arXiv subjects

Hans-Peter Bernhard

Publications and source records attributed to Hans-Peter Bernhard.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Automated Testbed for Repeatable Evaluation of Ultra-Wideband Localization Performance

Testing Ultra-Wideband (UWB) systems is challenging, as multiple devices need to coordinate over lossy links and the systems' behavior is influenced by timing, synchronization, and environmental factors. Traditional testing is often insufficient to capture these complex interactions, highlighting the need for an overarching testbed infrastructure that can manage devices, control the environment, and make measurements and test scenarios repeatable. In this work, we present a highly automated testbed architecture built on Robot Operating System Version 2, integrating device management with environmental control and measurement systems. It includes an optical reference system, a controllable Autonomous Guided Vehicle to position devices within the environment, and time synchronization via Network Time Protocol (NTP). The testbed achieves a Root Mean Squared Error of 4.8 mm for positioning repeatability and 0.493$°$ for the orientation, and our NTP-based synchronization approach achieves a timing accuracy of below 1 ms. All testbed functionality can be controlled remotely through simple Python scripts to allow automated orchestration tasks such as conducting complex measurement scenarios. We demonstrate this with a measurement campaign on UWB localization, showing how it enables repeatable, observable, and fully controlled wireless experiments.

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arXiv2024

Analysis and Compensation of Carrier Frequency Offset Impairments in Unique Word OFDM

Unique Word-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (UW-OFDM) is known to provide various performance benefits over conventional cyclic prefix (CP) based OFDM. Most important, UW-OFDM features excellent spectral sidelobe suppression properties and an outstanding bit error ratio (BER) performance. Carrier frequency offset (CFO) induced impairments denote a challenging task for OFDM systems of any kind. In this work we investigate the CFO effects on UW-OFDM and compare it to conventional multi-carrier and single-carrier systems. Different CFO compensation approaches with different computational complexity are considered throughout this work and assessed against each other. A mean squared error analysis carried out after data estimation reveals a significant higher robustness of UW-OFDM over CP-OFDM against CFO effects. Additionally, the conducted BER simulations generally support this conclusion for various scenarios, ranging from uncoded to coded transmission in a frequency selective environment.

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arXiv2023

5G Campus Network Factory Floor Measurements with Varying Channel and QoS Flow Priorities

5G is considered a promising wireless communication technology to fulfill the high-demanding communication requirements of many Industry 4.0 applications. This work evaluates a 5G campus network for indoor factory floor scenarios using the latest commercially available 3GPP release-16 developments. The measurement campaign is conducted to obtain detailed coverage maps with reference signal received power, channel quality indicators, and downlink and uplink throughput (TP). Moreover, end-to-end delay measurements with varying channel conditions, 5G quality of service (QoS) priorities, and traffic loads were evaluated. It was concluded that even without ultra-reliable low-latency features, the TP and latency performance could be controlled by configuring QoS parameters. The evaluations suggest scenarios where QoS allocation and retention priority levels can be used in order to ensure the required performance of a specific QoS flow within the 5G system.

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arXiv2023

Towards Deterministic Communications in 6G Networks: State of the Art, Open Challenges and the Way Forward

Over the last decade, society and industries are undergoing rapid digitization that is expected to lead to the evolution of the cyber-physical continuum. End-to-end deterministic communications infrastructure is the essential glue that will bridge the digital and physical worlds of the continuum. We describe the state of the art and open challenges with respect to contemporary deterministic communications and compute technologies: 3GPP 5G, IEEE Time-Sensitive Networking, IETF DetNet, OPC UA as well as edge computing. While these technologies represent significant technological advancements towards networking Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), we argue in this paper that they rather represent a first generation of systems which are still limited in different dimensions. In contrast, realizing future deterministic communication systems requires, firstly, seamless convergence between these technologies and, secondly, scalability to support heterogeneous (time-varying requirements) arising from diverse CPS applications. In addition, future deterministic communication networks will have to provide such characteristics end-to-end, which for CPS refers to the entire communication and computation loop, from sensors to actuators. In this paper, we discuss the state of the art regarding the main challenges towards these goals: predictability, end-to-end technology integration, end-to-end security, and scalable vertical application interfacing. We then present our vision regarding viable approaches and technological enablers to overcome these four central challenges. Key approaches to leverage in that regard are 6G system evolutions, wireless friendly integration of 6G into TSN and DetNet, novel end-to-end security approaches, efficient edge-cloud integrations, data-driven approaches for stochastic characterization and prediction, as well as leveraging digital twins towards system awareness.

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arXiv2023

Predicting the Channel Access of Bluetooth Low Energy

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is one of the key enablers for low-power and low-cost applications in consumer electronics and the Internet of Things. The latest features such as audio and direction finding will introduce more and more devices that rely on BLE for communication. However, like many other wireless standards, BLE relies on the unlicensed 2.4 GHz frequency band where the spectrum is already very crowded and a channel access without collisions with other devices is difficult to guarantee. For applications with high reliability requirements, it will be beneficial to actively consider channel access from other devices or standards. In this work, we present an approach to estimate the connection parameters of multiple BLE connections outside our control and knowledge by passively listening to the channel. With this, we are able to predict future channel access of these BLE connections that can be used by other wireless networks to avoid collisions. We show the applicability of our algorithm with measurements from which we are able to identify unknown BLE connections, reconstruct their specific connection parameters, and predict their future channel access.

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arXiv2021

RSSI-Based Machine Learning with Pre- and Post-Processing for Cell-Localization in IWSNs

Industrial wireless sensor networks are becoming crucial for modern manufacturing. If the sensors in those networks are mobile, the position information, besides the sensor data itself, can be of high relevance. E.g. this position information can increase the trustability of a wireless sensor measurement by assuring that the sensor is not physically removed, off track, or otherwise compromised. In certain applications, localization information at cell-level, whether the sensor is inside or outside a room or cell, is sufficient. For this, localization using Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) measurements is very popular since RSSI values are available in almost all existing technologies and no direct interaction with the mobile sensor node and its communication in the network is needed. For this scenario, we propose methods to improve the robustness and accuracy of common machine learning classifiers, by using features based on short-term moments and a second classification stage using Hidden Markov Models. With the data from an extensive measurement campaign, we show the applicability of our method and achieve a cell-level localization accuracy of 93.5\%.

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arXiv2021

RSSI-Based Location Classification Using a Particle Filter to Fuse Sensor Estimates

For Cyper-Physical Production Systems (CPPS), localization is becoming increasingly important as wireless and mobile devices are considered an integral part. While localizing targets in a wireless communication system based on the Received Signal Strength Indicators (RSSIs) is a usual solution, it is limited by sensor quality. We consider the scenario of a car moving in and out of a chamber and propose to use a particle filter for sensor fusion, allowing us to incorporate non-idealities in our model and achieve a high-quality position estimate. Then, we use Machine Learning (ML) to classify the vehicle position. Our results show that the location output of the particle filter is a better input to the classifiers than the raw RSSI data, and we achieve improved accuracy while simultaneously reducing the number of features that the ML has to consider. We also compare the performance of multiple ML algorithms and show that SVMs provide the overall best performance for the given task.

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arXiv2020

On the Inclusion and Utilization of Pilot Tones in Unique Word OFDM

Unique word-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (UW-OFDM) is known to provide various performance benefits over conventional OFDM using cyclic prefixes (CP). Most important, UW-OFDM features excellent spectral sidelobe suppression properties and an outstanding bit error ratio performance. Current research has mainly focused on principle performance bounds of UW-OFDM, with less attention on challenges aside from idealized communication scenarios, such as system parameter estimation tasks. In this work we present an approach for including frequency pilots tones into the UW-OFDM signaling scheme, which can then be utilized for these estimation tasks. Suitable optimization criteria are presented and interactions of pilots with data symbols are highlighted. Pilot tone based estimation of a carrier frequency offset (CFO) is conducted as an estimation example, revealing considerable differences to conventional OFDM. Simulation results in a multipath environment demonstrate a significantly increased estimation accuracy in UW-OFDM over CP-OFDM, which becomes even more dominant with an increasing CFO. This performance difference is due to the inherent redundancy present in an UW-OFDM signal.

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