Energy Efficiency in Multiple Antenna Machine-Type Communications With Reconfigurable RF Transceivers

In machine-type communication (MTC) networks, each node is equipped with a set of radio-frequency (RF) transceivers, antennas and power source. Besides, wireless nodes are typically battery-powered, whose recharging or replacement is often not viable or even impossible. Therefore, in such systems where energy is at a premium, minimizing power consumption improves energy efficiency and increases battery lifetime. In this paper, a novel energy-saving approach includes in the communication system model the use of reconfigurable RF transceivers. More specifically, the components involved in our power minimization framework are the power amplifier (PA) at the transmitter and the low noise amplifier (LNA) at the receiver, which are the blocks responsible for RF amplification and are on top of power consuming blocks in RF transceivers. Our goal is to show that RF circuits based on multimode operation can significantly improve the energy efficiency. We perform a joint selection of the best operating modes for PA and LNA circuits in different communication scenarios. Results show that by combining PA and LNA operating modes, an improvement of more than 75% in energy efficiency is obtained for multiple antenna communications, when compared to the state-of-the-art literature of non-reconfigurable amplifiers. Besides, we show that adapting spectral efficiency contributes towards improving energy efficiency. In this case, we consider different spectral efficiency values, including the effect that the PA operates at different backed-off power levels. In addition, when comparing single-input single-output (SISO) and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission schemes, antenna selection (AS) outperforms the others schemes in terms of energy efficiency for short and moderate distances, but singular value decomposition (SVD) allows for longer communication distances.

[1]  Tim Das Freescale.  Practical Considerations for Low Noise Amplifier Design-White Paper , 2013 .

[2]  Christian Brecher,et al.  Radio channel characterization at 5.85 GHz for wireless M2M communication of industrial robots , 2016, 2016 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference.

[3]  Ockgoo Lee,et al.  A Dual-Mode CMOS RF Power Amplifier With Integrated Tunable Matching Network , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

[4]  Kyu Hwan An,et al.  A Linear Multi-Mode CMOS Power Amplifier With Discrete Resizing and Concurrent Power Combining Structure , 2011, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[5]  R.K. Pokharel,et al.  A 2.4 GHz 0.18-µm CMOS Class E single-ended power amplifier without spiral inductors , 2010, 2010 Topical Meeting on Silicon Monolithic Integrated Circuits in RF Systems (SiRF).

[6]  H.T. Friis,et al.  Noise Figures of Radio Receivers , 1944, Proceedings of the IRE.

[7]  Kimmo Rasilainen,et al.  Performance Analysis of Frequency-Reconfigurable Antenna Cluster With Integrated Radio Transceivers , 2018, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters.

[8]  Patrick Audebert,et al.  An Ultra-Low Power 28 nm FD-SOI Low Noise Amplifier Based on Channel Aware Receiver System Analysis , 2018 .

[9]  Luc Vandendorpe,et al.  Outage Probability and Energy Efficiency of Cooperative MIMO with Antenna Selection , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.

[10]  Marco Antonio Rios,et al.  A fully integrated CMOS power amplifier with discrete gain control for efficiency enhancement , 2017, Microelectron. J..

[11]  Gerhard P. Hancke,et al.  A Survey on 5G Networks for the Internet of Things: Communication Technologies and Challenges , 2018, IEEE Access.

[12]  Josef A. Nossek,et al.  Power efficiency in communication systems from a circuit perspective , 2011, 2011 IEEE International Symposium of Circuits and Systems (ISCAS).

[13]  Edson Leonardo dos Santos,et al.  Design of an RF Six-Mode CMOS Power Amplifier for Efficiency Improvement at Power Backoff , 2018, 2018 31st Symposium on Integrated Circuits and Systems Design (SBCCI).

[14]  François Belmas,et al.  A Low Power Inductorless LNA With Double Gm Enhancement in 130 nm CMOS , 2012, RFIC 2012.

[15]  Jean-Michel Fournier,et al.  A Low Power Inductorless LNA With Double ${\rm G} _{\rm m}$ Enhancement in 130 nm CMOS , 2012, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[16]  G. T. Watkins,et al.  A load-modulated low-power amplifier with average power tracking , 2015, 2015 European Microwave Conference (EuMC).

[17]  Ockgoo Lee,et al.  A 2.4 GHz Fully Integrated Linear CMOS Power Amplifier With Discrete Power Control , 2009, IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters.

[18]  Abhijit Chatterjee,et al.  Self-Learning RF Receiver Systems: Process Aware Real-Time Adaptation to Channel Conditions for Low Power Operation , 2017, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers.

[19]  Andrea J. Goldsmith,et al.  Energy-constrained modulation optimization , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.

[20]  Andre A. Mariano,et al.  Multimode 2.4 GHz CMOS power amplifier with gain control for efficiency enhancement at power backoff , 2015, 2015 IEEE 6th Latin American Symposium on Circuits & Systems (LASCAS).

[21]  Dominique Morche,et al.  A tunable Ultra Low Power inductorless Low Noise Amplifier exploiting body biasing of 28 nm FDSOI technology , 2017, 2017 IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design (ISLPED).

[22]  Maria Rita Palattella,et al.  Internet of Things in the 5G Era: Enablers, Architecture, and Business Models , 2016, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications.

[23]  Vincent F. Fusco,et al.  Power-Combining Class-E Amplifier With Finite Choke , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers.

[24]  Josef A. Nossek,et al.  Circuit aware design of power-efficient short range communication systems , 2010, 2010 7th International Symposium on Wireless Communication Systems.

[25]  S. L. Khemchandani,et al.  A low-power fully integrated CMOS RF receiver for 2.4-GHz-band IEEE 802.15.4 standard , 2015, 2015 Conference on Design of Circuits and Integrated Systems (DCIS).

[26]  Thierry Taris,et al.  Reconfigurable Inductorless Wideband CMOS LNA for Wireless Communications , 2017, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers.

[27]  Tarik Taleb,et al.  Machine-type communications: current status and future perspectives toward 5G systems , 2015, IEEE Communications Magazine.

[28]  David Tse,et al.  Fundamentals of Wireless Communication , 2005 .