Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Innovations in Electrical, Electronics, Instrumentation and Media Technology
ICIEEIMT 17
FPGA Implementation of Variable Bit Rate
OFDM Transceiver System for Wireless
Applications
Dhanasekar Subramaniyam¹
¹ Research Scholar,
Anna University,
Chennai- 600 025
1 2
Email: dhanasekar.sm@gmail.com
Abstract- OFDM has developed into a popular scheme for
wideband digital communication in both wired and wireless
communications. The next generation communication schemes
incline to use OFDM systems in order to provide high baud rates,
reduced Inter-carrier interference (IC) and less Inter-symbol
interference (ISI). In this paper a Variable Bit rate 16 subcarrier
OFDM Transceiver system is implemented by FPGA and it is
used for high speed WPAN applications. The proposed design has
been designed using various Bit Pattern generations and
Modulation Techniques like 16 QAM, BPSK, OQPSK, QPSK,
BPSK with orthogonal frequencies and synthesized using high
level design tools. The Variable Bit rate OFDM system is coded
using Verilog HDL and it is synthesized and simulated using
Xilinx ISE and Modelsim tool. Xilinx Spartan2 xc2s200 -6 PQ208
FPGA board will be used for testing and demonstration of the
implemented system. The design spends about 33.7 K gates and
consumed Power is about 13mW with the operating frequency of
49.08MHz.
Keywords – OFDM, BPSK, QAM, QPSK, OQPSK
1. INTRODUCTION
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is
able to accomplish a highly efficient form of multi-carrier
modulation which is widely used in broadcasting, ADSL and
wireless technology. OFDM is becoming the preferred
modulation technique for wireless communications [1]. It is an
efficient data transmission technique that can provide large data
rates depends on the requirement [2]. Various research centers
in the world are working towards the optimization of OFDM
for countless applications. The attraction of OFDM is mainly
due to how the system handles the multipath interference at the
receiver.
In an OFDM system, more number of orthogonal,
overlapping subcarriers are transmitted in parallel and it is
modulated using several modulation techniques [4]. The input
serial bit pattern generator (128 Bits, 64 Bits) is encoded by
linear feedback shift register and encoded bits are modulated
using several modulation schemes like 16 QAM, QPSK,
OQPSK and BPSK. There are 16 subcarriers used in the
Department of Electrical Technology, Karunya University
343
Ramesh Jayabalan²
²Assistant Professor (SG),
Department of ECE, PSG college of Technology,
Coimbatore-641004
Email: jramesh60@yahoo.com
OFDM transceiver system. Each subcarrier is modulated by
means of orthogonal frequencies. The variable Bit rate OFDM
system can be used for Wireless Personal Area Network
(WPAN) system to achieve high throughput. FPGA can
provide the End to end solutions for reprogramming,
networking linear card packet processing, RF, Baseband,
connectivity in wired and wireless communication. The FPGA
Technology offers more flexible, reliable and accurate in
simulating, testing, validating and implementing the
designs[5]. The OFDM Transceiver system is coded using
Verilog HDL, simulated and synthesized using Modelsim and
Xilinx tool and it is implemented using a Spartan 2 FPGA
Board. The paper is organized as follows. First, a brief review
of OFDM Transceiver Design is described in Section II. The
Results for OFDM Transceiver system are discussed in section
III. Finally, conclusion remarks are presented in section IV.
II. OFDM TRANSCEIVER DESIGN
The Digital Data Generator is provided with Variable
data length and it will flow through serially as an input to
OFDM transmitter. There are 16 subcarriers used in the
OFDM system and its Input Data’s X0(t), X1(t),....X15(t),
vector modulate these onto sub carriers of frequencies: 0,fd,
2fd, 3fd,….15 fd, The Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) of
length N is given by :
Stage 1 :
15
X(t) = ∑ Xm(t) exp (2пjmfdt) with fd = 1/T (1)
m=0
Where,
Xm - Input Data
fd – Frequency for first sub carrier
T – Pulse Duration
IEEE ISBN No.978-1-5090-4527-3
 Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Innovations in Electrical, Electronics, Instrumentation and Media Technology
ICIEEIMT 17

Assume, t = nґ QPSK) used in symbol mapper and it flows to the streams of

Inphase (I) & Quadrature (Q). The results from the Inphase (I)
Take 16 subcarrier of the pulse x(t) which is of duration T.
and Quadrature (Q) components are sent to Gray Encoder
Let ґ = T/16 and denote x(nґ) by x(n) for n = 0,1,.. 15 Block to minimizing the Bit Error Rate (BER) for a given
symbol error rate Then the Inphase (I) and Quadrature (Q)
Let us consider, Xm(nґ) = Xm : constant for 0 < n < 15. Then, components are multiplied with orthogonal frequencies of sine
15 and cosine carriers to get I Modulation and Q Modulation.
Final summation of these entire signals gives OFDM Signal.
X(nґ) = x(n) = ∑ Xm(t) exp (2пjmnґ/T) (2)
m= 0
Therefore,
15
x(n) = ∑ Xm exp (jm(2п/16)n) for 0 < n < 15 (3)
m= 0
let = ґ/T = 1/16

= 16 * IFFT ({Xm}0,15 )
15
x(t) = ∑ Xm (t) exp (2пjmfdt) (4) Fig.1.OFDM Transmitter Design

m= 0 B. OFDM Receiver Design

This is an output from IFFT The OFDM Receiver design performs the inverse process of
transmitter, to demodulate the signals from transmitter. The
Stage 2 : OFDM transmitter signal is taken as input to the OFDM
The output of IFFT is to modulate the high frequency Receiver and it is multiplied with NCO generated sine and
carrier with the result of performing stage 1 cosine carriers to get I Demodulation and Q Demodulation
signals.The Results from the I Demodulator and Q
15 Demodulator signals are sent to Low pass filter to attenuate the
x(t) = ∑ Xm (t) exp [2пj(fc + mfd)t] (5) high frequencies and pass them into low frequencies. When the
data gets filtered in the Demodulator, it will flow through
m= 0 Symbol Demapper to the group data range and obtain
This is the Output of OFDM Signal transmitted data. Hence, the results from the signal Demapper
will flow through the Gray Decoder. The results from the Gray
T – Pulse Duration between subcarriers Decoder block are used to Decode I & Q Bits into serial data.
1 / T – no of pulses per second on each subcarrier
fd = 1 / T
T = 1 / fd
= 1/14.285 KHz
= 70 µs on each sub carrier
A. OFDM Transmitter Design

The OFDM transmitter with orthogonal frequencies is

shown in Fig.1. The proposed architecture had been designed
using Variable Bit Patterns (64 & 128 bit patterns) will flow
through serially as an input to OFDM transmitter. The serial
data is encoded by four, two bits and single bit according to the
different modulation techniques (16QAM, BPSK, OQPSK,

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 Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Innovations in Electrical, Electronics, Instrumentation and Media Technology
ICIEEIMT 17

Fig.2. OFDM Receiver Design C. QPSK Modulation outputs

Table 1
Specifications of OFDM Transceiver Design The serial data is encoded by two bits will flows to the
QPSK Modulation. It consists of one bit of I component and
Master clock 48 MHz
Variable Clock Generator 14.285 KHz, 28.571KHz…
228.571 KHz one bit of Q component. The I Channel and Q Channel is used
Variable Data Generator 128, 64 Bits to modulate respectively by sine and cosine carrier signals.
Sub carriers 16 There are eight QPSK Modulations used in the OFDM
Modulation Techniques 2 - 16QAM Transmitter.
8 - QPSK
2 - OQPSK
4 - BPSK

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS QPSK

Signal
A.128 Bit Pattern output:
The Pattern Generator or Data Generator is also a basic
requirement for digital circuit analysis. It is used in Digital
Fig.5. QPSK Modulated signal
Communication as a data source. Data Generator is provided
with Variable data length (64 and 128 Bit) Pattern of different D.OQPSK Modulation output
length and it can be selected using DIP switches in FPGA .
There are two OQPSK Modulations used in the OFDM
128 Bit Transmitter. The OQPSK Modulation consists of one bit of I
pattern
component and one bit of Q component. The I Channel and Q
Channel is used to modulate respectively by sine and cosine
carrier signals.
Fig. 3. Variable Clock Generator

B. 16 QAM Modulation output:

OQPSK
The serial data is encoded by four, two bits and single bit Signal
according to the Modulation type used and it flows to the
streams of Inphase (I) & Quadrature (Q). The results from the
Inphase (I) and Quadrature (Q) components are sent to Gray
Encoder Block to minimizing the Bit Error Rate (BER). In 16
QAM, 16= 24, four bits per symbol can be sent. It consists of Fig. 6. OQPSK Modulated signal
two bits of I component and two bits of Q component. The I E. BPSK Modulation outputs
Channel and Q Channel are used to modulate respectively by
sine and cosine carrier signals. There are two 16 QAM There are Four BPSK Modulations used in the OFDM
Modulations used for OFDM Transmitter. Transmitter. The BPSK Modulation has two phases which are
separated by 180°. It is able to modulate at 1 bit/ symbol as
shown in Fig.7 and it is not suitable for high data-rate
applications.
BPSK
Signal
16 QAM
Signal

Fig. 4. 16 QAM Modulated signal Fig.7.BPSK Modulated signal

F. OFDM Modulated signal

There are 16 Sub- carriers used in OFDM Transmitter.

The added results of all 16 Modulation signal with orthogonal
frequencies will form an OFDM signal.

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OFDM
Signal
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IV. CONCLUSION:

This paper, describes the Variable Bit rate 16

subcarrier OFDM Transceiver system used for high speed
WPAN applications. The Proposed architecture is transmitted
by giving different input Bit patterns and transmitted through
various Modulation Techniques like 16 QAM, BPSK,OQPSK,
QPSK with different frequencies and synthesized using high
level design tools. The OFDM Transceiver design is coded
using Verilog HDL, Simulated and synthesized using
modelsim and Xilinx tool and implemented using Spartan 2
FPGA Board. As compared to other Techniques, OFDM
system are used in wired and wireless transmission in order to
provide less Bandwidth, reduced Inter-carrier Interference and
high data rate. In Future work, the novel multipliers and adders
circuits are used in FFT/IFFT block in the OFDM Transceiver
design to reduce computational calculations and to enhance
throughput in data transmissions.

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