PhD project: Implementation of sparse sampling radio receivers

The aim of the project is to provide implementation and experimental verication of the Radio Frequency receiver, based on sparse sampling and signal processing framework.



Sparse sampling also known as Compressive Sampling or Compressed Sensing is a new paradigm in data acquisition, which provides theoretical proofs of the feasibility of acquiring signals with far less samples than stated by the Nyquist-Shannon law. Traditional systems operating in the radio frequency (RF) bands severely stress current Analog to Digital (ADC) technologies. In many RF architectures, the need of high resolution high speed converters operating at the receiver side leads to power hungry devices. By processing signals according to their information content rather than its maximum bandwidth there is a possibility of significant power reductions.



First part of the project will focus on employing Compressed Sensing framework in wireless communication systems. Modeled in the MATLAB environment, an RF architecture incorporating a Compressed Sensing framework will be the backbone enabling further functional analysis of the receiver implementation. When designing an electronic circuit for a wireless communication system, it is very important to provide a continuous validation of the design to standards based on the system-level specifications. During air wave transmission, the signal is corrupted by channel noise, adjacent interfering users, multi-path and other un-desirable effects. Furthermore, the receiver corrupts the incoming signal due to RF circuit non-linearity, electronic device noise, and digital switching noise. In order to produce a circuit that will be able to function in practice all of the mentioned imperfections will have to be considered in the design and verification flow. Starting with ideal conditions in each step of the design path, basic system blocks will incorporate more and more accurate RF models. The outcome of the system modeling stage will be hardware implementation. Sparse sampling receiver will be tested using laboratory equipment in order to justify the design and investigate performance.







Successful elaboration of the RF sparse receiver will enable possibility of its industrial implementation which would have significant contribution to the wireless communication field.