Adaptive Interference Cancellation System for

Multihop WCDMA 3G Networks

Saad Mahboob, Shawn Stapleton and Sami Muhaidat
School of Engineering Science, Simon Fraser University
8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, V5A1S6
sma57@sfu.ca, shawn@sfu.ca, muhaidat@ieee.org.
Abstract Unwanted feedback between the donor (receive) and
coverage (service) antennas of a relay (repeater) are created by
the radio echoes from the local scatters and direct path antenna
isolation limitations. These radio echoes create interference not
only in the incoming signal from the base station, but also cause
instability in the repeater. In this paper, we present an
interference cancellation system (ICS) for the multihop WCDMA
3G networks. Various characteristic features of the interference
cancellation system are illustrated using the MATLAB simulation
results. An isolation gain of 40dB is achieved.

I.

INTRODUCTION

A. Background and Related Work

The Next generation wireless networks (4G) will support
high data rates up to 100 Mbit/s for high mobility users and
approximately 1 Gbit/s for low mobility users. Under certain
conditions, e.g., limited frequency resources and blind spots in
the existing cellular networks, the conventional approach is to
increase the density of base stations (BSs), which is inefficient
due to the high deployment cost. An alternative solution is to
integrate the so-called multihop relaying (cf. Fig. 1), which has
been traditionally studied in the context of ad-hoc and peer-topeer network, into cellular wireless networks [1].

may not be possible, e.g., when deploying a repeater in a rural

coverage, where both antennas are located at the same site (or
even on the same post). As a result, radio echoes are generated
between the donor and coverage antennas. As with any system
with feedback, this could cause the repeater to become
unstable. Specifically, these radio echoes cause the relay to
oscillate, thus, becoming unstable. Therefore, in order to reduce
the effect of mutual coupling, antennas of the repeater are
spatially separated or the gain of the repeater is decreased [4],
[5], [6], [7]. These problems make the repeater restrict its
retransmission power, resulting in shrinkage of the coverage
area. To gain additional isolation level, various adaptive
feedback cancellers have been discussed in the literature [2][12]. Some existing adaptive cancellation algorithms work in
frequency domain, using the reference tones carried in the
OFDM signal [8]. Other algorithms use the time domain
methods like the LMS [2], [5], [6], [8]. The interference
cancellation system (ICS) discussed in [9] is developed for the
CDMA networks. It has less processing delay, less number of
filter taps and simplicity.

In multihop relaying, information is communicated between

the two terminals (nodes) over multihop transmission. The
multihop approach realizes several key advantages as
compared to single hop scenario, e.g., lower power
consumption and better throughput.
Traditionally, half duplex relay nodes are assumed in
multihop networks. However, a recent trend among the relay
designers is to use the term on-frequency (or single frequency
network repeater (SFN)) repeaters, i.e., sending and receiving
simultaneously on the same frequency band. Repeaters consist
of two antennas and a power amplifier. The antennas are
identified as donor (receive) and coverage (service) antennas.
The two antennas are typically mounted on the same tower and
are located in close proximity. Since the single frequency
network (SFN) can save the frequency resources with a
reasonable cost, the SFN repeater is a good solution for
extending the coverage area [2], [3], [4].
Typically, repeaters are being used in environments where
there is a physical separation between the two antennas,
thereby reducing unwanted mutual coupling effects. However,
in some scenarios, a physical separation between the antennas
1

Fig. 1 Multihop wireless network

B. Contribution of this Paper

Unlike published works, this paper presents an ICS scheme
for multihop WCMDA 3G networks. WCDMA is a leading
choice of data communication in the wireless industry
nowadays and is selected as an air interface for the third
generation of mobile communication. WCDMA supports a
higher data rate then CDMA and is less susceptible to
narrowband interferers and multipath fading.
The main goal of this work is to investigate different
properties of the ICS relay, including its tracking ability. The
effect of SNR, radio echo Doppler frequency and step-size
factor on the tracking performance of ICS are also examined
via simulation. The performance of the relay is further

Here, we use the terms relay and repeater interchangeably.

978-1-4244-3574-6/10/$25.00 2010 Crown

evaluated using the suppression measurement technique

calculated using the frequency domain spectra and error vector
magnitude (EVM).

The echo delay D is calculated in the relay by using the

correlation operation in the echo searcher. Correlation is also
used to generate the error signal l . A step-size is then

The paper is organized as follows. The channel model is

introduced in Section II. The system architecture is briefly
presented in Section III. Simulation results are discussed in
Section IV. Finally, the paper is concluded in Section V.

applied on the error signal l and this weighted signal

(termed as suppression coefficient) M l is multiplexed with the
delayed version of the signal C (n) to generate the suppression
signal S (n) . The suppression signal is added to the incoming

CHANNEL MODEL

II.

signal R(n) to cancel the interference. It should be noted that

The channel between the donor and coverage antennas is

modeled as a frequency selective Rayleigh fading channel. It
can be represented by the following complex valued low-pass
impulse response,

h(t ) =

P 1

a (t )e
b

j b (t )

(t b )

for every radio echo canceller, the suppression coefficient M l

has an angle radian out of phase to the angle of the channel
gain w . The adaptive algorithm has the following recursive
equation,

(1)

M l = M l 1 + l 1

b =1

where () is the Dirac delta function, b is the channel index,

P is the total number of multipath components of the channel,
ab (t )e jb (t ) are the time dependent channel coefficients which
are usually complex Gaussian distributed and b is the delay
between the input and the b th tap. The channel coefficients are
independent and identically distributed. Typically, the channel
taps decay according to an exponential profile. The amplitudes
ab (t ) follow a Rayleigh distribution whereas the phases b (t )
follow a uniform distribution. The channel between the
repeater antennas is assumed to be very slowly varying. This
implies that the path gains change insignificantly over a period
of 1 FD , where FD corresponds to the maximum radio echo
Doppler frequency.

The step-size is chosen as a compromise between the speed

of convergence and the SNR. In practice, a large step-size
yields fast convergence that allows the algorithm to track rapid
fluctuations due to fading, at the expense of increased noise in
the channel gain estimate, which affects the interference
cancellation. Similarly, a small value of the step-size makes the
convergence of the adaptive algorithm slow. To acquire a high
SNR re-transmitted signal, small value of the step-size is
preferable [3]. However, a tradeoff is usually made between
high SNR and ability to track the Doppler fading channel.
U a (t )
Ca (t )

X a (t )

(n)
ADC

III.

INTERFERENCE CANCELLATION SYSTEM

R ( n)

Q(n)

C ( n)

DAC

Gain
S (n )

The interference cancellation system in [9] is based on the

steepest descent algorithm (SDA) that can blindly cancel the
coupling radio echoes and makes use of the second order
statistics i.e., correlation to produce the error signal. The
system has low complexity as it does not require any training
sequence or pilot symbols for the channel estimation. The
algorithm works well in an environment with deep fades
between the donor and coverage antennas; that cause
degradation in the channel estimation. Here, the average energy
of the signal Q(n) is taken as a cost function J l and is
minimized.
J l = E Q ( n)

(3)

(2)

As the Fig. 2 shows, the path between the antennas of a

repeater includes a combiner, a de-correlation delay and a
power amplifier (gain of repeater). The delay is used to
insure that the signals coming from the base station are
uncorrelated with the feedback coupling. The signal C (n) from
output of the repeater is delayed to match the delay of the radio
echo U a (t ) where the subscript a denotes the analog signal.
,

Correlator

C ( n D)

Accumulator
Ml

Fig. 2 Block diagram of interference cancellation system

In Fig. 2, l is used as an iteration index. For simplification,

the gain of the repeater is set to unity. The transmitted signal
from the base station and coupling signal are X a (t ) and U a (t )
respectively. D is a positive integer that denotes the time shift
that results in a delay of the signal by D units of time. The decorrelation delay is chosen to be much greater than the
symbol period Tsymbol i.e. >> Tsymbol , to insure that the
signals X (n) and C (n) are uncorrelated with each other. is
defined as,

= N oTs

(4)

where N o is some positive integer. As the feedback

cancellation process is iterated, the adaptive filter estimates
the feedback channel more accurately and thus suppresses the
interference signal in the recovered signal more powerfully.

A. Tracking Ability of ICS

Fig. 3 shows three feedback cancellers in an ICS relay
tracking the magnitude components of the respective echoes. It
is clear from Fig. 3 that the ICS works quite well in a deep
fading environment.
B. Suppression Performance of ICS
The interference cancellation ability of the ICS is
calculated using the spectral plots. Fig. 4(a) shows the
spectrum of the interference coupling signal. The average
power spectral density (PSD) of the coupling signal is 10 dB
less than the average PSD of the transmitted signal. Fig. 4(b)
shows the spectrum of the output re-transmitted signal, when
the ICS is active. Table I gives the averaged spectrum values
of various signals. In Table I, the interference cancellation
ability (with units decibel cancellation dBc) is determined by
taking the absolute value of the difference between the
average value of the interference signal and the average value
of the error signal.
C. EVM Calculation
The error vector magnitude (EVM) is a measure used to
quantify the performance of the digital receiver. Informally,
EVM is a measure of how far the received symbols are away
from the ideal locations in the constellation plot. In our
simulations, WCDMA signal is transmitted from the BS and
corrupted by the AWGN noise. The SNR of this signal is 25
dB and its EVM is 7.6%. Fig. 5(a) shows the constellation of
the signal at the output of the ICS when it is turned off. The
EVM of this signal is 36.67%. The constellation of the output
signal when the ICS is active is shown in Fig. 5(b) and its
EVM is calculated to be 10.04%, well within the 17.5%
maximum allowed EVM for a UMTS repeater [10].
D. Effect of SNR, Radio Echo Doppler Frequency and Stepsize Factor on Tracking Performance of ICS
Fig. 6(a) gives the SER performance of the ICS for various
values of SNR, assuming the AWGN and Rayleigh fading
channels between antennas of the relay. Fig. 6(a) shows that
the SER is improved when the ICS is active. The tracking

Amplitude

Extensive simulations are performed to illustrate different

features of the ICS. An ICS with three echo suppressors to
suppress three radio echoes is implemented. The variance of
the WCDMA signal, transmitted from the base station is set to
1 and the radio echo Doppler frequency is set to 10 Hz. The
mean value of the three radio echoes are 0.4, 0.3 and 0.2;
which correspond to echoes having -8 dB, -10 dB and -14 dB
less power respectively than the power of the transmitted
signal. The value of the step-size is set to -0.0001.

0.6
0.4
0.2
0

2
Sample index

3
5

x 10

(b)Magnitude of ray two and its estimate

1
Original signal
0.8
Estimated signal
Amplitude

SIMULATION RESULTS

0.6
0.4
0.2
0

2
Sample index

3
5

x 10

(c)Magnitude of ray three and its estimate

1
Original signal
0.8
Estimated signal
Amplitude

IV.

(a)Magnitude of ray one and its estimate

1
Original signal
0.8
Estimated signal

0.6
0.4
0.2
0

2
Sample index

3
5

x 10

Fig. 3 Tracking ability of ICS

ability of ICS is plotted in Fig. 6(b). Fig. 6(b) shows that as the
radio echo Doppler frequency increases, the MSE degrades.
This implies that the ICS fails to track the rapid fluctuations as
the fading level increases. Finally, Fig. 6(c) presents a plot of
the adaptation factor versus the MSE to find optimum
value of step-size that result in the smallest MSE. The
optimum value of step-size is important since steady state
MSE and the speed of convergence of the adaptive algorithm

depend upon it. Fig. 6 (c) shows the optimum adaptation factor
to be 0.0001. In practice, a large step-size yields fast
convergence that allows the algorithm to track rapid
fluctuations due to fading, at the expense of increased noise in
the channel gain estimate which affects the interference
cancellation. Similarly, a small value of the step-size makes
the convergence of the adaptive algorithm slow.
(a)PSD of interference signal
Original Spectrum
Averaged Spectrum

60
40
20

PSD (dBm)

0
-20
-40
-60
-80
-100
-120
0

0.5

1.5

2
2.5
3
Frequency (Hz)

3.5

4.5

5
6

x 10

(b)PSD at output of active ICS

Original Spectrum
Averaged Spectrum

60
40
20

-20
-40
-60

Fig. 5 Constellation plots before and after interference cancellation

-80
-100

(a)SER versus SNR

10

-120
0

0.5

1.5

2
2.5
3
Frequency (Hz)

3.5

4.5

5
6

x 10

-2

10

Fig. 4 Spectrum of various signals in ICS

TABLE I.

AVERAGE PSD OF DIFFERENT SIGNALS IN ICS

Signal
Transmitted signal from
BS
Interference signal
Error signal
Cancellation (relative to
interference)

Average PSD value

49.13 dBm
40.16 dBm
0.43 dBm
39.73 dBc

Probability of symbol error

PSD (dBm)

-4

10

Theoretical SER in AWGN channel

SER with ICS in AWGN channel
SER without ICS in AWGN channel
SER with ICS in Rayleigh channel Fd= 10Hz

-6

10

SER without ICS in Rayleigh channel Fd= 10Hz

-8

10

10
SNR(dB)

15

(b)MSE versus radio echo Doppler frequency

[4]

S.W. Kim, Y.T. Lee, S.I Park, H.M. Eum, J.H. Seo and H.M. Kim,
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Ranson, Todd J. Lemon, William G. Newhall, Thomas Kummetz
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Moohong Lee, Byungjik Keum, Minjae Park, Young Serk Shim,

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-12
Single tap ICS
-14

MSE (dB)

-16
-18
-20
-22
-24
-26

10

15

20

25

FD (Hz)
(c)MSE versus step-size for ICS with fixed coupling channel
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-15

MSE (dB)

-20

-25

[10] Hiroyuki Hamazumi, Koichiro Imamura, Naohiko Iai, Kazuhiko

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-30

-35

[11]
-40

0.5

1.5

2
-3

x 10

Fig. 6 Various characteristics plots of ICS

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Jin-Yong Choi, Min-Sung Hur, Young-Woo Suh and Jong-Soo

Seo, "A novel energy equalization digital on-channel repeater for
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CONCLUSION

This paper has proposed an ICS scheme for the multihop

WCDMA 3G networks. We have described different
properties of the ICS via simulations. Simulation results have
shown that the ICS works well with a desirable EVM. The
interference cancellation ability is found to be around 40 dBc.
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