INTRODUCTION TO WICOMM-T

Benchmark WiCOMM-T is a wireless digital communication system with a pluggable 70 MHz

IF or 2.4 GHz RF module. The system has a transmitter and a receiver and provides loop-back
options at baseband and 70 MHz IF.

Using the PC's USB port, it has an interface to MATLAB, which provides maximum flexibility
in learning complete digital communication concepts such as digital modulation techniques,
baseband equalization, filtering concepts, and the basics of CDMA, GSM, and OFDM and
software defined radio, FM radio reception, turbo and LDPC channel coder/decoder, V.32
modem, frequency hopping spread spectrum, and discrete multitone modemon their own.
The system also enables users to learn concepts such as clock slip and control and timing
acquisition. Users can write algorithms for digital communication concepts in MATLAB and
validate their code using WiCOMM-T.

WiCOMM-T Setup

1. Baseunit Connection

Fig1: WiCOMM-T Base Unit

2. Baseband Connection
2.1 Loopback (Using Single WiCOMM-T)

Connect two BNC-BNC cables (Part # 9932002) to IF Module for connecting baseband loop
back as shown in figure below
 Fig2: IF module showing baseband loopback

3. RF Connection:

3.1 Working with RF link using two WiCOMM-Ts

Fig3: RF Link using two WiCOMM-Ts

Performing Experiments

1. Open the MATLAB and type WiCOMM_T in command window, WiCOMM_T console
window will open.
2. Press RUN button from the WiCOMM_T console. This will open the WBU
console.WBU console is used to transmit and receive modem samples through WiCOMM-
T.
3. Choose the desired sampling rate using the sampling rate pull down menu as shown in the

figure. Pressing button will open the configuration window as shown in Figure.

Figure: WBU Console

Figure:WBU_Configuration Window

4. In Configuration window select the WBU driver file, mode of operation, and Tx/Rx
operation selections. Tx& Rx mode of operation will be used in loopback mode.Tx only
or Rx only mode of operation will be used while two WiCOMM-T setup have to be
connected together by keeping one of them to be Tx and the other to be Rx.
5. Now WiCOMM-T is ready to transmit and receive the samples.

6. Press EXPERIMENT button in WiCOMM-T console. This will open

WiCOMMT_EXPERIMENT Console (WEC).

Figure:WiCOMMT_EXPERIMENT Console

7. Press GENERATE button which will generate the test samples to be transmitted for the
WiCOMM-T Installation test. These generated samples have to be transmitted and
received through WiCOMM-T using WBU console.

8. Press Start button in WBU console to start transmitting and receiving the test samples
through WiCOMM-T. The Tx icon and the Rx icon start blinking in blue indicates that
WiCOMM-T is transmitting and receiving properly. This can be ensured by looking at the
statistics window.

9. After sufficient samples, say around 50,000 packets are collected press the Stop button to
stop transmitting and receiving the samples.

10. The received samples can be analysed now using the WEC by pressing the ANALYZE
button
 Experiment : QPSK
Aim

To simulate QPSK transmitter and receiver taking into account the phase and the frequency
offset.

Theory

Phase shift keying

For binary PSK (BPSK)

S0(t) = A cos(wt) represents binary 0
S1(t) = A cos(wt + p) represents binary 1
For M-ary PSK, M different phases are required, and every n (where M=2n ) bits of the Binary
bit stream are coded as one signal that is transmitted as Asin(wt + qj) j=1,..., M.

QuadraturePhase Shift Keying

If we define four signals, each with a phase shift differing by 900 then we have
Quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK).
The input binary bit stream {dk}, dk = 0,1,2,..... Arrives at the modulator input at a rate 1/T
bits/sec and is separated into two data streams dI (t) and dQ (t) containing odd and even bits
respectively.

dI(t) = d0, d2, d4 ,...

dQ(t) = d1, d3, d5 , ...

A convenient orthogonal realization of a QPSK waveform , s(t) is achieved by

amplitude modulating the in-phase and quadrature data
streams onto the cosine and sine functions of a carrier wave as follows:

s(t)=1/ 2 dI(t) cos (2pft + p/4) + 1/ 2 dQ(t) sin (2pft + p/4)

Using trigonometric identities this can also be written as

s(t)=A cos [2pft + p/4 + q(t)].
The pulse stream dI(t) modulates the cosine function with an amplitude of 1. This is
equivalent to shifting the phase of the cosine function by 0 or p; consequently this produces a
BPSK waveform. Similarly the pulse stream dQ(t) modulates the sine function, yielding a
BPSK waveform orthogonal to the cosine function. The summation of these two orthogonal
waveforms is the QPSK waveform.
The values of q(t) = 0, -(p/2), p/2, p represent the four possible combinations of aI(t) and aQ
(t).
Each of the four possible phases of carriers represents two bits of data. Thus there are two bits
per symbol. Since the symbol rate for QPSK is half the bit rate, twice as much data can be
carried in the same amount of channel bandwidth as compared to BPSK. This is possible
because the two signals I and Q are orthogonal to each other and can be transmitted without
interfering with each other.

In QPSK the carrier phase can change only once every 2T secs. If from one T interval to the
next one, neither bit stream changes sign, the carrier phase remains unchanged. If one
component aI(t) or aQ (t) changes sign, a phase change of /2 occurs. However if both
components change sign then a phase shift of occurs.
If a QPSK modulated signal undergoes filtering to reduce the spectral side lobes, the resulting
waveform will no longer have a constant envelop and in fact, the occasional 180o shifts in
phase will cause the envelope to go to zero momentarily.

Offset Quadrature Phase Shift Keying

If the two bit streams I and Q are offset by a 1/2 bit interval, then the amplitude
Fluctuations are minimized since the phase never changes by 180o . This modulation scheme,
Offset Quadrature Phase shift Keying (OQPSK) is obtained from QPSK by delaying the odd
bit stream by half a bit interval with respect to the even bit stream. Thus the range of phase
transitions is 0o and 90o (the possibility of a phase shift of 180o is eliminated) and occurs twice
as often, but with half the intensity of the QPSK. While amplitude fluctuations still occur in
the transmitter and receiver they have smaller magnitude. The bit error rate for QPSK and
OQPSK are the same as for BPSK.

When an OQPSK signal undergoes band limiting, the resulting intersymbol interference causes
the envelop to drop slightly to the region of 90o phase transition, but since the phase
transitions of 180 have been avoided in OQPSK, the envelop will never go to zero as it does in
QPSK.

Procedure

1. Connect WiCOMM-T for baseband loop back.

2. Generate the transmitter modem sample.
3. Transmit and receive the modem sample through WiCOMM-T.
4. Analyze the received modem samples.
5. Observe the various plots generated by MATLAB.
6. Connect WiCOMM-T in IF loop back.
7. Repeat steps 3 to 5 for IF loop back
8. Connect 2 WiCOMM-Ts such that one as transmitter and other as receiver in baseband
level. Repeat steps 2 to 5.
9. Connect the 2 WiCOMM-Ts in IF mode and repeat steps 2 to 5.

Transmitter

1. RRC pulse of duration to (where is the bit duration) is generated. The value of is
assumed to be large enough that the pulse decays to negligible values within
2. Random data to be transmitted is generated.
3. Random data is QPSK modulated.
4. The random data is up sampled by 8 in one bit duration.
5. Modulated data is convolved with the RRC pulse to obtain the pulse shaped bits.
6. Frequency offset and noise is added. This is done to show the effect of frequency offset and
noise in the received samples using baseband loop back.
7. Pulse shaped bits are given to the WiCOMM-T Tx interface block to send it through
WiCOMM-T.
Receiver

Receiver block diagram in MATLAB

1. The samples are received from the WiCOMM-T Rx interface as blocks

2. The coarse frequency offset estimation is done using 4th - power algorithm on the first block
3. The coarse frequency offset in the received samples are corrected using the estimated offset
value
4. Interpolation is done using the polyphase RRC filter and the best sampling instant is found
using the non-coherent energy averaging method
5. Phase offset estimation is done using 4th - power algorithm
6. The phase offset in the received samples is corrected using the estimated value.
7. The early-late interpolators are used in every subsequent block of samples to track the best
sampling instant.
8. Residual frequency offset is corrected by tracking the residual phase using the LMS
algorithm
9. Constellation diagram before frequency offset estimation, constellation diagram after
coarse frequency correction, error curve for LMS convergence and the constellation
diagram of the filtered signal after clock tracking are plotted.
Observation:
Constellation diagram

An ideal constellation diagram shows the discrete symbol representation of a digital

modulation scheme in terms of its vector components. In case of an ideal transmission
channel free of noise and interference, all symbols are recognized by the demodulator
without errors. In this case, they are represented in the constellation diagram as well defined
points overlapping in the same area and forming a clear dot. Noise and impairments cause
the demodulator to not always read the symbols correctly. In this case the positions of the
points disperse and create different shapes.

After timing recovery and MF the constellation points got grouped properly in the 4
quadrants. Because of no AGC action, points are not grouped at 1. AGC action is also built
into the LMS algorithm.
Plot shows the constellation after timing recovery and MF. The small frequency error
introduced at the transmitter side results in small arcs. Since frequency offset will also results
in some amount of phase offset, the arcs are rotated.

Plot shows the constellation after timing recovery and MF. The large frequency error
introduced at the transmitter side results in a ring formation.
Due to a phase offset of given at the transmitter side, the constellation plot above shows
the tilted points by approximately the same offset.