Communication system incorporating physical layer waveform structure

1. A transceiver configured to transmit and receive a packet-based waveform over at least one communication channel, the transceiver comprising:

an input configured to receive data to be transmitted;

an antenna configured to transmit a transmit signal comprising the waveform and to receive a received signal comprising the waveform, the waveform operating over a plurality of bandwidth channel segments and each packet of the waveform comprising a preamble segment, a packet self discovery segment and a payload segment;

a modulator coupled to the input and configured to modulate the data to provide modulated data;

a control processor module configured to generate each packet of the waveform from the modulated data as a sequence of orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) symbols, each symbol of the waveform modulated onto one the plurality of bandwidth channel segments, and the control processor including a Fourier transform module configured to generate each symbol by computing an inverse fast Fourier transform of the modulated data;

a demodulator configured to demodulate the received signal based at least in part on a number of bandwidth channel segments within the plurality of bandwidth channel segments, the number defined in the packet self discovery segment;

a pilot channel encoder configured to embed periodic pilot symbols within the payload segment of each packet of the waveform; and

a synchronization module configured to acquire a time of arrival of the received signal by individually correlating each symbol of the preamble segment of the waveform to provide a series of correlations and summing the series of correlations.

2. The transceiver as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the waveform has a time division multiple access physical layer structure, and further comprising:

a global positioning system (GPS) input configured to receive an external GPS signal; and

a timing module configured to receive the GPS signal and to synchronize the waveform to time slots within the communication channel based on the GPS signal.

3. The transceiver as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the packet self discovery segment further includes information descriptive of the data and the waveform; and

wherein the demodulator is further configured to extract the information and perform demodulation of the data based on the information.

4. The transceiver as claimed in claim 3 , wherein the information includes at least one of a modulation type, a packet size, and a forward error correction code rate.

5. The transceiver as claimed in claim 3 , wherein the packet self discovery segment comprises three non-repeating OFDM symbols.

6. The transceiver as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the control processor module is further configured to implement windowed cyclic extension on each symbol.

7. The transceiver as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the synchronization module is further configured to compute a corrected frequency estimate for each symbol in the preamble segment of the waveform of the received signal;

wherein the synchronization module comprises a plurality of complex filters configured to compute a frequency error for each symbol in the preamble segment of the waveform of the received signal based on an average rotation vector from symbol to adjacent symbol; and

wherein the synchronization module is configured to compute the corrected frequency estimate based on the frequency error.

8. The transceiver as claimed in claim 7 , wherein the preamble segment of the waveform comprises twelve non-repeating OFDM symbols.

9. The transceiver as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising a channel estimation module configured to remove phase shift and amplitude scaling in the received signal based on the pilot symbols embedded in the waveform.

10. The transceiver as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the transceiver is configured for multiple input multiple output operation; wherein the antenna comprises a plurality of antennas; and further comprising:

an Alamouti encoder configured to implement space-time block coding on the transmit signal.

11. The transceiver as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising a transmission security encoder configured to encode at least some segments of the waveform with a pseudorandom security sequence.

12. The transceiver as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the plurality of bandwidth channel segments includes a plurality of 1.2 MHz bandwidth channel segments.

13. The transceiver as claimed in claim 12 , wherein the plurality of 1.2 MHz bandwidth channel segments includes up to six 1.2 MHz bandwidth channel segments.

14. A method of wireless communication in a radio transceiver network, the method comprising:

receiving a signal to be transmitted by a radio transmitter in the network, the signal including data;

modulating the signal to provide a modulated signal;

generating a packet-based waveform based on the modulated signal, the waveform operating over a plurality of bandwidth channel segments, each packet of the waveform comprising a preamble segment, a packet self discovery segment and a payload segment that includes the data, and each packet comprising a sequence of orthogonal frequency division multiplexed symbols, each symbol modulated onto one of the plurality of bandwidth channel segments;

defining, in the packet self discovery segment, a number of bandwidth channel segments within the plurality of bandwidth channel segments;

embedding pilot symbols within the payload segment of the waveform; and

transmitting the waveform with the radio transmitter.

15. The method as claimed in claim 14 , wherein generating the waveform includes generating the sequence of OFDM symbols by performing inverse fast Fourier transform (iFFTs)s on the modulated signal to generate each OFDM symbol as an iFFT.

16. The method as claimed in claim 15 , wherein generating each OFDM symbol includes:

performing the inverse fast Fourier transform to generate the iFFT;

appending a cyclic prefix and a cyclic postfix to the iFFT to provide an extended iFFT; and

multiplying the extended iFFT by a window function to generate the OFDM symbol.

17. The method as claimed in claim 16 , wherein multiplying the extended iFFT by the window function includes multiplying the extended iFFT by a raised cosine window.

18. The method as claimed in claim 14 , further comprising encoding at least come segments of the waveform with a pseudorandom security sequence prior to transmitting the waveform.

19. The method as claimed in claim 14 , further comprising:

receiving the waveform with a radio receiver;

demodulating the waveform based at least in part on the number of bandwidth channel segments defined in the packet self discovery segment; and

acquiring a time of arrival of the waveform at the radio transceiver by individually correlating each symbol of the preamble segment of the waveform to provide a series of correlations and summing the series of correlations.

20. The method as claimed in claim 19 , further comprising determining a frequency error in the waveform received at the receiver, including computing a frequency error for each symbol in the preamble segment of the waveform based on average rotation vectors from symbol to adjacent symbol.

21. The method as claimed in claim 14 , further comprising:

performing Alamouti space-time block coding on the waveform to provide a plurality of coded waveforms for transmission; and

wherein transmitting the waveform includes transmitting the plurality of coded waveforms using a plurality of individual antennas.

22. The method as claimed in claim 14 , wherein the plurality of bandwidth channel segments includes a plurality of 1.2 MHz bandwidth channel segments.

23. The method as claimed in claim 22 , wherein the plurality of 1.2 MHz bandwidth channel segments includes up to six 1.2 MHz bandwidth channel segments.