Some Little Success!
Last Thursday I finally had some success with my final project for my masters. I’ve spent the last six months creating a 802.11a simulator (both baseband and RF) and modelling some specific distortion in there (and trying to understand how that distortion affects the received signal). The goal of my project is to find some algorithm to estimate and compensate for this distortion. Now, finally, after six months the simulator is ready and I’ve also implemented the first (simple) algorithm to estimate and compensate for the distortion. This algorithm is specifically developed for just the most simple form in which the distortion can appear, but the results are really surprisingly (even shockingly!) good! Without my algorithm, the signal was distorted so much that it was completely unusable (bit error ratio was way too high), and with my algorithm, the system performed again at just the same level as it would have if there was no distortion at all.
I have to admit here that this was for the most simple form one could think of, and this type of distortion will (almost) never occur in real life situations. Nevertheless, I’ve tried this algorithm for the next-most simple form (which is already a real life situation), and for that situation, the performance increase was really considerable, although not good enough yet.
Next step is to develop and implement an estimation and compensation scheme for this form of distortion. (And if that works well, try to extend the scheme in two directions.)
(I’m very sorry I cannot yet tell any more details about my project. The contract that I had to sign for my employer forbids any disclosures. Perhaps my boss wouldn’t mind if I would release just a little bit more information (like, the kind of distortion I’m working on and for which cases the algorithm works and for which it doesn’t work that well or just doesn’t work at all), but I’d rather be safe than sorry. And besides that, I’m quite positive he won’t allow me to tell just how the algorithm exactly works…)
Later that day, Bas, Bram, Christian, Paul and me tried to watch Star Wars III. However, we were a little late at the cinema (movie was already running for two minutes) and the queue at the desk was huge! So, unfortunately, we gave up. I tried to convince them to spend (part of) their money on some delicious ice cream to cheer us up as we passed the shop where we had some ice cream last time (after we went to the Tongelreep). Too bad I couldn’t convince anyone…