Physical Layer Network Coding for M-QAM MIMO Systems

The aim of this thesis is to design, implement and assess a practical Physical Layer Network Coding (PNC) scheme in multi-user massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems utilizing M-ary Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (M-QAM). PNC is a new technology that is gradually becoming one of the most sought after, as it has the potential to increase network capacity, whilst ensuring that the spectrum is also efficiently used. One of the design goals is to ascertain if combining PNC and massive MIMO is even possible. In accomplishing this goal in a multi-user cellular system with a centralized base station relaying bi-directional communication of M-QAM symbols among user equipment (UEs), a formulation of PNC mapping scheme as a function of clusters of sum and difference (SD) of transmitted symbols from the antennas of the UE pairs is pursued. The simulation results reveal that the proposed PNC scheme achieves twice the spectral efficiency in massive MIMO, without altering the latter's underlying framework and without any degradation in the bit-error-rate (BER). Having established the feasibility of combining PNC and massive MIMO, an evaluation of the proposed scheme against jamming attack is carried out and the simulation results reveal the resilience of the scheme against a barraging jamming noise signal, yet with an increase in spectral efficiency (SE). In addition, extension of the proposed PNC scheme together with Index modulation (IM), a physical layer technique that increases energy efficiency (EE) by utilizing fewer resources to transmit, is designed, implemented and evaluated. The simulation results reveal that combining PNC and IM creates a good balance between EE and SE.