OFDM Basics & LTE

R AQI BUL MOSTA FA

EEE 457
UN I T ED I N T ERNATIONAL UN I V E RSITY ( UI U)
 Overview
❑ Basic Principle of OFDM
❑ OFDM Modulation and Demodulation
❑ OFDM implementation with IFFT/FFT
❑ Cyclic Prefix (CP) and Circular Convolution
❑ Freqeucny domain channel model
❑ Time-frequency grid and OFDM parameters
❑ OFDM for Multiplexing and Multiple Access
❑ LTE PHY parameters and Frame structure
❑ Protocol Architecture and PHY DL-SCH processing

*Reference: 4G LTE/LTE-Advanced for Mobile Broadband by E. Dahlman, S. Parkval, J. Skold

 Basic Principle of OFDM
o OFDM: Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing
oA rectangular data pulse has Sinc function
shape in frequency domain with distinct
zero-crossing frequency locations.
o For pulse duration of Tu, zero-crossings
occur at f=1/Tu
o For each pulse, the frequency domain
representation is called a subcarrier.
o A number of such sub-carriers can be
placed f apart from each other
o This arrangement can be
represented as a bank of carriers
modulating individual symbols
oIt can be shown with such
arrangement individual subcarriers
are orthogonal to one another
 OFDM Demodulation
o Demodulation is done in a
standard manner at the
receiver
o The OFDM modulated
symbols are usually
represented in a Time-
Frequency plane
OFDM with IFFT&FFT
o The OFDM can be implemented using IFFT
at the transmitter and FFT at the receiver
o FFT/IFFT maintains orthogonality across
the transformed signal components and
thus, is ideally suitable for OFDM
implementation
o Here sampling frequency Fs=1/Ts= N. f,
where N Nc, is power of 2 for FFT/IFFT
o Here nominal BW= Nc. f
o For example: f= 15 kHz in LTE
o If Nc= 600, nominal BW= 600x15 kHz 10
MHz
o Fs= (N>Nc)x15= 1024x15 kHz= 15.36 MHz
OFDM with IFFT&FFT
o FFT is used at the receiver to
demodulate the received signal into
the basic symbols
 Cyclic Prefix (CP)
o OFDM demodulation works perfectly
without any interference between
subcarriers
o This is ensured when integer number
of cycles are included within the
integration interval Tu
o For example: Sinct and Cosct are
orthogonal within the time period of
Tc=1/c or multiple of it only. They don’t
hold orthogonal property for any other
duration.
o This orthogonality can be lost in a
multipath channel
o The solution is to add a small amount
of prefix signal that is a repetition of the
tail of the OFDM symbol
Cyclic Prefix
o With the use of CP, the last part
of the OFDM symbol is cyclically
shifted to the first part
o This helps to convert the
convolution to circular
convolution
o This finally results in channel
gains in frequency domain getting
multiplied directly to the
individual modulation symbols
o CP is removed at the receiver before FFT
processing
oBy applying circular convolution property the
whole system can be represented by a simple
multiplicative model in time domain
o Here Hk is the FFT of h(t=nTs), the channel
impulse response
o After IFFT: xk=IFFT(ak)
o After the channel: r(t)=h(t)*x(t)+n(t)
o After FFT: bk=FFT(r(k))= FFT(h(k)*x(k)+n(k))=
FFT(h(k)).FFT(x(k))+FFT(k)= Hk.ak+nk
o Finally bk= Hk.ak+nk, k=0,…,Nc-1
 Overall system model
o The overall system model is
represented in the diagram.
o The transmitted symbols
{ak} can be recovered from
{bk} by multiplying them by
H*.
o This implies that H should
be known at the receiver.
o This is done by estimating
the channel through
transmitting known symbols
known as reference symbol
o Here Hk= bk/ak for index k
where reference symbol us
located.
Multiplexing and MA using OFDM
Frame Structure
Fs= 15kHz*2048= 30.72 MHz
Ts= 1/Fs;
Tframe= 10 ms= 307200*Ts
Symbol time, Tu= 2048*Ts 66.7 s
LTE Parameters: DL
Time-Frequency
Resource
o In LTE basic unite of resource allocated for
communication is defined as a Resource Block
comprising several Resource Elements
o Thus, users are assigned various number of
resource blocks depending upon their data rate
demand.
o Resource element= 1 subcarrier in 1 OFDM
symbol
o Resource block size= 12 subcarriers x 7 OFDM
symbols (in 0.5 ms slot duration)= 84 resource
elements
o The range of RBs used: 6 (min) to 110 (max)
corresponding to BW of 1 MHz to 20 MHz with
very fine granularity
Time-frequency grid and Reference Symbols
Spectrum of LTE
signal in DL and UL