Frequency offset estimation and compensation for high performance wireless communications in substation automation
11489710 · 2022-11-01
Assignee
Inventors
Cpc classification
H04L27/2678
ELECTRICITY
International classification
Abstract
A method is used for frequency offset estimation in a wireless communication network that employs time based scheduling of packets. The method is performed by a packet receiver in the wireless communication network. The method includes receiving a packet from a packet transmitter. The packet includes a preamble that is composed of samples of a single orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing symbol. The preamble has a cyclic prefix (CP) defined by a repetition of samples from an end-portion of the preamble and the preamble, except for the CP, is free from any repeated sequence of samples. The method also includes determining a sequence of similarity measure values between the CP of the preamble and the end-portion of the preamble, applying a low-pass filter to the sequence of similarity measure values, resulting in a filtered sequence of similarity measure values, and performing frequency offset estimation on the filtered sequence of similarity measure values.
Claims
1. A method for frequency offset estimation in a wireless communication network that employs time based scheduling of packets, the method being performed by a packet receiver in the wireless communication network, the method comprising: receiving a packet from a packet transmitter, wherein the packet comprises a preamble that is composed of samples of a single orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol, wherein the preamble has a cyclic prefix (CP) defined by a repetition of samples from an end-portion of the preamble and wherein the preamble, except for the CP, is free from any repeated sequence of samples; determining a sequence of similarity measure values between the CP of the preamble and the end-portion of the preamble; applying a low-pass filter to the sequence of similarity measure values, resulting in a filtered sequence of similarity measure values, the filtered sequence of similarity measure values depending on a previously determined sequence of similarity measure values; performing frequency offset estimation on the filtered sequence of similarity measure values; and resetting the low-pass filter to a default state in response to receiving an indication of relative movement between the packet receiver and the packet transmitter, wherein in the default state the sequence of similarity measure value does not depend on any previously determined sequence of similarity measure values.
2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the packet receiver has access to a set of low-pass filters and wherein which low-pass filter to use depends on from which packet transmitter the packet is received.
3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the frequency offset estimation yields a frequency offset estimate value and wherein the frequency offset estimate value corresponds to a phase rotation value, the method further comprising frequency compensating the OFDM symbol by applying the opposite phase rotation value to the OFDM symbol.
4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the sequence of similarity measure values is determined by correlating the CP of the preamble with the end-portion of the preamble.
5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the packet comprises a plurality of data symbols, each data symbol having its own CP defined by a repetition of samples from an end-portion of the data symbol, wherein the steps of determining, applying, and performing frequency offset estimation is also performed for at least one of the data symbols.
6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the steps of determining, applying, and performing frequency offset estimation is also performed for all of the data symbols.
7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the packet receiver is part of a gateway, circuit breaker, circuit protector, transformer, or switchgear.
8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the packet transmitter is part of a gateway, circuit breaker, circuit protector, transformer, or switchgear.
9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the wireless communication network is associated with a power grid system and wherein the packet carries information related to the power grid system.
10. A packet receiver for frequency offset estimation in a wireless communication network that employs time based scheduling of packets, the packet receiver comprising processing circuitry that is configured to cause the packet receiver to: receive a packet from a packet transmitter, wherein the packet comprises a preamble that is composed of samples of a single orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol, the preamble having a cyclic prefix (CP) defined by a repetition of samples from an end-portion of the preamble, wherein the preamble, except for the CP, is free from any repeated sequence of samples; determine a sequence of similarity measure values between the CP of the preamble and the end-portion of the preamble; apply a low-pass filter to the sequence of similarity measure values, resulting in a filtered sequence of similarity measure values, the filtered sequence of similarity measure values depending on a previously determined sequence of similarity measure values, the previously determined sequence of similarity measure values being determined at least in part from a previously-received packet from the packet transmitter; and perform frequency offset estimation on the filtered sequence of similarity measure values.
11. The packet receiver according to claim 10, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to cause the packet receiver to: receive an indication of relative movement between the packet receiver and the packet transmitter; and in response to the indication, reset the low-pass filter to a default state, wherein in the default state the sequence of similarity measure value does not depend on any previously determined sequence of similarity measure values.
12. The packet receiver according to claim 10, wherein the packet receiver has access to a set of low-pass filters and wherein which low-pass filter to use depends on from which packet transmitter the packet is received.
13. The packet receiver according to claim 10, wherein the frequency offset estimation yields a frequency offset estimate value, wherein the frequency offset estimate value corresponds to a phase rotation value, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to cause the packet receiver to frequency compensate the OFDM symbol by applying the opposite phase rotation value to the OFDM symbol.
14. The packet receiver according to claim 10, wherein the sequence of similarity measure values is determined by correlating the CP of the preamble with the end-portion of the preamble.
15. The packet receiver according to claim 10, wherein the packet comprises a plurality of data symbols, each data symbol having its own CP defined by a repetition of samples from an end-portion of the data symbol, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to cause the packet receiver to determine the sequence of similarity measure values, apply the low-pass filter, and perform the frequency offset estimation for at least one of the data symbols.
16. The packet receiver according to claim 10, wherein the packet receiver is part of a gateway, circuit breaker, circuit protector, transformer, or switchgear.
17. The packet receiver according to claim 10, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to cause the packet receiver to reset the low-pass filter to a default state, wherein in the default state the sequence of similarity measure value does not depend on any previously determined sequence of similarity measure values.
18. A non-transitory storage medium storing a computer program for frequency offset estimation in a wireless communication network that employs time based scheduling of packets, the computer program comprising computer code which, when run on processing circuitry of a packet receiver, causes the packet receiver to: receive a packet from a packet transmitter, wherein the packet comprises a preamble that is composed of samples of a single orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol, the preamble having a cyclic prefix (CP) defined by a repetition of samples from an end-portion of the preamble, wherein the preamble, except for the CP, is free from any repeated sequence of samples; determine a sequence of similarity measure values between the CP of the preamble and the end-portion of the preamble, the sequence of similarity measure values depending on a previously determined sequence of similarity measure values; apply a low-pass filter to the sequence of similarity measure values, resulting in a filtered sequence of similarity measure values, the filtered sequence of similarity measure values depending on a previously determined sequence of similarity measure values, the previously determined sequence of similarity measure values being determined at least in part from a previously-received packet from the packet transmitter; and perform frequency offset estimation on the filtered sequence of similarity measure values.
19. The non-transitory storage medium of claim 18, the computer program when run further causes the packet receiver to reset the low-pass filter to a default state, wherein in the default state the sequence of similarity measure value does not depend on any previously determined sequence of similarity measure values.
Description
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
(1) The inventive concept is now described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
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DETAILED DESCRIPTION
(9) The inventive concept will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which certain embodiments of the inventive concept are shown. This inventive concept may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided by way of example so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the inventive concept to those skilled in the art. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout the description. Any step or feature illustrated by dashed lines should be regarded as optional.
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(11) Each node 200a-200N may selectively act as a packet transmitter or a packet receiver. Without loss of generality it will hereinafter be assumed that node 200a will act as a packet receiver and that any of nodes 200b-200N will act as a packet transmitter.
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(13) As an illustrative example,
(14) In order to achieve low latency for short-size packets exchanged in wireless networks for power grid control applications, the size of the PHY layer preamble should be kept small, possibly limited to just one single OFDM symbol. In order to still ensure reliable communications, the herein disclosed packet receiver 200a exploits the cyclic prefix (CP) of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols to achieve accurate frequency offset estimation (as well as compensation), avoiding the use of repeated sequences in the preamble.
(15) The embodiments disclosed herein thus relate to mechanisms for frequency offset estimation in a wireless communication network 100 for power grid control. In order to obtain such mechanisms there is provided a packet receiver 200a, a method performed by the packet receiver 200a, a computer program product comprising code, for example in the form of a computer program, that when run on a packet receiver 200a, causes the packet receiver 200a to perform the method.
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(17) It is assumed that the node acting as packet receiver 200a receives a packet 500 from one of the other nodes acting as packet transmitter 200b-200N. The packet receiver 200a is thus configured to perform step S102:
(18) S102: The packet receiver 200a is configured to receive a packet 500 from a packet transmitter 200b, 200c, . . . , 200N.
(19) In order to estimate the frequency offset, the inherent correlation brought by the use of CP in OFDM symbols is exploited. Parallel reference is here made to
(20) A short preamble 510 composed of just one OFDM symbol (whose duration corresponds to the first five L-STF short sequences in
(21) S104: The packet receiver 200a is configured to determine a sequence of similarity measure values between the CP 520 of the preamble 510 and the end-portion 530 of the preamble 510.
(22) S106: The packet receiver 200a is configured to apply a low-pass filter to the sequence of similarity measure values, resulting in a filtered sequence of similarity measure values.
(23) The packet receiver 200a then performs frequency offset estimation. Particularly, the packet receiver 200a is configured to perform step S108:
(24) S108: The packet receiver 200a is configured to perform frequency offset estimation on the filtered sequence of similarity measure values.
(25) Embodiments relating to further details of frequency offset estimation in a wireless communication network 100 for power grid control as performed by the packet receiver 200a will now be disclosed.
(26) Assume that the i:th OFDM symbol is represented by the following sequence of samples:
r.sub.i(0), . . . , r.sub.i(N.sub.FFT+L),
where N.sub.FFT is the FFT size and L is the length of the cyclic prefix.
(27) Assuming that the frequency offset is f.sub.Δ and in absence of noise, the k:th received sample in the sequence can be expressed as:
r.sub.i(k)=s.sub.i(k).Math.e.sup.j2πf.sup.
where s.sub.i(k) is the k:th transmitted sample in the i:th OFDM symbol and T.sub.s is the sampling time.
(28) There could be different ways for the packet receiver 200a to obtain the similarity measure values. In some aspects the similarity measure values are obtained through correlation. Thus, according to an embodiment the sequence of similarity measure values is determined by correlating the CP 520 of the preamble 510 with the end-portion 530 of the preamble 510.
(29) In other aspects the similarity measure values are obtained through mechanisms such as mean similarity, root mean square similarity or peak similarity. These mechanisms are as such known to the person skilled in the art as disclosed in Section 3 of Cassisi, Carmelo, et al. “Similarity measures and dimensionality reduction techniques for time series data mining” in Advances in data mining knowledge discovery and applications, InTech, 2012, DOI: 10.5772/49941.
(30) The cyclic prefix-based similarity measure value for the i:th OFDM symbol can thus be determined by multiplying the first L samples of the OFDM symbol (corresponding to the cyclic prefix) with the complex conjugate of the last L samples. In absence of noise, the result is:
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(32) How to estimate the frequency offset from this quantity will be disclosed below.
(33) To improve the estimation accuracy, a low-pass filter can be used to process the correlation value. Denote by Λ.sub.i the similarity measure value before low-pass filtering and {tilde over (Λ)}.sub.i the similarity measure value after low-pass filtering.
(34) According to a generic low-pass filtering implementation, the output value of the low-pass filtering for the i:th OFDM symbol can be expressed as:=α.sub.1Λ.sub.i+α.sub.2Λ.sub.i−1+ . . . +α.sub.n+1Λ.sub.i−n−β.sub.2
− . . . −β.sub.m+1
.
(35) This yields a transfer function H(z) for the low-pass filter according to:
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(37) As an illustrative and non-limiting example, a moving average filter can be obtained from H(z) by setting n=0, m=1, α.sub.1=α, and β.sub.2=α−1. Thus, {tilde over (Λ)}.sub.l can be expressed as:=αΛ.sub.i+(1−α)
.
(38) In this way, the similarity measure values determined for the previous OFDM symbols play a role in the low-pass filtering operations for the i:th OFDM symbol. Hence, according to an embodiment the sequence of similarity measure values depends on a previously determined sequence of similarity measure values.
(39) Advantageously, the accuracy of the frequency offset estimation increases with the number of previously determined sequence of similarity measure values. Therefore, the use of the low-pass filter ensures that the estimation converges to the true frequency offset value (i.e. the frequency offset due to synchronization mismatches between transmitter and receiver oscillators). In this respect, the previous OFDM symbols can also belong to previous packets, i.e., where the state of the low-pass filter is not reset after reception of each packet 500. In this respect, the state of the filter is defined by the K latest-most similarity measures.
(40) Since the frequency offset might depend on the transmitter-receiver pair and the packet receiver 200a might receive respective packets 500 from multiple packet transmitters 200b, 200c, . . . , 200N, a separate low-pass filter might be maintained at the packet receiver 200a for each possible packet transmitter 200b, 200c, . . . , 200N. Particularly, according to an embodiment the packet receiver 200a has access to a set of low-pass filters. Which low-pass filter to use then depends on from which packet transmitter 200b, 200c, . . . , 200N the packet 500 is received.
(41) In the assumed wireless communication network 100, the access to the to channel is strictly scheduled in time (e.g. time-division multiple access (TDMA)), so that each node acting as a packet receiver 200a is aware of when it will receive a packet 500 and from which packet transmitter 200b, 200c, . . . , 200N. This knowledge will allow the packet receiver 200a to select the appropriate low-pass filter to update with the just determined sequence of similarity measure values.
(42) In some aspects, the frequency offset is estimated for each OFDM symbol based on the updated sequence of similarity measure values returned by the low-pass filter. In more detail, the frequency offset can be derived by determining the complex phase of the sequence of similarity measure values (e.g. by using the CORDIC algorithm (where CORDIC is short for COordinate Rotation DIgital Computer), also known as Volder's algorithm)) and scaling it appropriately, taking into account sample time and FFT size. Particularly, according to an embodiment the frequency offset estimation yields a frequency offset estimate value. This frequency offset estimate value corresponds to a phase rotation value. According to an embodiment the packet receiver 200b is then configured to perform (optional) step S110:
(43) S110: The packet receiver 200a frequency compensates the OFDM symbol by applying the opposite phase rotation value to the OFDM symbol.
(44) At each OFDM symbol, the estimated frequency offset might thus be compensated for by applying an opposite phase rotation to the OFDM symbol.
(45) In general terms, if the packet transmitter 200b, 200c, . . . , 200N and/or packet receiver 200a move, Doppler effects might arise, thus changing the frequency offset value. In some aspects the low-pass filter is therefore reset upon detection of relative movement between the packet transmitter 200b, 200c, . . . , 200N and the packet receiver 200a. Hence, according to an embodiment the packet receiver 200b is configured to perform (optional) step S112:
(46) S112: The packet receiver 200a receives an indication of relative movement between the packet receiver 200a and the packet transmitter 200b, 200c, . . . , 200N.
(47) There could be different ways for the packet receiver 200a to receive the indication of relative movement. In some aspects the indication is received from protocol layers higher than the PHY layer. For example, the indication might be provided as localization information on the application layer.
(48) The packet receiver 200a is then configured to, in and in response thereto (i.e., in response to having received the indication in step S112) perform step S114:
(49) S114: The packet receiver 200a resets the low-pass filter to a default state, wherein in the default state the sequence of similarity measure value does not depend on any previously determined sequence of similarity measure values.
(50) As noted above, the state of the filter is defined by the K latest-most similarity measures. Resetting the filter might thus comprise setting all the K latest-most similarity measures as used in the filter to default values. That is, with reference to the above expression for , instead of using
as a value in the low-pass filter, a default value can be used. Hence, the corresponding low-pass filter might be reset, not taking into account older similarity measure values anymore.
(51) As noted above, the packet 500 may further comprise one or more data symbols 540a, 540b, . . . , 540N, each having its own CP 550 and end-portion 560. Particularly, the packet 500 comprises at least one data symbol 540a, 540b, . . . , 540N. Each data symbol 540a, 540b, . . . , 540N then has its own CP 550. Each CP 550 is defined by a repetition of samples from an end-portion 560 of its data symbol 540a, 540b, . . . , 540N.
(52) In some aspects the frequency offset estimation is also performed on at least one of the its data symbols 540a, 540b, . . . , 540N. It is thus checked (step S116) if there are more OFDM symbols in the packet 500. If there are no more OFDM symbols in the packet 500, step S102 can be entered again for a new packet. Else, if there are more OFDM symbols, according to an embodiment the determining in step S104, the applying in step S106, and the performing of frequency offset estimation in step S108 is performed (step S118) also for at least one of the at least one data symbol 540a, 540b, . . . , 540N.
(53) In this respect, the same low-pass filter as used for the preamble 510 is used for the data symbol 540a, 540b, . . . , 540N.
(54) Further aspects of frequency offset compensation will now be disclosed.
(55) The frequency offset can from Λ.sub.i be estimated as:
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(57) Once the frequency offset has been estimated, the frequency offset can be compensated by applying a phase rotation to the received samples of the OFDM symbol:(k)=r.sub.i(k).Math.e.sup.−j2π{circumflex over (f)}.sup.
(58) If the frequency offset estimation is accurate (i.e., the estimated frequency offset is equal to the true frequency offset; {circumflex over (f)}.sub.Δ=f.sub.Δ), the received samples are equal to the transmitted samples, and hence the effect of the true frequency offset is compensated.
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(60) Particularly, the processing circuitry 210 is configured to cause the packet receiver 200a to perform a set of operations, or steps, S102-S104e, as disclosed above. For example, the storage medium 230 may store the set of operations, and the processing circuitry 210 may be configured to retrieve the set of operations from the storage medium 230 to cause the packet receiver 200a to perform the set of operations. The set of operations may be provided as a set of executable instructions.
(61) Thus the processing circuitry 210 is thereby arranged to execute methods as herein disclosed. The storage medium 230 may also comprise persistent storage, which, for example, can be any single one or combination of magnetic memory, optical memory, solid state memory or even remotely mounted memory. The packet receiver 200a may further comprise a communications interface 220 at least configured for communications with at least one packet transmitter 200a-200N. As such the communications interface 220 may comprise one or more transmitters and receivers, comprising analogue and digital components. The processing circuitry 210 controls the general operation of the packet receiver 200a e.g. by sending data and control signals to the communications interface 220 and the storage medium 230, by receiving data and reports from the communications interface 220, and by retrieving data and instructions from the storage medium 230. Other components, as well as the related functionality, of the packet receiver 200a are omitted in order not to obscure the concepts presented herein.
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(63) The inventive concept has mainly been described above with reference to a few embodiments. However, as is readily appreciated by a person skilled in the art, other embodiments than the ones disclosed above are equally possible within the scope of the inventive concept, as defined by the appended patent claims.