of channel estimation reliability can be enhanced through frequency and space
and CFO estimation and output signal-to-interference-and-noise
ratio, while at a halved spectral overhead. Cramér–Rao lower diversity, robust channel coding schemes (Turbo codes, low
bounds are derived to verify the effectiveness of the proposed density parity check codes (LDPC), polar codes) [6], multi-
ISB receiver structure. It also demonstrates high-computational connectivity, retransmission, etc. A comprehensive survey of
efficiency as well as the fast convergence speed. latency reduction solutions was provided in [2] from three
Index Terms— Ultra-reliable low-latency communications aspects: 1) radio access network (RAN), 2) core network
(URLLC), full duplex (FD), short frame, self-interference cance- and 3) caching. From the perspective of RAN, latency can
lation (SIC), carrier frequency offset (CFO). be minimized by shortening the transmission time interval
(TTI) duration (short-frame transmission) [7]–[9], advanced
I. I NTRODUCTION multiple access techniques (e.g., generalized frequency divi-
sion multiplexing (GFDM) [10], filter bank multi-carrier
T HE fifth generation (5G) wireless communications
are expected to support three types of services: (FBMC) [11], universal filtered multi-carrier (UFMC) [11],
non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) [12], [13]), grant-
Manuscript received June 22, 2018; revised December 10, 2018; accepted free radio access [14], full duplex (FD) [15], [16], etc. Most
January 25, 2019. Date of publication February 14, 2019; date of current
version March 15, 2019. This work was supported in part by the Department existing work on URLLC focused on shortening the frame
for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport, U.K., through the Liverpool 5G length, through reducing either the symbol duration (increasing
Project, in part by the Science and Technology Innovation Commission of the subcarrier spacing) or the number of symbols per TTI [1].
Shenzhen under Grant JCYJ20170307151258279, and in part by the Natural
Science Foundation of Guangdong Province under Grant 2018A030313344.
(Corresponding author: Xu Zhu.) A. Related Work
Y. Liu is with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, Short-frame communications have two serious problems as
University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GJ, U.K., and also with the Depart-
ment of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool follows. On one hand, classical information-theoretic perfor-
University, Suzhou 215123, China (e-mail: yujieliu@liverpool.ac.uk). mance metrics relevant for long frames, i.e., ergodic capac-
X. Zhu is with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, ity and outage capacity, are no longer applicable for short
University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GJ, U.K., and also with the School
of Electronic and Information Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, frames, since the law of large number cannot be applied [7].
Shenzhen 518055, China (e-mail: xuzhu@liverpool.ac.uk). To tackle this, new performance metrics were introduced for
E. G. Lim is with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineer- short frames in [7], namely maximum coding rate at finite
ing, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou 215123, China (e-mail:
enggee.lim@xjtlu.edu.cn). frame length and finite frame error probability. Based on these,
Y. Jiang is with the School of Electronic and Information Engineer- the performance of NOMA in short-frame communications
ing, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China (e-mail: was investigated in both [12] and [13] and it was concluded
jiangyufei@hit.edu.cn).
Y. Huang is with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Elec- that NOMA has a much superior performance than orthog-
tronics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GJ, U.K. (e-mail: onal multiple access (OMA) in terms of both latency and
yi.huang@liverpool.ac.uk). throughput. Also, a wireless-powered communication network
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. at finite frame length regime was studied in [9] and [17],
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSAC.2019.2898746 respectively.
0733-8716 © 2019 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
840 IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 37, NO. 4, APRIL 2019
On the other hand, the length of pilot is a challenging initial estimate of the desired channel. An iterative maximum-
issue in short-frame communications [7], [8], [18], [19]. Pilot likelihood (ML) channel estimator was described for the
transmission is important for a reliable receiver design, such estimation of both SI and desired channels in [29], by utilizing
as obtaining a good synchronization and channel estimation, the known SI, the pilots and unknown data symbols of the
which requires a large number of pilots. However, a large desired signal. Nevertheless, it has high training overhead, due
number of pilots are likely to reduce the useful data rate to the consecutive pilot transmission for a long period. When
fraction in short-frame communications, resulting in low spec- applied to short-frame communications, it has a significant
tral efficiency. The impact of pilot length on the performance performance degradation. Koohian et al. [25] proposed a
of short-frame physical-layer network coding systems was superimposed signaling technique to cancel SI and detect
studied and random coding bound was utilized to identify good the desired signal without requiring the procedure of channel
pilot-length regimes [18]. Mousaei and Smida [19] optimized estimation. However, its SI channel is assumed to be flat fading
the pilot overhead for short-frame communications and studied only, and thus it cannot be utilized if frequency selective
the relationship between the pilot overhead and the frame channel fading exists. In [32], a subspace based algorithm
length and error probability. To overcome the reduced training was proposed to jointly estimate the coefficients of both SI
overhead due to short frames, the detected data symbols and desired channels and transceiver impairments. However,
were utilized to further enhance the reliability of short-frame it requires lots of data symbols to achieve a good second-order
communications in [8]. statistics of received signal, which performs poorly if applied
FD communication, which allows simultaneous transmis- to short-frame communications.
sion and reception at the same frequency, can double the Meanwhile, when considering system impairments,
transmission rate and reduce the end-to-end latency [2], [3], the existing work on FD systems with long frames usually
[20], [21]. However, much less work on short-frame communi- considered IQ imbalances at transmitter and/or receiver
cations has considered it. When introducing FD to short-frame [30]–[32], phase noises [29], [31] and power amplifier
communications, two research problems can be investigated: nonlinearities [31], [32], and only a few considered carrier
1) how much throughput can FD achieve at finite frame length frequency offset (CFO). CFO is usually incurred by the
regime, in comparison to half-duplex (HD) mode? and 2) with mismatch between local oscillators at the transmitter and
limited pilot and data symbols, how to design a high-reliability receiver or a Doppler frequency shift. When CFO is present,
receiver for FD systems? Regarding the first problem, the reliability of FD systems degrades greatly. CFO estimation
Gu et al. [15] analyzed and compared the performance of and compensation are well-researched problems in HD OFDM
FD and HD relaying for URLLC and concluded that FD systems [33]–[35]. However, it is not straightforward to apply
relaying is more preferable. However, its superior performance them to FD OFDM systems, since the compensation of CFO
is achieved only if self-interference (SI) resulting from FD based on the desired signal would introduce a CFO to the
transmission has been canceled to a reasonable level. Hence, SI. Only a few works in the literature have investigated CFO
the second question to design a reliable receiver is very in FD systems. A frequency synchronization technique was
essential. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is still an developed in [26] for FD systems. Nevertheless, it requires
open area in the literature. long training sequences and its pilots of the desired signal and
One of the major challenges of FD implementation is the SI should be non-overlapping, i.e., sent in different time slots,
SI from its transmitter to its own receiver. In FD orthogonal resulting in high training overhead and latency. Meanwhile, its
frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems, there are integer and fractional parts of CFO are estimated separately,
mainly three techniques to cancel SI for detection of the requiring two processes and suffering error propagations.
desired signal, namely passive cancelation (PC) [22], [23], A two-step synchronization structure was proposed in [27]
analog cancelation (AC) [22], [24] and digital cancelation that synchronizes based on SI firstly and then the desired
(DC) [22], [25]–[32]. PC is the first stage of SI cancela- signal. However, the first synchronization step treats the
tion, which is achieved by antenna placement, directional desired signal as noise, resulting in poor performance,
antenna, antenna shielding, etc., [22], [23]. In the second and it considers fractional CFO only. Furthermore, both
stage, SI is further mitigated in the analog domain before the [26] and [27] did not consider the estimation of desired
low-noise amplifier and analog-to-digital converter to avoid channel.
overloading/saturation [22], [24]. DC is the last stage of SI
cancelation, which estimates the SI channel, creates a replica B. Contributions
of the received SI and then cancels it from the received signal In this paper, an iterative semi-blind (ISB) receiver structure
in the digital domain. In this paper, we focus on SI cancelation with CFO and channel estimation and signal detection is
in the digital domain. proposed for URLLC in short-frame FD cyclic-prefix (CP)
Several DC methods have been proposed in the literature OFDM systems. By deriving an equivalent system model
for long-frame communications. A least-square (LS) based with CFO included implicitly, a subspace based blind channel
SI channel estimator was proposed in [22], however, which estimation is proposed for the initial stage, followed by CFO
treats the desired signal as additive noise, degrading the estimation and channel ambiguities elimination assisted by a
system performance. A two-stage LS cancelation scheme was single pilot. Then refinement of channel and CFO estimates is
presented in [28], which iterates between SI cancelation and conducted iteratively. Our work is different in the following
signal detection. However, its performance requires a good aspects.
LIU et al.: FAST ITERATIVE SEMI-BLIND RECEIVER FOR URLLC IN SHORT-FRAME FD SYSTEMS 841
domain are denoted as ss,t = [ss,t (0), ss,t (1), · · · , ss,t (M − where H̄ = [H̄s , Hi ], with H̄s of size (M − L + 1)Nr × M
1)]T and si,t = [si,t (0), si,t (1), · · · , si,t (M −1)]T , respectively, defined as
with M = N + Lcp . ⎡ ⎤
h̄s (L − 1) · · · h̄s (0) ··· · · · 0Nr×1
Define hns r = [hns r (0), hns r (1), · · · , hns r (L − 1)]T and hni r = ⎢ .. .. .. .. .. .. ⎥
H̄s = ⎣ . ⎦
[hi (0), hni r (1), · · · , hni r (L − 1)]T as the respective desired
nr . . . . .
and SI channel impulse response (CIR) vectors for the nr - 0Nr×1 ··· ··· h̄s (L − 1) · · · h̄s (0)
th receive antenna, with L being the length of CIR. The (4)
channels are assumed to exhibit quasi-static block fading and
h̄s (l) = [h̄0s (l), h̄1s (l), · · · , h̄N
s
r −1
(l)]T , Hi is defined as
the CIRs remain constant for a short frame’s duration. Define
the same
form to H̄s but with h̄s (l) replaced by
φ = φi + φf (φ ∈ (−N/2, N/2]) as the CFO between 1 0 1 Nr −1
the BS and MS, where φi and φf are the respective integer hi (l) = ρ [hi (l), hi (l), · · · , hi (l)]T ; s̄t = [s̄Ts,t , sTi,t ]T ,
CFO (iCFO) and fractional CFO (fCFO). The SI does not with s̄s,t = [s̄s,t (0), s̄s,t (1), · · · , s̄s,t (M − 1)]T and
experience CFO assuming all the transmit and receive antennas si,t = [si,t (0), si,t (1), · · · , si,t (M − 1)]T ; wt = [wt0 (L −
of MS share one local oscillator [26], [27]. The received signal 1), wt1 (L − 1), · · · , wtNr −1 (L − 1), · · · , wt0 (M − 1), wt1 (M −
in the t-th symbol at the nr -th (nr = 0, 1, · · · , Nr − 1) receive 1), · · · , wtNr −1 (M − 1)]T . It is easily found that the rank of
antenna in the time domain can be written as E{s̄t s̄H
t } is 2N instead of 2M due to the redundancy from CP.
L−1 Since E{s̄t s̄H t } is rank deficient, (3) cannot be applied to the
ytnr (m) = ej2πφm/N hns r (l)ss,t (m − l) subspace based blind channel estimation methods [36], [37].
l=0
To address this problem, we form (Lcp + 1) subvectors of
1 L−1 nr size (N −L+1)Nr×1 from yt , and the g-th (g = 0, 1, · · · , Lcp )
+ hi (l)si,t (m − l) + wtnr (m) (1)
ρ l=0
subvector is denoted as
where ρ is the average input desired signal-to-SI-ratio, denoted yt,g = [yt0 (L − 1 + g), yt1 (L − 1 + g), · · · ,
as SIR, before digital cancelation, and wtnr (m) (m = ytNr −1 (L − 1 + g), · · · , yt0 (N − 1 + g),
0, 1, · · · , M − 1) is the noise term.
yt1 (N − 1 + g), · · · , ytNr −1 (N − 1 + g)]T (5)
which is written as
B. Equivalent System With CFO Included Implicitly
yt,g = H̃s̄t,g + wt,g , g = 0, 1, · · · , Lcp (6)
According to (1), it can be observed that the received signal
is corrupted by both CFO and SI, making the desired signal where H̃ = [H̃s , H̃i ], with H̃s and H̃i following the similar
detection more challenging. The existing methods require two form to H̄s but with a reduced size of (N − L + 1)Nr × N
separate training processes for the respective CFO and channel instead of (M − L + 1)Nr × M ; s̄t,g = [s̄Ts,t,g , sTi,t,g ]T with
estimation, suffering from high training overhead and high s̄s,t,g = [s̄s,t (g), s̄s,t (g + 1), · · · , s̄s,t (N − 1 + g)]T and si,t,g =
latency [22], [25]–[32]. In the following, an equivalent system [si,t (g), si,t (g + 1), · · · , si,t (N − 1 + g)]T ; wt,g = [wt0 (L − 1 +
model with CFO included implicitly is derived so that CFO g), wt1 (L − 1 + g), · · · , wtNr −1 (L − 1 + g), · · · , wt0 (N − 1 +
and channel can be estimated jointly with a single pilot. g), wt1 (N − 1 + g), · · · , wtNr −1 (N − 1 + g)]T .
By incorporating the CFO into the desired signal and channel, Since E{s̄t,g s̄Ht,g } is full rank with 2N , (6) can be applied to
(1) is equivalent to the subspace based blind channel estimation methods, as long
as H̃ is a tall matrix which can be achieved by setting
L−1 (N − L + 1)Nr > 2N . Meanwhile, thanks to the partition of
ytnr (m) = h̄ns r (l)s̄s,t (m − l)
l=0 the received signal into several subvectors, the second-order
1 L−1 nr statistics of the received signal can be achieved by utilizing
+ hi (l)si,t (m − l) + wtnr (m) (2)
ρ l=0 a short frame with a small number of OFDM symbols. It is
noteworthy that such an equivalent system model was derived
where h̄ns r (l) = ej2πφl/N hns r (l) and s̄s,t (m) = for ZP-OFDM systems in [33], however which cannot be
ej2πφm/N ss,t (m) are denoted as the respective CFO- applied here for widely-used CP-OFDM systems and also
included channel and CFO-included desired signal in the requires a large number of symbols to achieve the second-
equivalent system model. It is worth noticing that SI and its order statistics of the received signal.
channel are not modified since it does not experience CFO. Based on the equivalent system model derived, an ISB
Among the received signal samples in CP, ytnr (L − 1) to receiver structure is proposed for URLLC in short-frame FD
nr
yt (Lcp −1) are free from inter-symbol interference, and hence CP-OFDM systems in the presence of CFO, which consists
are utilized alongside signal samples ytnr (Lcp ) to ytnr (M − 1) of two kinds of stages. On one hand, the CFO and channel
for estimation of CFO and channels. Collecting all these estimation as well as signal detection are performed initially
samples from Nr received antennas into a vector yields by the proposed subspace based semi-blind method, referred
yt = [yt0 (L − 1), yt1 (L − 1), · · · , ytNr −1 (L − 1), · · · , yt0 (M − to as the initial stage. On the other hand, the initial estima-
1), yt1 (M − 1), · · · , ytNr −1 (M − 1)]T , which is formulated as tion and detection performance are enhanced significantly by
performing iterations among them, where the previous hard
yt = H̄s̄t + wt (3) decisions are utilized to overcome the pilot shortage due to
LIU et al.: FAST ITERATIVE SEMI-BLIND RECEIVER FOR URLLC IN SHORT-FRAME FD SYSTEMS 843
Fig. 2. a) Initial stage and b) the j-th (j ≥ 2) iterative decision-directed stage of the proposed ISB receiver structure (Est.: estimation, SIC: SI cancelation
and Detect.: detection).
the short frame structure, referred to as iterative decision- subvectors yt,g when deriving the equivalent system model.
directed stages. The block diagram of the proposed ISB Thus, the required frame length T to achieve the second-order
receiver structure is illustrated in Fig. 2. statistics of the received signal can be much shorter than the
methods in [32], [33], [36], and [37].
III. I NITIAL S TAGE OF THE ISB R ECEIVER S TRUCTURE Step 2: Eigenvalue decomposition (EVD) is performed on
the auto-correlation matrix Ry . The signal subspace has a
First, a subspace based blind method is proposed to estimate
dimension of 2N , while the noise subspace has Q (Q =
the CFO-included desired channel and SI channel with some
(N − L + 1)Nr − 2N ) eigenvectors corresponding to the
ambiguities, which requires a very short frame to obtain the
smallest Q eigenvalues of the matrix Ry . Denote the q-th
second-order statistics of the received signal. Second, a single
eigenvector as γq = [γqT (0), γqT (1), · · · , γqT (N − L)]T (q =
pilot for the desired signal and SI is carefully designed and
0, 1, · · · , Q − 1), where γq (m) is a column vector of size Nr .
superimposed to enable simultaneous transmission of them
Due to the inherent orthogonality between the signal and noise
to achieve FD training mode, and the corresponding channel
subspaces, the columns of H̃ are orthogonal to each vector γq
ambiguities and CFO can be extracted jointly by the para-
(q = 0, 1, · · · , Q − 1), i.e.,
metric channel estimation method. Third, based on the CFO-
included desired and SI channel estimates, the received SI is
generated and canceled from the received signal, and then the γqH H̃ = 01×2N (8)
desired signal can be easily detected.
Therefore, γq spans the left null space of H̃. Since H̃ is
formulated by the matrices h̄s (l) and hi (l), (l = 0, 1, · · · , L −
A. Blind Channel Estimation
1), we can restrict channel estimation to h̄s (l) and hi (l), instead
A subspace based blind channel estimator is proposed to of the whole matrix H̃.
jointly estimate the CFO-included desired channel and SI Step 3. Defining h̄(l) = [h̄s (l), hi (l)], it can be found (8) is
channel, by utilizing a short frame. We assume that 1) noise equivalent to the following equations:
samples are uncorrelated and 2) noise and signal samples are
uncorrelated. By utilizing Nr receive antennas with (N − L + L−1
1)Nr > 2N , the proposed estimator is summarized in four γqH (l − L + 1 + n)h̄(l) = 01×2 ,
l=L−1−n
steps below. for n = 0, 1, · · · , L − 2
Step 1: (T − 1) received data symbols within a short frame L−1
γqH (n − L + 1 + l)h̄(l) = 01×2 ,
are used to compute the auto-correlation matrix of the received l=0
signal, obtaining for n = L − 1, L, · · · , N − L
N −1−n
1 T −1 Lcp γqH (n − L + 1 + l)h̄(l) = 01×2 ,
Ry = y yH (7) l=0
(T − 1)(Lcp + 1) t=1 g=0 t,g t,g for n = N − L + 1, · · · , N − 1 (9)
It is worth noting that the number of signal samples per
received symbol used to compute the auto-correlation matrix or in the following matrix form:
of the received signal has been increased, thanks to the
partition of the received signal vector yt into a number of Θq h̄ = 0N ×2 (10)
844 IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 37, NO. 4, APRIL 2019
parametric channel estimation problem. Thus, the time delay Algorithm 2 Joint CFO Estimation and Channel Ambiguities
estimator, e.g., ESPRIT, in the parametric channel estimation, Elimination
can be exploited here to extract the unknown CFO, while the Input:
path amplitude estimator, e.g., LS, can be used to determine The received pilot subvectors, r0,g (n), with n =
the channel ambiguities. 0, 1, · · · , N − 1, g = 0, 1, · · · , Lcp ;
1) CFO Estimation: Utilizing the ESPRIT algorithm, The blind channel estimate, h̄0 ;
the CFO estimation is summarized in four steps below: Output:
Step 1: Form the matrix rpil,g = [r0,g (0), · · · , r0,g (N −1)]T CFO estimate, φ1 ;
with size N × 2, and it can be expressed as CFO-included desired and SI channel estimates, h̄s,1 and
rpil,g = Vg bT + w̃pil,g (19) hi,1 ;
1: Form the matrix rpil,g ;
where Vg = [Vg (φ), V(0)] with Vg (φ) = 2: Compute the auto-correlation matrix of rpil,g , obtaining
[ej2πφg/N , · · · , ej2πφ(N −1+g)/N ]T and V(0) = 1N ×1 , RFB,r by (20) and (21);
and w̃pil,g = [w̃0,g (0), · · · , w̃0,g (N − 1)]T 3: Find 2 eigenvectors corresponding to the largest 2 eigen-
Step 2: Compute the auto-correlation matrix of rpil,g consid- values of RFB,r , denoted as u;
ering all the received subvector samples of the pilot symbol, 4: Estimate CFO by (22);
Lcp
1 5: Form the matrix Vg ;
Rr = rpil,g rH (20) 6: Estimate channel ambiguities by (23);
2(Lcp + 1) g=0 pil,g
7: Obtain the CFO-included desired channel and SI channel
Hence, the auto-correlation matrix has been averaged by
estimates through (24);
(Lcp + 1), thanks to the partition of the received signal into a
8: return φ1 , h̄s,1 and hi,1 .
number of subvectors, which can enhance the CFO estimation.
It is also worth noting the auto-correlation matrix has been
averaged by 2, which results from the ambiguities incurred by
the blind channel estimation. Rr is further improved by the ambiguity vectors are obtained as bs and bi by choosing the
forward-backward (FB) averaging technique [38], obtaining first and second columns of b , respectively.
1 Step 3: The CFO-included desired and SI channel estimates
RFB,r = (Rr + JR∗r J) (21) are obtained as
2
where J is the N × N matrix whose components are zero
h̄s,1 = h̄0 bs , hi,1 = h̄0 bi (24)
except for ones on the anti-diagonal.
Step 3: 2 eigenvectors corresponding to the largest 2 eigen- Define H̄s,1 and Hi,1 as the circulant desired and SI channel
values of RFB,r are found, denoted as u of size N × 2. Due matrices, following the same form to H̄s and Hi with replacing
to the phase rotational invariance property, there exists the h̄s and hi by h̄s,1 and hi,1 , respectively.
following relationship u2 = u1 diag{ej2πφ/N } where u1 and
u2 of size (N − 1) × 2 are the first (N − 1) and last (N − 1)
rows of u respectively. D. SI Cancelation and Signal Detection
Step 4: The CFO can be extracted by With the SI channel estimate, the received SI can be
∠δN generated and canceled from the received signal, obtaining
φ1 = (22) ys,t,1 = yt − Hi,1 si,t . With the CFO estimate φ1 , the desired
2π
signal in the time domain is estimated by
where δ is the eigenvalues of u†1 u2 , and the subscript 1 denotes
this is the initial estimation. It is worth noticing that φ1
ss,t,1 = E(φ1 )(H̄s,1 )† ys,t,1 (25)
consists of two CFOs. The one with the largest absolute value
is the unknown CFO φ, i.e., φ1 = max |φ1 |, since the CFO of where E(φ1 ) = diag{[1, e−j2πφ1 /N , · · · , e−j2πφ1 (M−1)/N ]}.
SI is always 0. Note that CFO has been estimated in one step Define dt,1 of size N × 1 as the desired signal estimate in the
where the integer and fractional parts of CFO are estimated as time domain. dt,1 (n) = ss,t,1 (n + Lcp ) for n = 0, 1, · · · , N −
a whole and with a closed-form solution, unlike the existing Lcp − 1. As the first Lcp elements of ss,t,1 are the CP, the last
methods in [26], [27], [34], and [35]. Lcp elements of dt,1 can be refined by
2) Channel Ambiguities Elimination: The channel ambigu-
1
ities can then be computed by the LS method, with the CFO dt,1 (n) = (s (n + Lcp ) + ss,t,1 (n − N + Lcp ))
estimate φ1 . It involves two steps. 2 s,t,1
for n = N − Lcp , · · · , N − 1 (26)
Step 1: Form the matrix Vg = [Vg (φ1 ), V(0)].
Step 2: According to (19), the channel ambiguities are It is noteworthy that CFO compensation has been performed
estimated by the LS method, i.e., on the CFO-included desired signal estimate instead of the
b = ((Vpil )† rpil )T (23) received signal, avoiding the introduction of CFO to SI by the
existing methods [26], [27]. By performing Discrete Fourier
where Vpil [V0 ; V1 ; · · ·
= ; VLcp ]and rpil = Transform (DFT) on dt,1 , the frequency-domain desired signal
[rpil,0 ; rpil,1 ; · · · ; rpil,Lcp ]. Thus, the desired and SI channel is detected, and the hard estimate is obtained as xs,t,1 .
846 IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 37, NO. 4, APRIL 2019
IV. I TERATIVE D ECISION -D IRECTED S TAGES OF THE Algorithm 3 Iterative Channel Estimation, Signal Detection
ISB R ECEIVER S TRUCTURE and CFO Estimation
To mitigate the impact of short training overhead due to the Input:
short frame, the hard decisions are utilized to enhance channel Frequency domain desired signal estimate, xs,t,j−1 , t =
estimation, signal detection and CFO estimation iteratively. 0, 1, · · · , T − 1;
First, the enhanced CFO-included desired channel and SI chan- Frequency domain SI signal, xi,t , t = 0, 1, · · · , T − 1;
nel estimates are determined by the previous desired signal CFO estimate, φj−1 ;
estimates, the pilot and the known SI. Then, a more accurate Time domain received signal, yt , t = 0, 1, · · · , T − 1;
SI cancelation is performed. Last, the desired signal estimate Output:
is refined, while an enhanced CFO estimate is obtained thanks CFO-included desired channel and SI channel estimates,
to the inherent relationship between the previous desired signal h̄s,j and hi,j ;
estimate and the newly CFO-included desired signal estimate. Frequency domain desired signal estimate, xs,t,j ;
The iterative channel estimation, signal detection and CFO CFO estimate, φj ;
estimation algorithm is shown in Algorithm 3. 1: Refine the CFO-included desired channel and SI channel
by (29);
2: Refine SI cancelation, obtaining the received desired signal
A. Enhanced Channel Estimation, SI Cancelation ys,t,j ;
and Signal Detection 3: Obtain the refined desired signal estimate, xs,t,j , by (25)
It is easy to show that (3) is equivalent to and (26);
4: Form (Lcp + 1) subvectors from ys,t,j by (30);
yt = S̄s,t h̄s + Si,t hi + wt (27)
5: Determine the CFO-included desired signal estimate by
where (32);
⎡ ⎤ 6: Compute the CFO vector by (34);
ṡs,t (L − 1) ṡs,t (L − 2) ··· ṡs,t (0)
⎢ ṡs,t (L) ṡs,t (L − 1) ··· ṡs,t (1) ⎥ 7: Calculate the auto-correlation of the CFO vector through
⎢ ⎥
S̄s,t =⎢ .. .. .. .. ⎥ (35);
⎣ . . . . ⎦ 8: Obtain the refined CFO estimate, φj , following the similar
ṡs,t (M − 1) ṡs,t (M − 2) ··· ṡs,t (M − L) procedures of Steps 3 and 4 of Algorithm 2;
(28) 9: return h̄s,j , hi,j , xs,t,j and φj .
with ṡs,t (m) = INr ⊗ s̄s,t (m) and Si,t follows the same form
to S̄s,t , but with s̄s,t (m) replaced by si,t (m).
The hard decision can be utilized to refine channel estima- previous CFO estimate φj−1 , the hard estimate of the desired
tion iteratively. By performing IDFT on the previous desired signal should be determined by performing CFO compensation
signal hard estimate in the (j−1)-th iteration xs,t,j−1 , the time- with the previous CFO estimate.
domain desired signal with CP insertion is determined as
s̃s,t,j−1 , and the CFO-included signal is obtained as s̄s,t,j−1 = B. Enhanced CFO Estimation
E(−φj−1 )s̃s,t,j−1 . Note that the first symbol (t = 0) is pilot To enhance CFO estimation, we divide the estimated
and is always known at the receiver, thus xs,0,j−1 = xs,0
received signal vector ys,t,j into (Lcp + 1) subvectors, and
regardless of the value of j. Then, S̄s,t,j−1 can be easily the g-th (g = 0, 1, · · · , Lcp ) subvector is defined as
obtained by replacing s̄s,t (m) in S̄s,t by s̄s,t,j−1 (m). Therefore,
the CFO-included desired and SI channels can be enhanced by ys,t,j,g = [ys,t,j (gNr ), ys,t,j (gNr + 1), · · · ,
ys,t,j (gNr + Nr − 1), · · · , ys,t,j ((g + N − L)Nr ),
[h̄s,j ; hi,j ] = (S̄j−1 )† ỹ (29)
ys,t,j ((g + N − L)Nr + 1),
where S̄j−1 = [S̄s,0,j−1 , Si,0 ; · · · ; S̄s,T −1,j−1 , Si,T −1 ] and ỹ = · · · , ys,t,j ((g + N − L)Nr + Nr − 1)] (30)
[y0 ; y1 ; · · · ; yT −1 ].
Similarly, the size-reduced circulant desired channel matrix Similarly to (6), ys,t,j,g is given by
is obtained as H̃s,j following the form of H̃s with h̄s replaced ys,t,j,g = H̃s s̄s,t,g + zt,g (31)
by h̄s,j , while the circulant desired and SI channel matrices
where zt,g is the noise term. With the new CFO-included
H̄s,j and Hi,j are determined following the form of H̄s , with
desired channel estimate H̃s,j , the CFO-included desired signal
h̄s replaced by h̄s,j and hi,j , respectively. Then, SI is canceled
is estimated by
from the received signal, obtaining ys,t,j = yt − Hi,j si,t .
With the new estimates H̄s,j and ys,t,j and the previous CFO s̄s,t,j,g = (H̃s,j )† ys,t,j,g (32)
estimate φj−1 , the new hard estimate of the desired signal can
There exists an inherent relationship between the reesti-
be obtained as xs,t,j by utilizing (25) and (26). It is noteworthy
mated CFO-included desired signal s̄s,t,j,g and the previous
that the CFO included in the desired channel and signal should
desired signal estimate ss,t,j−1,g in the ideal case, i.e.,
be the same in the derived equivalent system model. As the
CFO-included desired channel estimate H̄s,j is obtained by the s̄s,t,j,g = diag{Vg (φ)}ss,t,j−1,g (33)
LIU et al.: FAST ITERATIVE SEMI-BLIND RECEIVER FOR URLLC IN SHORT-FRAME FD SYSTEMS 847
TABLE I
N UMBER OF C OMPLEX M ULTIPLICATIONS AND A DDITIONS (N : N UMBER OF S UBCARRIERS IN E ACH OFDM S YMBOL , LCP : CP L ENGTH ,
T : F RAME L ENGTH , Nr : N UMBER OF R ECEIVE A NTENNAS , L: C HANNEL L ENGTH , M = N + LCP AND I : N UMBER OF I TERATIONS )
Fig. 5. MSE of channel estimation of the proposed ISB receiver structure, Fig. 7. MSE of fCFO estimation of the proposed ISB receiver structure,
with T = 20 symbols per frame and Nr = 4 receive antennas. with T = 20 symbols per frame and Nr = 4 receive antennas.
much shorter frame than the existing methods [29], [32]. For
example, the proposed ISB receiver with three iterations can after T = 20. This is why the frame length is specified as
achieve MSE of 10−3 with 10 symbols only, while more than 20 for the proposed ISB receiver in other figures.
100 symbols are required for the existing methods [29], [32]. To better compare the proposed ISB receiver with the exist-
This is because the number of signal samples to compute ing iCFO-HD [34] and fCFO-HD [35] estimators, the CFO
the auto-correlation matrix of the received signal is increased estimation performance of the proposed ISB receiver is studied
by the proposed ISB receiver, as discussed in Section III. through two aspects: a) MSE of fCFO estimation and b) prob-
Thus, it can achieve a similar performance while with a much ability of correct iCFO estimation. Fig. 7 exhibits the MSE of
fewer symbols. Furthermore, as the frame length increases, fCFO estimation of the proposed ISB receiver, in comparison
the training overhead of the proposed ISB receiver decreases to the existing method [35]. We can see that the proposed
greatly. For example, at T = 150, the training overhead of the ISB receiver with a single iteration is slightly better than
proposed ISB receiver is reduced to 0.6% while that of the fCFO-HD [35]. However, after three iterations, the proposed
iterative ML method [29] is always 6.25%. Consequently, ISB receiver demonstrates a much better performance than the
the proposed ISB receiver has advantages in both latency existing fCFO-HD [35] especially at high SNRs. For instance,
and spectral efficiency. Additionally, thanks to the decision- at MSEfCFO = 10−5 , the proposed ISB receiver has an SNR
directed estimation in the proposed ISB receiver, the MSE of gain of around 9 dB over the fCFO-HD [35] estimator.
channel estimation is reduced by approximately ten-fold after The probability of correct iCFO estimation of the proposed
three iterations and also approaches the derived CRLB. It is ISB receiver and the existing iCFO-HD estimator [34] is stud-
seen that the proposed ISB receiver achieves a convergence ied in Fig. 8, with two iCFO estimation ranges [−N/2, N/2)
LIU et al.: FAST ITERATIVE SEMI-BLIND RECEIVER FOR URLLC IN SHORT-FRAME FD SYSTEMS 851
VII. C ONCLUSION
An ISB receiver structure with CFO and channel estima-
tion and signal detection has been proposed for URLLC in
short-frame FD CP-OFDM systems. Extensive performance
Fig. 9. Impact of the number of receive antennas Nr on the FER performance metrics have been assessed, including FER, MSE of channel
of the proposed ISB receiver structure, with T = 20 symbols per frame.
estimation and fCFO estimation, probability of correct iCFO
estimation and output SINR. Compared to the approaches in
[29], [32], [34], and [35], the proposed ISB receiver achieves
much better performance in short-frame case at almost a
halved training overhead, requiring a single pilot only. The
CRLBs derived are close to the numerical results. The FER
performance can be enhanced greatly by utilizing more receive
antennas. The proposed receiver can converge within 3 iter-
ations, and is also more computationally efficient than the
iterative ML approach [29].
A PPENDIX
D ERIVATION OF (39) AND (40)
∂UH ∂U
It can be shown that ∂θ and ∂θ T can be formulated as
H H H H
∂U ∂U ∂U ∂U
=[ ; ; ;
∂θ ∂φ ∂{hs } ∂{hs }
∂UH ∂UH ∂UH ∂UH
; ; ; ] (48)
Fig. 10. Impact of the number of iterations on the MSE of channel estimation ∂{hi } ∂{hi } ∂{xs,d } ∂{xs,d }
of the proposed ISB receiver structure at SNR = 10 dB and SNR = 15 dB,
with T = 20 symbols per frame and Nr = 4 receive antennas. and
∂U ∂U ∂U ∂U
=[ , , ,
and [−N/8, N/8). It is noteworthy that the existing iCFO esti- ∂θ T ∂φ ∂{hTs } ∂{hTs }
mator [34] allows a certain iCFO estimation range only which ∂U ∂U ∂U ∂U
, , , ] (49)
is determined by its algorithm parameter. Also, the estimation ∂{hi } ∂{hi } ∂{xs,d } ∂{xTs,d }
T T T
range should be known in advance for the following iCFO
According to the matrix derivatives rules, we can obtain
search. In contrast, the proposed ISB receiver not only enables
full-range iCFO estimation but also provides a closed-form ∂U ∂UH
= jG, = −jGH (50)
solution without an advanced acquisition of iCFO estimation ∂φ ∂φ
range. It is easily observed from Fig. 8 that the existing ∂U ∂UH
iCFO estimator [34] is susceptible to iCFO estimation range, = A, = AH (51)
∂{hTs } ∂{hs }
while the proposed ISB receiver is almost independent of
∂U ∂UH
that. Specifically, the probability of correct iCFO estimation = jA, = −jAH (52)
decreases greatly as the estimation range widens especially ∂{hTs } ∂{hs }
at low SNRs for the iCFO-HD estimator [34]. As mentioned ∂U ∂UH
= B, = BH (53)
in Section IV, decision-directed CFO estimation refines fCFO ∂{hTi } ∂{hi }
only, the probability of iCFO estimation tends not to vary with
∂U ∂UH
the number of iterations. Thus, we only illustrate the proposed = jB, = −jBH (54)
ISB receiver with a single iteration in Fig. 8. ∂{hTi } ∂{hi }
Fig. 9 shows the impact of receive antennas on FER perfor- ∂U ∂UH
= C, = CH (55)
mance of the proposed ISB receiver, with Nr = 4, Nr = 8 and ∂{xTs } ∂{xs }
852 IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 37, NO. 4, APRIL 2019
[39] C. Wei and D. W. Lin, “A decision-directed channel estimator for Eng Gee Lim (SM’12) received the B.Eng. (Hons.)
OFDM-based bursty vehicular communication,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Tech- and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and electronic engi-
nol., vol. 66, no. 6, pp. 4938–4953, Jun. 2017. neering from the University of Northumbria, U.K.
[40] J. Chen, Y. C. Wu, S. Ma, and T. S. Ng, “Joint CFO and channel He was with Andrew Ltd., U.K., from 2002 to
estimation for multiuser MIMO-OFDM systems with optimal training 2007, a leading communications systems company.
sequences,” IEEE Trans. Signal Process., vol. 56, no. 8, pp. 4008–4019, Since 2007, he has been with Xi’an Jiaotong-
Aug. 2008. Liverpool University, where he is currently the Uni-
[41] J. M. Cioffi, G. P. Dudevoir, M. V. Eyuboglu, and G. D. Forney, “MMSE versity Dean of Research and Graduate Studies,
decision-feedback equalizers and coding. I. Equalization results,” IEEE the Director of the AI university Research Centre,
Trans. Commun., vol. 43, no. 10, pp. 2582–2594, Oct. 1995. and also a Professor with the Department of Elec-
trical and Electronic Engineering. He has published
over 100 refereed international journals and conference papers. His research
interests are artificial intelligence, robotics, AI+ health care, international
standard (ISO/IEC) in robotics, antennas, RF/microwave engineering, EM
measurements/simulations, energy harvesting, power/energy transfer, smart-
grid communication, and wireless communication networks for smart and
green cities. He is a Charter Engineer and a fellow of the IET and IEAust.
In addition, he is also a Senior Fellow of the HEA.