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Ofdm PDF
Ofdm PDF
The principles
of OFDM
Multicarrier modulation techniques
are rapidly moving from the textbook
to the real world of modern
communication systems
By Louis Litwin and
Michael Pugel
The single-carrier
modulation system
A typical single-carrier modulation spectrum is
shown in Figure 1. A single carrier system modulates information onto one carrier using frequency,
phase, or amplitude adjustment of the carrier. For
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son that the OFDM subcarriers spectrums can overlap without causing
interference.
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Implementation of
an OFDM system
The idea behind the analog implementation of OFDM can be extended to
Figure 4. Overall spectrum of the simple OFDM signal shown with four subcarriers within. Note
that the zero crossings all correspond to peaks of adjacent subcarriers.
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Intersymbol interference
Assume that the time span of the
channel is LC samples long. Instead of a
single carrier with a data rate of R symbols/second, an OFDM system has N
subcarriers, each with a data rate of
R/N symbols/second. Because the data
rate is reduced by a factor of N, the
OFDM symbol period is increased by a
factor of N. By choosing an appropriate
Figure 6. Example of intersymbol interference. The green symbol was transmitted first, followed by the
blue symbol.
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January 2001
Figure 7. Left plot shows the frequency response of a channel, and the right plot shows the corresponding frequency-domain equalizer response. Note that the
equalizer response is large when the channel response is small in order to counteract the effect of a channel null.
Intrasymbol interference
The guard interval is not used in
practical systems because it does not
prevent an OFDM symbol from interfering with itself. This type of interference is called intrasymbol interference. The solution to the problem of
intrasymbol interference involves a
discrete-time property. Recall that in
continuous-time, a convolution in time
is equivalent to a multiplication in the
frequency-domain. This property is
true in discrete-time only if the signals
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Figure 8. Received spectrum with one non-zero subcarrier. The left plot is for the case of no LO offset, and the right plot is for the presence of an LO offset.
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Non-ideal effects in an
OFDM system
This section will examine the effects
of non-idealities in an OFDM system.
These effects will include impairments
and receiver offsets. Because the fourier
transform is a fundamental operation in
OFDM, the effects of several offsets can
be intuitively understood by applying
fourier transform theory.
Local oscillator
frequency offset
At start-up, the local oscillator (LO)
frequency at the receiver is typically different from the LO frequency at the
transmitter. A carrier tracking loop is
used to adjust the receivers LO frequency in order to match the transmitters LO frequency as closely as possible. The effect of having an LO frequency offset can be explained by Fourier
Transform theory. The LO offset can be
expressed mathematically by multiplying the received time-domain signal by
a complex exponential whose frequency
is equal to the LO offset amount. Recall
from Fourier Transform theory that
multiplication by a complex exponential
in time is equivalent to a shift in frequency. The LO offset results in a fre-
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quency shift of the received signal spectrum. This shift causes a condition
called loss of orthogonality to occur.
The frequency shift causes the OFDM
subcarriers to no longer be orthogonal.
The orthogonality of the subcarriers is
lost because the bins of the FFT will no
longer line up with the peaks of the
received signals since pulses. The
result is a distortion called inter-bin
interference or IBI. IBI occurs when
energy from one bin spills over into
adjacent bins and this energy distorts
the affected subcarriers. In Fourier
Transform theory this effect is called
DFT leakage.
The left plot of Figure 8 shows the
spectrum of a received OFDM signal
with no LO offset. For the purpose of
clarity, only one non-zero subcarrier
was transmitted. Note that this subcarrier is not interfering with its adjacent
subcarriers. The spectrum of the nonzero subcarrier actually extends over
the entire range of the FFT, however,
due to the orthogonal nature of the signal, the zero-crossings of the spectrum
exactly line up with the other FFT bins.
The right plot of Figure 8 shows the
received spectrum of the same signal
with one non-zero subcarrier, however,
in this case there is an LO offset. This
offset has resulted in a loss of orthogonality, and the zero-crossings of the
non-zero subcarriers spectrum no
longer line up with the FFT bins. The
result is that energy from the non-zero
subcarrier is spread out among all of
the other subcarriers, with those sub-
January 2001
carriers closest to the non-zero subcarrier receiving the most interference. This
simple example was for the case of only
one non-zero subcarrier. In a practical
system, almost all of the subcarriers
would be actively used for transmitting
data. A given subcarrier would experience IBI due to energy from all of the
other active subcarriers in the system.
The central limit theorem states that
the sum of a large number of random
processes will result in a signal that has
a Gaussian distribution. Because of this
property, the IBI will manifest itself as
additive Gaussian noise, thus lowering
the effective SNR of the system.
The effect of an LO frequency offset
can be corrected by multiplying the signal by a correction factor. The correction factor would be a sinusoid with a
frequency that is ideally equal to the
amount of the LO frequency offset.
Various carrier tracking algorithms
exist that can adaptively determine the
frequency that will correct for the offset.
LO phase offset
It is also possible to have an LO
phase offset, separate from an LO frequency offset. The two offsets can occur
in conjunction or one or the other can be
present by itself. As the name suggests,
an LO phase offset occurs when there is
a difference between the phase of the
LO output and the phase of the received
signal. This effect can be represented
mathematically by multiplying the
time-domain signal by a complex exponential with a constant phase. The
result is a constant phase rotation for
all of the subcarriers in the frequencydomain. The constellation points for
each subcarrier experience the same
degree of rotation. If the phase rotation
is small, the frequency-domain equalizer can correct this effect. Each filter
coefficient in a frequency-domain equalizer multiplies its corresponding subcarrier by a complex gain (i.e., amplitude
scaling and phase rotation). The equalizers coefficients can be used to correct
for a small phase rotation as long as the
rotation doesnt cause the constellation
points to rotate beyond the symbol decision regions. Larger phase rotations are
corrected by a carrier tracking loop.
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sending the same data on several subcarriers, or sending data that can be
considered lower priority. In extreme
cases, the subcarriers can transmit no
data, essentially turning them off.
Impulse noise
Uniform noise
Additive white Gaussian noise
(AWGN) is the most common impairment encountered in a communications
Non-uniform noise
Noise in a communications channel
can often be shaped, or colored, by
various effects. These effects can
include transmit signal imperfections,
transmission channel characteristics, or
receiver frequency shaping. The implications of these effects for an OFDM
system can be different compared to its
Impulse noise is a common impairment in a communications system arising from motors or lightning. Impulse
noise is typically characterized as a
short time-domain burst of energy. The
burst may be repetitive or may be a single event. In either case, the frequency
spectrum from this energy burst is
wideband, typically much wider than
the channel, but is present for only a
short time period.
One of the most important concepts
to understand about OFDM and its
properties related to the FFT algorithm
is how the algorithm changes the
nature of the signal. In a single-carrier
system, the symbol can be viewed as
occupying all of the available frequency
spectrum for the time duration of the
symbol. A group of symbols then occupies all of the spectrum for the duration
of the whole group, but in a time division arrangement.
OFDM, using the FFT, takes symbols
and creates these groups directly and
then transforms them. They are no
longer time-domain multiplexed, they
are now frequency-domain multiplexed.
The OFDM symbol is now a collection of
these source symbols, and this OFDM
symbol now has a much longer duration. Each original symbol occupies only
a small frequency region, but now occupies that region for the entire OFDM
symbol duration. Figure 13 illustrates
this concept. For impulses that are
short in duration, the impulse energy
masks a smaller percentage of time of
each OFDM symbol compared to the
single carrier case. Impulse noise can
therefore have less of an effect on short
duration noise.
Carrier interference
Figure 11. Simulation results showing the effect of a sampling frequency that is too high. Note that the
sample that was originally at bin 15 is now at bin 8.
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single-carrier counterpart. The modulation of the OFDM system can be tailored for the noise characteristics. One
method previously mentioned involves
lowering the modulation (number of
bits/symbol) on subcarriers in a low
SNR environment as illustrated in
Figure 12. Another method involves
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Figure 12. Uniform and Non-uniform noise and SNR. OFDM can tailor its modulation to the shape of the
noise spectrum.
Phase noise
Noise can also be added to the signal
through a frequency-conversion stage.
The local oscillator used in the converter
will inherently have some phase noise
(uncertainty of actual frequency or
phase of the signal) that will be transferred to the desired signal. Figure 14
shows the effect of phase noise on a local
oscillator. Phase noise is shaped and is
primarily concentrated near the carrier
(or center frequency) of the signal.
An OFDM signal set contains multiple subcarriers, each of which is a
smaller percentage of the total frequency bandwidth than in a single
carrier system. As a result, phase
noise is a smaller percentage of the
bandwidth in a single-carrier system.
Modern applications
OFDM has been chosen for several
current and future communications systems all over the world. It is well-suited
for systems in which the channel characteristics make it difficult to maintain
adequate communications link performance. Asynchronous digital subscriber
line (ADSL) provides a method of delivering high speed data over the phone
line. The system uses OFDM techniques, calling their variation discrete
multi-tone (DMT). DMT includes fea-
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