Communication Systems

Chapter 6: Introduction to Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing

(OFDM)

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 Outline

Single Vs Multicarrier transmission

Introduction to OFDM

An OFDM Modem

OFDM in WLAN

OFDM in 802.11a/g

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 Single Vs Multicarrier transmission

 Single carrier transmission:

single carrier is used.
 Multicarrier transmission:
multiple non-overlapping
carriers used.
 Split the transmission
bandwidth into many
narrow subchannels which
are transmitted in parallel.

 OFDM is a form of multicarrier transmission.

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 Single Vs Multicarrier transmission

 Bluetooth, GSM, CDMA and other communications standards use a

single carrier to transmit a single symbol at a time.
 Data throughput is achieved by using a very fast symbol rate.
 W-CDMA - 3.14 Msymbols/sec
 Bluetooth – 1 Msymbols/sec
 A primary disadvantage is that fast symbol rates are more
susceptible to Multi-path distortion.
 Multicarrier: symbol rate reduced, so better performance in
multipath scenarios.
 Multicarrier: combat multipath induced frequency selective fading.

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 Single Vs Multicarrier transmission

 Since different frequency components of the signal are affected

independently, it is highly unlikely that all parts of the signal will be
simultaneously affected by a deep fade.
 OFDM divides the wideband signal into many slowly modulated
narrowband subcarriers, each exposed to flat fading rather than
frequency selective fading.
 This can be combated by means of error coding, simple equalization
or adaptive bit loading.
 Inter-symbol interference (ISI) is avoided by introducing a guard
interval between the symbols (cyclic prefix)

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 Introduction to OFDM

 Basic idea is to use a large number of parallel narrowband

subcarriers instead of using one wideband carrier to transport info.
 Each carrier, consisting of a pair of sine wave and a cosine wave, is
referred as a ’sub-carrier’.
 Subcarriers are orthogoanl → Orthognal FDM.
R To

0 s1 (t)s∗2 (t)dt = 0→s1 (t) and s2 (t) are orthogonal.

 What are frequencies of the

three subcarriers?
 What is the subcarrier spacing
frequency?
 Show carriers are orthogonal.
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 Introduction to OFDM

 Advantages
 Efficient in dealing with multipath.
 Robust against narrow-band interference.
 Adopted for various standards: DSL, IEEE802.11a, 4G/LTE,
WiMAX etc.

Fig: Conceptual diagram highlighting OFDM

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 Introduction to OFDM

 Subcarrier consisting of a sine and a cosine waveform; can be

expressed as ejωt .
 So in the previous conceptual diagram incoming symbols are
multiplied by ejωt .
 In practice symbols result from a QAM modulator.

• DFT and IDFT

 The sequence of N complex numbers S0 , S1 , S2 ...SN −1 is
transformed into another sequence of N complex numbers
a0 , a1 ..., aN −1 according to the DFT formula.
−1
1 NX n
an = Sk e−j2πk N
N k=0
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 Introduction to OFDM

 The IDFT is given by

N −1
X n
Sn = ak ej2πk N
k=0

 The OFDM baseband signal is given by

N
X −1
S(t) = ak ej2πk∆f t
k=0

 Where ak are complex symbols from QAM modulator, ∆f is

subcarrier spacing and N is the number of subcarriers.

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 Introduction to OFDM

T
 Uniform sampling of s(t) with interval N results in
N −1 N −1
T X T X n
S(n ) = Sn = ak ej2πk∆f n N = ak ej2πk N
N k=0 k=0

• Exactly the same form as IDFT formula.

 Thus, OFDM modulation can be performed by evaluating IDFT of
QAM modulated symbols.
 Similarly OFDM demodulation is performed by DFT.
 Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is a very efficient algorithm to
evaluate DFT.
 As a result, IFFT and FFT are used for OFDM baseband
modulation and demodulation respectively.
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 Introduction to OFDM

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 Introduction to OFDM
Cyclic prefix

 Add a trailing portion of the OFDM symbol to the head of itself to

prevent ISI.
 It acts as a guard interval.
 Chosen larger than the expected delay spread so that multipath
components will not interfere with next symbol.
 Removed at receiver as it contains redundant info.

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 An OFDM Modem

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 OFDM in WLAN

 WLAN: Wireless Local Area Network.

 Compatible with one of IEEE802.11 substandards.

802.11 means
a 54 Mbps OFDM, 5.9 GHz Band, 20 MHz channels
b 11 Mbps CCK, 2.4 GHz (Legacy, not OFDM)
g same as a, but at 2.4 GHz
n Like g, but up to 600Mbps, OFDM,
MIMO, 20 & 40 MHz channels

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 OFDM in 802.11a/g

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