Stmicroelectronics N.v.

Telia Ab

Harry Tonvall

Mikael Isaksson

Lennart Olsson

Daniel Bengtsson

Magnus Johansson

Anders Isaksson

Goran Okvist

Tomas Nordstrom

Hans Ohman

Lis-Marie Ljunggren

Lars-Ake Isaksson

Ye Wen

Gunnar Bahlenberg

Tomas Stefansson

Siwert Hakansson

Per Odling

Siwert H&aring;kansson

Gunnar Bahlenbert

Thomas Stefansson

A multi-carrier transmission system has a plurality of transceivers, each having a receiver and a transmitter. Data is transmitted between the transceivers by modulating the data onto a multiplicity of carrier waves in the form of multi-bit symbols, wherein each carrier wave constitutes a channel, and wherein the number of bits per symbol (the bit loading), varies between channels and, within a channel, with time, so that each channel has associated therewith a bit loading parameter. In operation, the multi-carrier system is adapted to synchronously update, at the transceivers, the bit loading parameters associated with each channel by transmission of data over a control channel, in that the control channel is established, at system start-up, on a predetermined one of the multiplicity of carrier waves whose identity is known to the transceivers, and in that the control channel is, after start-up, changed from the predetermined channel to a further channel, selected by the first transceiver on the basis of channel characteristics.

Multi-carrier transmission systems

A transmission system using nQAM. A control channel is superimposed on a nQAM data channel. It is desirable to separate control channel data from user data without using a higher level protocol layer. In multi-carrier systems with variable bit-loading it is particularly desirable that the control channel data be separable from user data when the value of n. that is the bit-loading, or constellation identifier are unknown. Binary data is transmitted using nQAM modulation. The binary data includes both user data and control data. This means that a control channel is superimposed on a user data channel within the same nQAM constellation. Separation of the control data is facilitated by arranging control data points to have either a unique phase or unique amplitude values. These unique values are not employed for user data points.

Data transmission system and method using nQAM constellation with a control channel superimposed on a user data channel

A multi-carrier transmission system using orthogonal carriers with high order QAM constellations for the transmission of multiple bits per carrier and symbol. Such systems place high demands on the synchronization of the receiver with the transmitter. The maximum permitted deviation from exact synchronization is usually a small fraction of a sampling interval. A reserve carrier, the pilot carrier, which is given a fixed phase, is usually used as the reference to achieve this high accuracy. The receiver sampling clock oscillator is phase locked to the pilot carrier. It is therefore necessary to estimate the phase of the pilot carrier. Using a bandpass filter to recover the pilot carrier, regardless of the frame structure of the DMT signal, does not eliminate the influence of neighboring carriers on the pilot carrier.

A multi-carrier transmission system. A received multi-carrier signal is sampled and digitized before FFT processing. Multi-carrier signals consist of many narrow band carrier waves which convey data via a wide band channel. The amplitude distribution of the sum of all the individual carriers is Gaussian. This means that high amplitudes occur with low probability. At the present time, analog to digital converters have a limited dynamic range. It is therefore normal practice to provide a compromise between cutting and quantization noise. The adverse affects of a course quantization have to be balanced between signal distortions caused by the loss of the low probability high amplitude signals.

A multi-carrier transmission system such as a DMT system. Channel information is transmitted between two transceivers using a plurality of sub-carriers modulated with symbols, each of which represents a multiplicity of bits. Each of the transceivers includes a receiver and a transmitter in which a fixed maximum value was determined for the number of bits for each symbol and in which the system is adapted to determine the bit capacity per symbol of each of the plurality of sub-carriers and to increase the number of bits represented by a symbol transmitted over those sub-carriers having a capacity less than a fixed maximum value to the maximum value by the addition of channel coding bits. The fixed maximum value for the number of bits for each symbol may be determined on the basis of the bit capacity of that one of the sub-carriers having the highest theoretical bit capacity may be at least as large as the theoretical bit capacity.

A multi-carrier transmission system such as a DMT based VDSL system. The system uses orthogonal carriers with high order QAM constellations for the transmission of multiple bits per carrier and symbol. This estimate includes digital receiver and transmitter units with the receiver unit including a symbol detection unit. This system is adapted to determine a parameter for each single carrier with the parameter being indicative of a deviation of a received signal from a corresponding constellation point. It compares the parameter with an upper lower limit and if the parameter is outside the limits, changes the constellation used to modulate the carrier to a neighboring constellation. The symbol detection unit may be used to determine a parameter such as the ratio d /&sgr; , where d is the shortest distance between neighboring constellations, &sgr; is a standard deviation and &sgr; is the variance of the deviations of the input and output signal values of the symbol detection unit.

A multi-carrier transmission system, for example a DMT system. Channel information is transmitted between two transceivers using a plurality of subcarriers. Each subcarrier, or symbol, has a parameter associated with it. The transceivers are adapted to transmit the channel information as a sequence of n groups in which each of the n groups contains information concerning the number of adjacent subcarriers which have the same value as the parameter, together with the actual value of the parameter. The parameter which may have a plurality of discrete values, may be a bit-loading value, or a QAM constellation identifier.

A multi-carrier transmission system, such as a DMT system. A receiver must be able to recover a sampling clock that is very accurately synchronized to a transmitter sampling clock. Typically, synchronization is achieved by using a reserved carrier, the pilot carrier, which is transmitted with a fixed phase. The receiver sampling clock is then phase locked to the pilot carrier. Frame timing can be recovered by using a correlation technique. Thus an improved method of recovering a sample clock and phase locking the sampling clock to a pilot carrier is provided.

A two-way multi-carrier transmission system, such as a DMT system. If there are dynamic changes in the transmission parameters, synchronization must be maintained between the transmitter and the receiver when the transmission parameters changed. The first stage of such a process requires that the changes of parameter be notified by one transceiver to others involved in an active communication process over a slow transmission channel such as the control channel. Subsequently, the synchronization transceiver is adjusted simultaneously, i.e., from a predetermined DMT symbol. Such adjustments in time synchronization must be achieved with a minimum of overhead.

A multi-carrier transmission system using orthogonal carriers with high order QAM constellations for the transmission of a plurality of bits per carrier and symbol. The system uses some method for the determination of an inverse channel model to be used in the equalization process. In the frequency domain, this is normally based on an estimate of the channel attenuation and phase for each carrier. A simplified method of equalization is provided which uses data at the symbol carrier input and output to adaptively estimate an inverse channel model.

A multi-carrier transmission system using DMT. It is known to recover a receiver sample and clock from a reserved carrier, a pilot carrier having a fixed phase. A sampling clock oscillator in a receiver is then phase locked to the pilot carrier. Multi-carrier receivers, such as DMT receivers, are normally equipped with an FFT processor. A complex number representing the pilot carrier is then available from the FFT processor output. If an FFT processor is not available, a one frequency DFT processor can be provided to produce a complex estimate of the pilot carrier. In a DMT system, frame synchronization is handled separately from sampling clock synchronization, although the two processes are intimately related and frame synchronization must be acquired before sampling clock synchronization.

Growing community of inventors

Lulea, Sweden

Harry Tonvall