Wireless Personal Communications (2019) 104:727–738

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-018-6046-1

PAPR Distribution for Single Carrier M‑QAM Modulations

Kouakou Kouassi1 · Guillaume Andrieux1   · Jean‑François Diouris1

Published online: 24 October 2018

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract
Single carrier modulations such as quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) are recently
becoming an attractive and complementary alternative to multiple carrier modulations.
High order QAM provides spectral efficiency advantage at the price of larger dynamic
range. This characteristic leads to enlarge the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) and so,
to reduce the energy efficiency. This study provides an analysis of the PAPR distribution
for QAM based systems. We focus on the distribution of the PAPR since it is the main
evaluation means of PAPR reduction techniques. We present an analytic expression of the
probability density function of the PAPR for limited length frames. The analysis shows
that the expression of the PAPR usually found in the literature is valid only for long frames
and is the asymptotic limit of the formula we propose. According to the simulation results,
the distribution we suggest accurately describes the PAPR for long frames and is a good
approximation for short frames.

Keywords  Single carrier modulation · Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) · Peak-to-

average power ratio (PAPR) · Energy efficiency · Central limit theorem (CLT)

1 Introduction

A recurrent issue in wireless communication systems is to achieve high data rate in a rela-
tively narrow bandwidth. High spectral efficiency modulations such as M order quadrature
amplitude modulations (M-QAM) for single carrier systems or orthogonal frequency divi-
sion multiplexing (OFDM) for multiple carrier systems are appropriate solutions to this
issue. However, high spectral efficiency exhibits large peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR)
which decreases the energy efficiency of devices such as radio frequency power ampli-
fiers (RFPA) and digital-to-analog converters (DAC) [1]. Therefore, the implementation of
M-QAM and OFDM modulations requires to reduce their PAPR by some effective tech-
niques in order to reduce power consumption.
The distribution of the PAPR is significant in the determination of methods to reduce
PAPR. It helps to evaluate and compare the PAPR reduction methods  [2, 3]. Therefore,

* Guillaume Andrieux
guillaume.andrieux@univ‑nantes.fr
1
Université Bretagne Loire, Université de Nantes, UMR CNRS 6164 - Institute of Electronics
and Telecommunications of Rennes (IETR), Polytech Nantes, Nantes, France

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 728 K. Kouassi et al.

many works are carried out to address the PAPR distribution. More details about these
methods can be found in [2–5] and references therein.
Most of the studies about the PAPR distributions concern the OFDM since it is a high
spectral efficiency and an easy to implement modulation. Furthermore, it is the most used
modulation in the transmission standards of the recent years. But, as mentioned by Pedrosa
et al in [6], Benvenuto et al in [7] and Pancaldi et al in [8] single carrier modulations are
again becoming an interesting and complementary alternative to multiple carrier modula-
tions. This renewed interest is due to the use of nonlinear equalizer structures implemented
in part in the frequency domain using fast Fourier transforms. It brings the complexity of
the single carrier modulations close to that of OFDM. As higher PAPR is also an issue in
single carrier systems, attention needs to be paid to the PAPR distribution and reduction
of single carrier systems. In this paper we provide an analysis of the PAPR distribution of
single carrier modulations. We focus on M-QAM modulations since they are the single
carrier modulations whose spectral efficiency and PAPR are the highest. However, many
works [9–11] consider that the PAPR of M-QAM is deterministic and is well represented
by its asymptotic value.
Our analysis considers the PAPR distribution in term of probability density function
(pdf). The power allocation in OFDM data streams is structured so that the PAPR distri-
bution can be derived with the Extreme Value Theory for Chi-squared-2 process [2, 12].
We show that it is not necessary to use this method for M-QAM modulations. Instead, we
use the central limit theorem (CLT) to show that the distribution of the average power of
M-QAM frames is Gaussian with a fixed mean and a varying dispersion. From this distri-
bution we deduce the distribution of the PAPR and discuss its validity limits. Numerical
results show that the obtained distribution accurately describes the behavior of the PAPR
for long data sequences and remains a good approximation for short frames.
In the remainder of the paper we first derive the model of the PAPR and address the
distribution of the average power in the transmitted frames. Section 3 presents an explicit
expression of the probability density function of the PAPR. The asymptotic limit of the
PAPR is also given. In Sect. 4, numerical results show the accuracy of the obtained distri-
bution and its validity limits. Finally, Sect. 5 provides concluding remarks.

2 PAPR Model Derivation

PAPR is a quantity that provides information about the dynamics of a signal. It helps to
measure its fluctuations. In this study, we are interested in the PAPR of the baseband signal
from which we can deduce the PAPR of the pass band signal. It is shown in [5] that the
pass band PAPR is approximately twice the baseband PAPR. Most communication systems
transmit RF (radio frequency) filtered signals i.e. a baseband signal converted into a high
frequency signal to facilitate its transmission. The filtering operation aims to maximize
the allocated bandwidth and avoid inter symbol interference. To simplify the derivations,
the powers are evaluated for unfiltered and unnormalized signals over a resistive unit load.
Suppose the purpose is to send a frame of N symbols of duration T using a M order QAM
modulation. Each symbol of the frame is composed of log2 (M) bits. These bits are shared
between the in-phase and the quadrature components. The transmit signal can then be writ-
ten as
s(t) = i(t) cos(2𝜋f0 t) − q(t) sin(2𝜋f0 t), (1)

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PAPR Distribution for Single Carrier M‑QAM Modulations 729

where f0 is the carrier frequency, i(t) and q(t) are the in-phase and quadrature components
respectively. These two signals can be written

∑
N−1
i(t) = 𝛼n p(t − nT), (2)
n=0

and

∑
N−1
q(t) = 𝛽n p(t − nT), (3)
n=0
� √ �
where 𝛼n and 𝛽n ∈ ±1, ±3, ⋯ , ±( M − 1) define the symbols resulting from the
encoding of the bit stream. They are independent stochastic variables. p(t) is the impulse
response of the shaping filter.
The complex envelop sc (t) of the transmitted frame s(t) is given by

∑
N−1
sc (t) = i(t) + jq(t) = Sn p(t − nT) (4)
n=0
√
where j = −1 and Sn = 𝛼n + j𝛽n.
The PAPR of sc (t) can be written as
Pmax (N)
PAPR(N) = (5)
Pav (N)

where Pmax (N) is the maximum instantaneous power and Pav (N) , the average power of the
signal.

2.1 Average Signal Power

The average signal power can be expressed

∑ N−1
+∞ N−1 ∑
NT ∫−∞ n=0 k=0 n k
1
Pav (N) = S S∗ p(t − nT)p(t − kT)dt (6)

and can be developed as

1 �
N−1 +∞

�−∞
Pav (N) = ‖Sn ‖2 p(t − nT)2 dt
NT n=0
(7)
1 � �
N−1 N−1 +∞

�−∞
+ Sn Sk∗ p(t − nT)p(t − kT)dt
NT n=0 k=0,k≠n

In this paper we focuss on PAPR fluctuations due to the modulation choice and frame
length. So to simplify the analysis, we will assume that
p(t − nT)p(t − kT) = 0 if k ≠ n (8)

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 730 K. Kouassi et al.

if k ≠ n . This condition occurs, for example, if the waveform is rectangular i.e. p(t) = 𝟙[0,T] .
Using this assumption, we can write
Pav (N) = Savg (N) × P (9)
∫−∞ 1 ∑N−1
+∞
with P = 1
T
p(t) dt and Savg (N) = N n=0 ‖Sn ‖ .
2 2

Hence the average power of the signal is a random variable which depends on the N trans-
mitted symbols Sn . We firstly analyze the properties of Savg (N).
The symbols Sn are independent random variables. From the central limit theorem we can
deduce that Savg (N) tends to a normal distribution when N is large
( )
Savg (N) ∼  𝜇,
𝜎2
, (10)
N

where 𝜇 and 𝜎 2 are respectively the average and variance of ‖Sn ‖2 . Then, the average power
of the frames is given by
{ }
𝔼 Pav (N) = 𝜇P. (11)
From simple mathematics we can calculate 𝜇
∑√M∕2
2 (2k − 1)2 (M − 1)
𝔼(𝛼n2 ) = 𝔼(𝛽n2 ) = k=1
√ = (12)
(M) 3

and finally
2
𝜇 = 2E(𝛼n2 ) = (M − 1) (13)
3
The variance 𝜎 2 can be expressed as follows
𝜎 2 = 𝔼(‖Sn ‖2 ) = 𝔼(𝛼n2 + 𝛽n2 )2 − 𝜇 2 = 2𝔼(𝛼n4 ) − 2𝔼(𝛼n2 )2 (14)
We have
∑√M∕2
2 (2k − 1)4 (3M − 7)(M − 1)
𝔼(𝛼n4 ) = k=1
√ = (15)
M 15

Replacing (15) and (12) in (14) we get

8(M − 4)(M − 1)
𝜎2 = (16)
45
From this equation, we can deduce the expected results that the variance of ‖Sn ‖2 is a grow-
ing function of M and is equal to zero if M = 4.

2.2 Maximum Signal Power

To express the PAPR, we need to determine the maximum instantaneous power of the signal.
From Eq. (4) we deduce the instantaneous power Pn (t):
∑∑
N−1 N−1
Pn (t) = Sn Sk∗ p(t − nT)p(t − kT)
(17)
n=0 k=0

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PAPR Distribution for Single Carrier M‑QAM Modulations 731

Applying condition (8) to the expression of the maximum power, we obtain

�
N−1
Pn (t) = ‖Sn ‖2 �p(t − nT)�2 (18)
n=0

Thus the maximum instantaneous power is obtained by taking the maximum of |p(t)|2 and
the maximum of ‖Sn ‖2 i.e.
� � � �
Pmax (N) = max ‖Sn ‖2 × �p(tm )�2 (19)
n∈{0,1,⋯,N−1}

where tm is time where |p(t)|2 is maximum.

For M-QAM modulation
�√ �2
‖Sn ‖2 ≤ 2
� �
max (M) − 1 (20)
n∈[0,1,⋯,N−1]

For a N symbol frame, the bound is obtained with a probability equal to the probability to
transmit the four maximum power symbols of the QAM constellation which is given by
( )
4 N
Probmax (N) = 1 − 1 − (21)
M
This equation is plotted in Fig.  1 for different values of the number of symbols M. The
more the order of the modulation
√ is high the more the sequences need to be long to guaran-
tee the occurrence of 2( M − 1)2 certainly in each trial. For the 64-QAM, only 50 element
sequences are sufficient to bring this probability over ℙr = 0.9 . For that reason, the PAPR
does not need to be modeled with the Extreme Value Theory [13], as it is the case for mul-
tiple carrier modulations [5, 12].
Assuming that the maximum occurs, the maximum instantaneous power in the frames can
be written
�√ �2
Pmax = 2�p(tm )�2 M−1 (22)

2.3 Expression of the PAPR

Finally, using expression (22) for Pmax and (9) for the average power, the PAPR can be written
�√ �2
2 M−1 �p(tm )�2
PAPR(N) = ⋅ (23)
Savg (N) P

For simplicity, we will assume in the next study that |p(tm )|2 = P = 1 and define an ideal
PAPR given by
�√ �2
2 M−1
℘(N) = (24)
Savg (N)

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 732 K. Kouassi et al.

1
M=16
M=64
0.9 M=256
M=1024

0.8
Probability of maximum power symbol

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Sequence size (N)

�√ �2
Fig. 1  Probability of the maximum instantaneous power 2 M − 1 for the modulations 16-QAM,
64-QAM, 256-QAM and 1024-QAM versus the sequence size N 

3 Probability Density Function of PAPR

The PAPR of a N symbol sequence given by Eq. (24) is a random variable which depends on
the transmitted symbols.
To determine the probability density function of the PAPR we use the result which
states that for a given random variable x with density function px (x) , and a given func-
tion of x , y = g(x) , the probability density function of y, can be obtained by the following
formula
Nr |( )−1 |
∑ | dy |
py (y) = | | × px (xi ), (25)
| dx |
i=1 | |x=xi

where xi are the Nr real roots of the equation y = g(x) . In the concern of our analysis,
g(x) = c∕x where c is a constant. So we have
px (c∕y)
py (y) = c ⋅ . (26)
y2

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PAPR Distribution for Single Carrier M‑QAM Modulations 733

�√ �2
Here c = 2 M − 1 and px (x) is the density function of a Gaussian distribution with
average 𝜇 and variance 𝜎 2 ∕N  . Thus the pdf of the PAPR can be written as
�√ �2 � �2
⎛ √
2
√ ⎛ ⎞ ⎞
N 2 M−1 ⎜ N ⎜2 M−1 ⎟ ⎟
p℘,N (℘) = √ ⋅ ⋅ exp ⎜− 2 ⎜ − 𝜇 ⎟ ⎟. (27)
𝜎 2𝜋 ℘2 ⎜ 2𝜎 ⎜ ℘ ⎟ ⎟
⎝ ⎝ ⎠ ⎠

We can deduce from this pdf that the most probable value denoted ℘m,N  , by searching the
root of the derivative of p℘,N (℘) . The calculation provides the expression
�√ �2
�� �
N M−1 2
℘m,N = 𝜇2 +
8𝜎
−𝜇 . (28)
2𝜎 2 N

Taking the limit of (28) when N goes to infinity, we get (see appendix)
√
M−1
℘∞ = lim ℘m,N
N→∞
=3⋅ √ . (29)
M+1

This result, detailed in the Appendix, proves that the model of the ideal PAPR distribution
holds for longer frames. The confirmation of this suitability is brought in the next section
by numerical results. The above expression is the current PAPR formulation proposed in
the literature [9, 11]. In fact, it is an asymptotic value that can only be approached for large
frame size.

4 Numerical Results

The objective of this part is to evaluate the accuracy of the proposed average power and
PAPR distributions to those obtained by Monte-Carlo simulations. For each evaluation,
100, 000 frames were used in order to avoid fluctuations in the simulation results. Com-
parisons are done for different values of the frame size.
Firstly, the Gaussian assumption on the average power distribution is tested for frame
sizes N equal to 400 and 2 and for 1024-QAM modulation. As expected, the results, pre-
sented in the Fig. 2, show a better validation of the assumption for N = 400 than N = 2.
Concerning the ideal PAPR, the experiment tests the validity limits of the pdf given by
the Eq. (27). For this experiment, we distinguish long and short frames in the representa-
tions. The considered modulation orders M are 1024, 256 and 64.
Figure 3 illustrates the distribution of the ideal PAPR in the context of long frames. We
note that the theoretical and the simulation curves fit well. It can also be noticed that the
curves are almost symmetric, meaning that the average PAPR and most probable PAPR are
nearly the same.
Figure 4 provides the same results for smaller frame sizes ( N = 15 and 2). It must be
remarked that the proposed distributions fit well the experimental results for N = 15 while
more disparities are obtained for N = 2 . This result was expected because the Gaussian

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 734 K. Kouassi et al.

1 theoretical, M=1024, N=2

theoretical, M=1024, N=400
0.9
simulations
0.8

0.7

0.6
cdf

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000

average power (mW)

Fig. 2  Average power distribution for 1024-QAM, where N takes values N = 2 and N = 400

3
pdf

1
theoretical, M=64, N=400
theoretical, M=256, N=400
theoretical, M=1024, N=400
0
simulations

2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3 3.2

papr

Fig. 3  Probability density function of the ideal PAPR of long frames

assumption for the average power is only valid for large values of N and because the prob-
ability to obtain the maximum peak power is low for small size frames. However the pro-
posed distribution remains a good approximation of the experimental distribution for rela-
tively small frames.

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PAPR Distribution for Single Carrier M‑QAM Modulations 735

theoretical, M=1024, N=2

theoretical, M=1024, N=15
1 theoretical, M=64, N=15
simulations

0.8

0.6
pdf

0.4

0.2

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
papr

Fig. 4  Probability density function of the ideal PAPR of short frames

Another remark is that the distributions become asymmetric implying a difference

between the most probable value ℘m given by the Eq. (28) and the average value.
Figure  4 shows also that the tail of the distribution is more and more heavy as N
decreases. It joins the common observation made in the literature that the ratio of two
random independent variables has a heavy tail [14].

0
10 M=1024
M=256
M=64
M=16
|℘ −mean(℘)|

−1
10
m

−2
10

0 100 200 300 400 500

frame size

Fig. 5  The difference between the most probable value and the average value of the ideal PAPR

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 736 K. Kouassi et al.

Figure 5 represents the difference between the most probable value and the average value
of the ideal PAPR versus the frame size. The most probable value ℘m is calculated with the
Eq. (28) and the average ideal PAPR is obtained from the numerical evaluation of
+∞

∫𝜀
℘= ℘p℘ (℘)d℘, (30)

where 𝜀 is a positive infinitesimal real number. We chose 𝜀 as the lower bound of the above
integration to approach zero since p℘ (℘) is not defined for ℘ = 0 . For a given frame size,
the more M is small the more the gap between the most probable value and the average
value of the ideal PAPR is also small. We can note that the gap rapidly decreases with N to
reach values in the order of 10−2 around N = 400 . In the case of 64-QAM, the maximum
instantaneous power of the frames becomes deterministic for frame sizes situated beyond
N = 150 (see Fig. 1). After this value, the remaining gap between the most probable value
and the average value is due to the approximation made on the distribution of the average
power using the CLT, as mentioned previously.

5 Conclusion

In this paper, a model of the distribution of the peak-to-average power ratio of single car-
rier M-QAM modulations is proposed. Assuming that the maximum instantaneous power is
deterministic, the probability density function of the PAPR is derived trough only the random
behavior of the average power of the frames. This random behavior is characterized using the
central theorem limit. The role of the transmitted data stream size on the validity of the model
is pointed out. The analysis shows that the expression of the PAPR usually found in the lit-
erature is valid only for long frames and is the asymptotic limit of the formula we propose.
According to the simulation results, the distribution we suggest accurately describes the PAPR
for long frames and is a good approximation for short frames.

Appendix: Proof of the Eq. (29)

The limit (28) can be written

�√ �2
� � �
N M−1
8𝜎 2 (31)
℘∞ = lim 𝜇 1+ −𝜇
N→∞ 2𝜎 2 N𝜇 2

Using the Taylor expansion

√ x
1 + x = 1 + + o(x2 ) (32)
2
we get:
�√ �2
2 M−1
℘∞ = (33)
𝜇

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PAPR Distribution for Single Carrier M‑QAM Modulations 737

using the expression of 𝜇 from (13) we get

√
M−1
℘∞ = 3 ⋅ √ . (34)
M+1

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 738 K. Kouassi et al.

Kouakou Kouassi  received the Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering

from Lille 1 University—Science and Technology, Lille, France, in
2012. He is currently with the Institute of Electronics and Telecommu-
nications of Rennes. He focused on Ultra-Wideband technology for
wireless personal area networks and energy consumption of wireless
sensor networks. Since July 2014, he is a senior sensor Development/
Design Engineer in smart-city applications. His current research inter-
ests include energy harvesting, storage solution and strategy to self-
power wireless sensors in highly constrained applications.

Guillaume Andrieux  received the M.S. degree in Telecommunications

and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of
Nantes, France, in 2000 and 2004, respectively. He is currently an
Associate Professor at the Networks and Telecommunications Depart-
ment, University of Nantes. His current research interests are digital
communications, antenna processing, energy efficiency in wireless
sensor networks and channel estimation.

Jean‑François Diouris  received his Ph.D. degrees from University of

Rennes I, France, in 1991. He is currently professor at Polytech
Nantes, University of Nantes, France and adjunct director of Institute
of Electronics and Telecommunications of Rennes. His current
research interests are digital communications, antenna processing and
energy efficient communications.

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