Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing

Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

30.11.

Kari Pietikäinen
kari.pietikainen@hut.fi

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 Outline

• OFDM
– Subchannels
– Pilots
• System overview
– Coding / Interleaving
– Mapping
– IFFT / FFT
– Guard time / Cyclic prefix
• System planning example
• References
• Homework

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 OFDM

• Multi-carrier modulation/multiplexing technique

• Available bandwidth is divided into several subchannels

• Data is serial-to-parallel converted

• Symbols are transmitted on different subcarriers

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 OFDM

• Signal processing made digitally in the frequency domain

– IFFT/FFT –pair

• Guard time is added to reduce effects caused by

multipath propagation

• Tolerant to frequency-selective fading

– Information lost in deep fades can be recovered using FEC

• Flexible data rates (IEEE 802.11a/g 6 – 54 Mbit/s)

– Different code rates
• Puncturing
– Different modulation methods (mapping)

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 OFDM

• Advantages
– Spectral efficiency
– Simple implementation
– Tolerant to ISI

• Disadvantages
– BW loss due guard time
– Prone to frequency and phase offset errors
– Peak to average power - problem

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 Subchannels

• Frequency-selective channel is divided into flat fading

subchannels
• Fast serial data stream is transformed into slow parallel
data streams
– Longer symbol durations

channel
magnitude

carrier

subchannel
frequency
Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications
Communications Laboratory / HUT
 Subchannels

• Subchannel spacings are

selected so, that they are
mathematically
orthogonal to each other
– FDM OFDM
single subchannel ofdm spectrum

• Subchannels overlap on
each other
– Sinc -shaped spectra

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 Pilots

• Pilots are transmitted first in each burst

– 802.11a/g uses 4 subchannels as pilots
– Some ’timeslots’ can be used as pilots
• Data can be normalized by pilot components
• Pilots are designed for easy detection
• Pilots are used for channel estimation
– Frequency and phase offsets
– Can be used for synchronization

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 Typical OFDM transmitter

Interleaving

Mapping
Coding

IFFT
S/P

CP
• IEEE 802.11 a/g WLAN • DMT uses bit loading –
• IEEE 802.16 WiMAX algorithms
• DAB – High SNR subchannels carry
more bits
• DVB-T
• ADSL (DMT) • DVB-T can use > 6800
subchannels
• PLC (DMT
• WiMAX can divide
subchannels to different users

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 Coding / Interleaving

Interleaving

Mapping
Coding

IFFT
S/P

CP
Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications
Communications Laboratory / HUT
 Coding / Interleaving

• Convolutional and/or Reed-Solomon coding

– Adds redundancy to the information
– Convolutional coding operates on bit streams
– Reed-Solomon coding is block coding
– Low implementation cost
– OFDM COFDM (Coded OFDM)
• DVB-T uses inner/outer coding and interleaving
• Convolutional coding studied in earlier presentations

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 Coding / Interleaving

code word

• Interleaving w/o interleaving w/ interleaving

– Scatters error bursts

– Can be done in time or in E E E E E E

frequency domain
errors
E E E

• One of the simplest form

is block interleaving
– Write row-by-row
1 0 1 1 1
– Read column-by-column
(or another way around) 0 1 1 0 1
0 1 0 1 0
– Additional matrix
0 0 1 0 1
permutation is possible
1 0 1 1 0
Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications
Communications Laboratory / HUT
 Mapping

Interleaving

Mapping
Coding

IFFT
101101011001 110000101111

S/P

CP
Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications
Communications Laboratory / HUT
 Mapping

• Data on OFDM
subcarriers is mapped
(modulated) using
common digital
modulation schemes
– IEEE 802.11a/g WLANs
uses BPSK, QPSK,
16-QAM, 64-QAM
• Serial binary data is
converted into complex
numbers representing
constellation points
– Constellation mappings
usually Gray-coded

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 IFFT / FFT

Interleaving

Mapping
Coding

IFFT
101101011001 110000101111 1-7j 5+3j

S/P

CP
Pilot insertion
Zero padding

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 IFFT / FFT

• IFFT / FFT pair is the key factor in OFDM

– IFFT: From frequency domain to time domain
– FFT: Vice versa
• All signal processing is made in frequency domain
• IFFT / FFT low implementation cost

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 Guard time / Cyclic prefix

Interleaving

Mapping
Coding

IFFT
S/P

CP
D/A converter
LNA/HPA
Antenna

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 Guard time / Cyclic prefix

• Guard time is inserted between consecutive OFDM

symbols
– Helps to combat against ISI
– Guard time is larger than delay spread
– Multipath components fade away before information extraction

• Reduces BW effiency OFDM symbol time

guard
FFT time
time

delay
No ISI
spread

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 Guard time / Cyclic prefix

• Implemented with cyclic 2

1.5
LOS
1. mp
2. mp

extension
Sum
1 previous 1. mp
previous 2. mp
0.5

– Part of the signal is copied 0

−0.5

to the front of the signal −1

– Orthogonality is maintained
−1.5

−2
0 2 4 6 8 10 12

• Every copy of the signal

has an integer number of 2

1.5
LOS
1. mp

cycles in the FFT window

2. mp
Sum
1 1. mp cp
2. mp cp
0.5

– Same phase signals sums 0

up
−0.5

−1

• Phase correction still −1.5

−2
0 2 4 6 8 10 12

needed
Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications
Communications Laboratory / HUT
 System planning example

Interleaving

Mapping
Coding

IFFT
S/P

CP
Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications
Communications Laboratory / HUT
 System planning example

• Delay spread 200 ns

• Doppler spread 250 Hz (120 km/h)
• Assigned BW 15 MHz

• FFT time 4 s
• Guard time 1 s
• OFDM symbol 5 s (Guard time + FFT)

• Subchannel BW 1/T=200kHz
• Nrof subchannels75
– FFT limitation >>>> nrof subch. 64 (2N)
– 11 subchannels unused

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 System planning example

• Subchannels are flat fading

– Symbol period >> delay spread
– Subch. BW << Coherence BW

• Data rates
– BPSK (1 bit / symbol) 12,8 Mbit/s
– QPSK (2 bits / symbol) 25,6 Mbit/s
– Coding reduces data rates

• 20% BW loss because of guard time

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 References

• Richard van Nee, Ramjee Prasad, OFDM for Wireless

Multimedia Communications. Artech House Publishing,
U.S.A., 2000

• Juha Heiskala, John Terry, OFDM Wireless LANs: A

Theoretical and Practical Guide, Sams Publishing,
U.S.A., 2002

• IEEE 802.11a Std, “Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium

Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY)
specifications”, ISO/IEC 8802-11, IEEE, 1999

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT
 Homework

• Derive expression for OFDM-

signal ofdm signal

• Use 4 subchannels and 4QAM

OFDM transmitter

• Input data sequence:

11 01 00 10
• Subcarrier frequencies are:
4QAM
-2fc -1fc 1fc 2fc

Kari Pietikäinen S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications

Communications Laboratory / HUT