Adaptive Modulations for OFDM-MIMO systems
Lei Guowei Xiao Xuefang
School of science, Jimei university, School of optoelectronics and
Xiamen, China 361021 communication engineering, Xiamen
School of electronic university of technology, Xiamen,
engineering,Beijing university of posts China 361024
and telecommunications, Beijing, 86-5926182260
China100876 xfxiao@xmut.edu.cn
86-5926181891
gwlei@qq.com
ABSTRACT
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is regarded
as a popular technique. Moreover, OFDM combined with
multiple-input multiple-output systems (MIMO)has drawn many
interests. However, OFDM-MIMO systems with various
modulations have not been investigated extensively to date. This
letter is to draw a comparison among the linear and non-linear
modulations. Especially, the random modulation index is
introduced into the OFDM-MIMO system with CPM.
Meanwhilethe OFDM-MIMO system with antenna selection and
adaptive modulation is proposed.The performances for the
proposed systems are evaluated via simulation.
CCS Concepts
•MIMO systems➝OFDM-MIMO systems➝OFDM-MIMO
systems with adaptive modulations.
Keywords
Adaptive modulation; continuous phase modulation; OFDM-
MIMO; antenna selection.
1. INTRODUCTION
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is regarded
as a popular technique for transmission of signals over frequency-
selective fading channel. In addition, OFDM offers good ability to
handle multipath fading without complex equalization filters. In
literatures, OFDM systems that employ linear and memory-less
modulations such as PSK, QAM, etc, have been presented
extensively [1-2]. On the other hand, continuousphasemodulation
(CPM) is a promising technology for its features such as constant
envelope and phase continuity. Its constant envelope makes it
more suitable for low cost non-linear power amplifier, and the
other advantage of OFDM-CPM is that adjacent OFDM symbols
can be modulated by modulation index of CPM. Therefore,
OFDM-CPM has been proposed owing to the above advantages
[3-7]. Detection of OFDM-CPM signals is studied in [5-6]. Peak-
average power ratio (PAPR) is analyzed in OFDM-CPM systems
[7].However, it is hard to made trade-off between the
improvement of the PAPR and bit error rate (BER) [8].
Further, the performance of OFDM-CPM with multiple antennas
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ICACS '18, July 27--29, 2018, Beijing, China.
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3242840.3242877
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is also studied [9-11]. The authors demonstrate that OFDM-CPM
in MIMO scenario offers considerable improvement relative to
conventional OFDM-MIMO systems with linear modulations
(PSK, QAM, etc.)[9]. To harness diversity gain, a space time
block coded (STBC) scheme is introduced in OFDM-CPM
systems [10]. A novel OFDM-MIMO system with multi-h CPM
is proposed [11].
As known to all, adaptive modulation exploits the variation in bit
error rate (BER) performance to mitigate the effects of
narrowband multipath radio channels [11]. Upon determining the
channel conditions, the transmitter estimates the signal level that
should be received, and selects the most appropriate modulation
scheme. In this paper, antenna selection is employed in OFDM-
MIMO systems according to channel conditions. Adaptive
modulation is performed among selected transmit antennas.
Meanwhile, multiple modulation index is considered in CPM
scheme to improve peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR).
2. System model and antenna selection
2.1 System model
The adaptive modulation for MIMO-OFDM systems is described
in figure. 1. Serial data D is sent to a mapper that outputs a
complex number. The mapper could be PSK, QAM, or CPM. A
stream with different complex numbers is obtained in terms of
channel conditions over different antennas. Then inverse fast
Fourier transform (IFFT) is applied to the stream that results in
orthogonal signals on the sub-channels. OFDM signals are
transmitted over different antennas according to the channel
conditions fed back by receiver. At the receive side, the signals
are decomposed into several streams which include the pilot
signals. Finally, the information bits are obtained by demodulation
in terms of the singular values of thechannel matrix.
s1(t)
Modulation Antenna
Selection …
OFDM
(PSK,QAM,CPM
sNt(t)
r1(t)
H
Linear Channel
estimation …
Demodulation
decomposition
rNr(t)
F calculation
Figure 1.Adaptive modulation for MIMO-OFDM systems
We denote channel coefficients as HNr×Nt. And hnrnt denotes each
entry of channel matrix HNr×Nt, where Nr is the number of receive
antennas, Nt is the number of transmit antennas, w(t) denotes
added white Gaussian noise (AWGN) with variance 2N0. With
these assumptions, the received signals can be represented as
Nt
rnr (t; D)   hnr nt s(t; D)  wnr (t ) nr=1,…,Nr (1)
nt 1
Table 1 depicts the data rate (bits/symbol) of several modulations
such as BPSK, CPM, QPSK and 16QAM. Without loss of
generality, more other modulations can also be added to this table
in terms of the data rate. At transmit side, the antenna nt selects
modulation scheme according to Table 1.
Table 1.Data rate (bits/symbol) of several modulations
BPSK CPM QPSK 16QAM

As is well known, OFDM with linear modulations has been (M=2, hp=1/4)
investigated extensively. What’s more, multiple modulation index
is considered in CPM scheme to improve PAPR. Without loss of R 1 1 2 4
generality, the CPM mapper/modulator is hereby defined as [3]

Cp ,k  cos(p ,k )  j sin(p ,k ) (2) F(nt) F(nt)≤α1 α1≤F(nt)≤α2 α2≤F(nt)≤α3 α3≤F(nt)

and In Table 1, α1、α2、α3 are obtained empirically by singular value

decomposition(SVD) of H, which depicts the characteristics of
p 1 channels. Taking Nt=4 as an example, we should use the largest
p ,k  Dp ,k hp   hp  Dq ,k   (3) three the singular values as α1、α2、α3.
q 0
Further, the antenna selection and adaptive modulation can be
Where hp is modulation index, Dp,k is M-ary CPM symbol, manipulated via Monte Carlo simulation. The whole process of
simulation is given as follows
p=1,2,…, and k=0,…,N-1. It is noted that p denotes the OFDM
block number and k denotes the subcarrier number. φ is the initial Transmitter:
phase.Further, the OFDM signals are given by (A)input one frame of information bits
s(t; D)   Ck ,p g (t  kT )e j (2 / T ) pt
, 0  t   (4) (B)antenna selection and adaptive modulation are made
k p
based on F that is fed back by receiver
if F(nt)≤α1,
Where BPSK scheme for transmit antenna nt
else if α1≤F(nt)≤α2,
 1
 0  t  LT CPM scheme for transmit antenna nt
g(t )   T (5) elseif α2≤F(nt)≤α3,
 0 QPSK scheme for transmit antenna nt
 elsewhere
else
In (4) and (5), T is symbol duration of CPM, L=1 is for full 16QAM scheme for transmit antenna nt
response signaling. More specifically, hp=m/p where m and p Receiver:
are positive integer numbers and integer values for hp are (C)decouple superposition OFDM-MIMO signals into Nr
forbidden [11]. Meanwhile, a correct definition of the streams.
modulation index requires that m and p are relative prime in (D)based on Frobenius norm of the channel matrix,
order to have a minimal trellis representation. It is ensured that
demodulate these streams to get information bits.
m is randomly chosen and less than p.It is denoted as follows:
{hpk }is the sequence of p modulation indices, k=N mod p if F(nt)≤α1,
demodulate the BPSK signals
else if α1≤F(nt)≤α2,
2.2 Antenna selection
demodulate the CPM signals
Channel state information (CSI) is assumed to be estimated elseif α2≤F(nt)≤α3,
bythereceiver. The receiver calculates the Frobenius norm of the
channel matrix and feeds back to thetransmitter as the selection demodulate the QPSK signals
criterion. The value of the Frobenius norm,i.e.F(nt), should lie in else
(0,∞). demodulate the 16QAM signals
(E)meanwhile obtain H via pilot symbols
Nr (F)calculate the Frobenius norm of channel matrix H.
h
2
F (nt )  H nt  nr nt nt=1,…,NT (6) Performance evaluation:
F
nr 1 (G)calculate data rate R
(H)calculate bit error rate
We sort F(nt) in descending order, then select first Nt antennas
(I) calculate power spectrum density (PSD)
with largest F(nt) from NT antennas in all.
(J)calculated PAPR.

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The PAPR of the transmitted signal in (4) can be defined as
2
max s(t )
PAPR  (7).
E  s(t ) 
2
 
3. SIMULATED RESULTS AND
DISCUSSIONS
In this section, we provide simulated results to the proposed
system using MATLAB.For convenience, the proposed system
with Nt=4, Nr=4 is evaluated as an instance.Each spatial channel is
modelled to be independently Rayleigh fading.
Figure 2.Complementary cumulative distribution function of
256-subcarrier OFDM-MIMO system for various modulations
Figure2 shows the complementary cumulative distribution (CCD)
function of 256-subcarrier OFDM-MIMO system for various
modulations. The simulation was run 1000 OFDM blocks and the
transmitted signal was oversampled by the factor of four which is
sufficient to capture the peaks. It can be seen that the PAPR for
OFDM-MIMO with multi-hp CPM is marginally better than for
OFDM-MIMO with BPSK. Meanwhile, the PAPR for OFDM-
MIMO with hp=1/4 CPM is close to the OFDM-MIMO with
QPSK. On the other hand, the PAPR for OFDM-MIMO with
16QAM is the worst among these modulations.
Figure 3.PSD of 256-subcarrier OFDM-MIMO system for
various modulations
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Figure. 3 shows the power spectrum density (PSD) of 256-
subcarrier OFDM-MIMO system for various modulations. The
main lobe of OFDM-MIMO with multi-hp CPM is flat than for
OFDM-MIMO with BPSK and 16QAM, while the side lobe of
OFDM-MIMO with multi-hp CPM is lower than for OFDM-
MIMO with hp=1/4 CPM. It is inferred that, OFDM-MIMO with
multi- hp CPM gives good bandwidth efficiency.
Figure 4.Data rate of adaptive modulation without AS for
OFDM-MIMO systems
Data rate is usually defined as the number of bits transmitted
within one symbolduration. Taking into account the cost of
devices, it is defined in this paper as the number of transmitted
bits per antenna within one symbol duration. Figure.4. depicts
data rate of adaptive modulation without antenna selection for
OFDM-MIMO systems. The signal to noise ratio (SNR) is taken
to be 5 dB. As for OFDM-MIMO systems with α2=3, α3=5,
variable α1, the data rates are accordingly as R={1.5786,
1.6357, 1.6393, 1.6107, 1.6393, 1.575}. It is shown that the data
rates fluctuate as α1 increases, since the data rates for CPM (M=2)
are the same as BPSK. As for OFDM-MIMO systems withα1=1,
α3=5, variable α2, the data rates are accordingly as R={1.7071,
1.7071, 1.6071, 1.5357, 1.6357,1.5857}.It is shown that the data
rates decrease as α2 increases, since the probability of QPSK is to
get smaller as α2 increases. As for OFDM-MIMO systems
withα1=1, α2=3, variable α3, the data rates are accordingly as
R={1.7714, 1.6893, 1.7321, 1.6679, 1.6107,1.6}.It is due to the
fact that, the probability of 16QAM is to get smaller as α3
increases, since the statistical characters of channel condition
should be static during transmissions. Thereby, It is inferred from
table 1 that the data rate R decreases as α3 increases.

Figure 5.Data rate of adaptive modulation with AS for
OFDM-MIMO systems
Figure. 5. depicts data rate of adaptive modulation with antenna
selection for OFDM-MIMO systems. We select Nt=5 out of NT=6
at transmit side. The signal to noise ratio (SNR) is taken to be 5
dB. As for OFDM-MIMO systems with α2=3, α3=5, variable α1,
the data rates are accordingly as R={2.1429, 2.0786, 2.0714, 2.15,
2.0964, 2.0893}. As for OFDM-MIMO systems with α1=1, α3=5,
variable α2, the data rates are accordingly as R={2.2357, 2.15,
2.1393, 2.1786, 2.1321, 2.0929}.As for OFDM-MIMO systems
with α1=1, α2=3, variable α3, the data rates are accordingly as
R={2.3036, 2.2321, 2.1786, 2.2429, 2.1929,2.05}. The analysis
for figure 5 is likewise as that for figure 4. The distinction is that,
the data rates with antenna selection are overall higher than those
without antenna selection. The reason is that antenna selection can
provide selection gain. It means that more available antennas
should have more likelihood to choose good antennas.
Figure 6.BER of 256-subcarrier OFDM-MIMO system
for various modulations
Then we shift our attention to bit error rate (BER) of 256-
subcarrier OFDM-MIMO system for various modulations. As
shown in figure. 6, OFDM-MIMO with multi-hp CPM should
outperform other modulation schemes especially as SNR
increases. On the other hand, the BER of OFDM-MIMO with
adaptive modulation improves less and less as SNR increases
since the probability of selection for QPSK and 16QAM should
get larger and larger.
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4. CONCLUSIONS
In this letter, we propose the OFDM-MIMO systems with antenna
selection and adaptive modulation. Then we investigate the
performances such as PAPR, PSD, data rate, and BER in the
systems. We observe the selection gain and the improvements on
data rate. It is concluded that, the proposed system entails abetter
tradeoff between BER and data rate than other conventional
schemes.
5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Our thanks to ACM SIGCHI for allowing us to modify templates
they had developed.
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