Module 4 -OFDM Technology

Introduction and Challenges in Multicarrier Systems,

OFDM System Model - IFFT/ FFT Transceiver
Mathematical Model - Cyclic Prefix, PAPR and
reduction techniques - SNR and BER performance -
ICI-SC-FDMA.
 Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing
(OFDM)
• OFDM created great expansion in wireless networks
– Greater efficiency ( data rate100bps)

• Main air interface in the change from 3G to 4G

– The wireless local area (LAN) standards such as 802.11
a/g/n are based on OFDM.

• OFDM is used in 4G wireless cellular standards such as

Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and WiMAX (Worldwide
Interoperability for Microwave Access).
 Single and Multiple Carrier
• Digital Communication: symbols modulated on single
carrier modulation
- Single carrier modulation has low spectral efficiency :
Sinc or raised cosine leakage
- Inter symbol interference limit performance
• Multi carrier modulation
- Symbols modulated on multiple subcarrier frequency
- Divide spectrum into narrow bands
- Transmit symbols on different carriers in narrow bands
- Carrier is flat no ISI
 Single Carrier Basics
• Consider a bandwidth B = 2W available for
communication, where W is the one-sided
bandwidth, or, the maximum frequency.
• For a single carrier communication system, the
symbol time T is given as
• This implies that symbols can be transmitted
at intervals of seconds each.
• The symbol rate is given as
 Single Carrier Basics
• In a single-carrier system, a single carrier is
employed for the entire baseband bandwidth
of B.
• Therefore, the symbols are transmitted as
symbol X(0) from 0 ≤ t < T,
• symbol X(1) from T ≤ t < 2T,
• and so on, i.e., roughly one symbol
transmitted every seconds.
 Multicarrier
• Consider now dividing the total bandwidth B into N sub-
bands of bandwidth B/N each as shown in Figure.
• The subcarriers are placed at . . . , − B/N , 0, B/N , . . ., as
shown in the figure.
• For instance, consider the bandwidth B = 256 kHz with N
= 64 subcarriers.
• The bandwidth per sub-band is equal to 256/64 = 4 kHz,
which is also the frequency spacing between the
subcarriers.
 Multicarrier

• Consider the ith subcarrier at the frequency,

with .
• Let Xi denote the data transmitted on the ith subcarrier.
• Then, the signal si(t) corresponding to the ith subcarrier is
given as

where fi is the ith subcarrier centre frequency, and

is the ith subcarrier.
• The above equation shows the data modulation process
over the ith subcarrier.
 Multicarrier Transmission
Consider now the different modulated signals
si(t) corresponding to the N different
subcarriers.
These signals are then superposed at the
transmitter to form the composite signal s(t)
given as
 Multicarrier Transmission
• This composite signal s(t) is then transmitted
over the wireless channels.
• Thus, N different data streams are transmitted
over N subcarriers in parallel in this multicarrier
system.
• At the receivers, the individual data streams have
then to be isolated from the composite signal s(t).
• This is accomplished as follows.
• Consider the signal y(t) received as
 Multicarrier Transmission
• It can be seen that the expression on the right-
hand side is the Fourier series representation s(t),
corresponding to the fundamental frequency
f0=B/N and the various Xi representing the Fourier
coefficients.
• To extract Xl, which is the Fourier coefficient
corresponding to the frequency one needs
to follow the procedure similar to compute the
Fourier series as,
Multicarrier Transmission
 Multicarrier Transmission
• It is to be noted that since this
is basically integrating a sinusoid of frequency
which is a multiple of the fundamental frequency f0
over the period T0.
• Therefore, since there are an integer number of
cycles of the sinusoid of frequency this
integral is 0.
• This implies that the different sinusoids and
are orthogonal.
• It is this key property of orthogonality which helps
extract the different streams Xi modulated over the
different subcarriers.
 Multicarrier Transmission
Property of Orthogonaility

• All the subcarriers other than the lth subcarrier are

orthogonal to the lth subcarrier.
• Multiplying with and integrating is coherent
demodulation, i.e., demodulation with the carrier
matched to the subcarrier frequency .
• Thus, Xl, the data modulated on the different
subcarriers, can be conveniently recovered by
coherently demodulating with each of the subcarriers
corresponding to
Transmission on multiple orthogonal subcarriers and the associated ata
• recovery
). at the receiver is termed Multi Carrier Modulation(MCM
 Multicarrier Transmission
• Also observe that the window of time associated with
detection of this multicarrier signal is
which is basically the time period of integration.
• Hence, MCM basically transmits N symbols using N
subcarriers in a time period of N/B.
• The symbol rate is
• Thus, the overall symbol rate in single carrier vs.
multicarrier systems is unchanged.
• MCM system suffers from a significant bottleneck.
Implementing the bank of N modulators and N
demodulators with closely spaced subcarrier
frequencies is an extremely challenging task.
 Multicarrier Transmission -OFDM
• The technique, where the MCM signal is
generated by employing the IFFT operation is
termed Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing, or OFDM.
• At the receiver, to recover the information
symbols, one can correspondingly employ an
FFT operation
 Comparison of Single Carrier Vs Multicarrier Transmission

• B >>Bc , the single-carrier system experiences frequency-

selective fading and inter-symbol interference.
• Consider B=1024 KHz, Bc=250 KHz
OFDM N=256,
• Bandwidth/ subcarrier Bs=
B/N<< Bc – flat fadding, no ISI in MCM
• Critical and key benefit of MCM system through parallel
transmission using multiple narrow band subcarriers, it
eliminates the Inter-Symbol interference(ISI), thus avoiding
distortion of the received symbols.
• Bottleneck Implementing the bank of N modulators and N
demodulators with closely spaced subcarrier frequencies is
an extremely challenging task
 Multi Carrier Modulation

Multicarrier Modulation Transmitter Multicarrier Modulation Receiver

In multi carrier N symbols transmitted with N subcarrier in time period N/B

In single carrier each symbol is transmitted in time 1/ B
 Multicarrier Modulation

Not simple
Multicarrier Modulation
 Why OFDM?
• OFDM's resistance to multipath fading due to
orthogonal subcarrier with resistance to
multipath fading.
• Each subcarrier experiences fading
independently,
• high spectral efficiency -OFDM can transmit
multiple data simultaneously without causing
interference
• A traditional single carrier system may suffer
from severe fading effects, in multipath
environments
 Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing (OFDM)
OFDM - Send symbol in frequency domain
• Compute and transmit x(t) using IDFT
- N subcarrier  IDFT of length N
- Symbols can come from any modulation BPSK, QPSK, QAM
- x(t) is complex  need I and Q no point in using PAM or
ASK
- OFDM symbol: N samples of x(t) generated from the same
modulated symbols using IDFT
- OFDM symbol time T=N/B
- OFDM Frequency bandwidth f=1/T=B/N
 Orthogonality of subcarriers
Encode: frequency domain samples IDFT Time Domain
samples
𝑁−1
1 𝑗
2𝜋𝑘𝑛
𝑥(𝑛) = 𝑋 𝑘 𝑒 𝑁 ,𝑛 = 0,1,2 … 𝑁 − 1
𝑁
𝑘=0

Decode: Time domain samples DFT Frequency Domain

samples
2𝜋𝑘𝑛
𝑁−1 −𝑗 𝑁
𝑋 𝑘 = 𝑛=0 𝑥 𝑛 𝑒 , 𝑘 = 0,1,2 … 𝑁 − 1 , IDFT
,
 Problems
4.1 Consider QPSK modulated samples {1+j, -j, 1-
j, 1}. Generate the time-domain samples of the
given symbol and construct the transmit symbol
by adding cyclic prefix.
2. Consider N=4 subcarrier system with 4
symbols 1 + 𝑗, 1 − 𝑗, 1 + 2𝑗, 2 − 𝑗 . Generate
the samples in the time domain and construct
the transmit symbol by adding cyclic prefix.
OFDM/FDM
 OFDM
• It has been proved
mathematically that
• sinusoidal waves are
orthogonal over an
interval of integer
number of periods T
• if there is no crossing
of other channels at
the center frequency
of each subcarrier in
the frequency
domain, the ISIs (inter
symbol interferences)
would be zero.
 Cyclic Prefix in OFDM
• Consider a frequency-selective channel modelled with
channel taps
• The received symbol y at a given time instant n can be
expressed as

• Consider now two OFDM symbols as follows.

• Let denote the IFFT samples of
the modulated symbols

denote the IFFT samples of the previous modulated

symbol block
 Cyclic Prefix in OFDM
• Thus, the samples corresponding to these two
blocks of OFDM symbols are transmitted
sequentially as

• Now, consider the received symbol y(0)

corresponding to the transmission of x(0).
• This can be expressed as
 Cyclic Prefix in OFDM
• It can be seen from the above equation that the received
symbol y(0) experiences inter-symbol interference from

• Thus, there is inter-OFDM symbol interference in this

new OFDM system.
• The initial samples of the current OFDM symbol block are
being subject to interference from the N − 1 samples of
the previous OFDM block.
 Cyclic Prefix in OFDM
• Consider a modified transmission scheme as follows.
• To each transmitted OFDM sample stream, we pad the
last Lc symbols to make the transmitted stream as follows

• We are prefixing the transmitted sample block

of the current block with the Lc
samples
 Cyclic Prefix in OFDM
• Thus, with the cyclic prefix of appropriate length,
, inter-OFDM symbol interference can be
avoided and inter-symbol interference is restricted to
samples from the same OFDM symbol.
• The samples are given as
 Cyclic Prefix in OFDM
• It can now be clearly seen that the output y(n) is a
circular convolution between the channel filter h(n) and
the input x(n).
• This can be expressed as

• The output y can be written as

 Cyclic Prefix
• OFDM’s long bit times
eliminate most of the ISI

• OFDM also uses a cyclic

prefix (CP) to overcome
the residual ISI
– Adds additional time to
the OFDM symbol before
the real data is sent
• Called the guard interval
• ISI diminishes before the
data starts
– Design Aside: Data from
the end of the OFDM
symbol is used as the CP
• Simplifies the
computations
Cyclic Prefix
 Cyclic Prefix
Cyclic Prefix
 Example of ISI with Cyclic Prefix
50ns Delay Spread 200ns Delay Spread
 Cyclic Prefix Guard Interval

• Guard interval (GI) preserve the orthogonality of the symbol

carriers and independence of subsequent OFDM symbols in
multipath scenario.
• GI should be larger than maximum excess delay of the radio
channel (worst case scenario).
 Loss in Efficiency
Samples in the tail, i.e., x(N−Lc),x(N−Lc+1), ...,x(N−1)are simply repeated
in the beginning, they do not constitute any additional information.
Hence, the effect of the addition of a long CP is lost in the throughput of
the system.

as the block length N becomes large

Thus, the loss in throughput approaches 0 as the number of

subcarriers N increases for a fixed length of the delay spread L
 Impact of Cyclic prefix on Data Rate
duration of the cyclic prefix has to be greater than the delay spread

𝐿𝑐 × 𝑇𝑠 ≥ 𝑇𝑑 (1)
Lc- Length of cyclic prefix
1
𝑆𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑇𝑠 =
𝐵
B – total bandwidth of the system
1
Delay spread 𝑇𝑑 =
𝐵𝑐
Bc −Coherent bandwidth of the system
𝑇𝑑 𝐵
Equation (1) implies 𝐿𝑐 ≥ =
𝑇𝑠 𝐵𝑐
• Combining this with the earlier condition that N>>Lc for efficiency in terms
of the effective data rate, we have
𝐵 𝐵
𝑁 ≫ 𝐿𝑐 ≥ 𝐵 i.e., 𝐵𝑐 ≥ 𝑁
𝑐
the same condition as that of frequency flat fading across each subcarrier since
this implies that the subcarrier bandwidth B/ N is required to be much less than
the coherence bandwidth Bc.
• An appropriately designed OFDM system converts a frequency-selective
fading channel in to a set of parallel narrow band flat-fading channels across
the subcarriers
 OFDM design Few Consideration
• Reduced Guard Interval (GI): more symbols can be transmitted
within the same time frame, thus increasing the data rate.
• Dynamic Subcarrier Allocation: allocating more subcarriers to users
with higher data rate requirements and fewer subcarriers to users
with lower data rate requirements.
• Advanced Coding and Modulation Schemes: higher order
modulation schemes such as 16-QAM or 64-QAM can increase the
data rate per subcarrier.
• Adaptive Subcarrier Spacing: adaptive subcarrier spacing can be
implemented based on channel conditions. Low interfering region
subcarriers can be spaced closer together to increase spectral
efficiency. high interference region, wider subcarrier spacing can be
used to improve robustness against interference.
• Beamforming and MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output:
beamforming and MIMO techniques can enhance the link's
performance by exploiting spatial diversity. Multiple antenna can
mitigate multipath fading and improve signal quality, thereby
increasing the achievable data rate.
OFDM Modulator/ Demodulator
 Problems
4.2 Consider a prominent 4G wireless standard WiMAX
system (World wide Interoperability for Microwave Access).
The total number of subcarriers N=256 with a bandwidth of
15.625 kHz per subcarrier.
i) Determine bandwidth
ii) If Bc = 250KHz, verify the type of fading
iii) Determine OFDM symbol time without CP
iv) If WiMAX employs a cyclic prefix which is 12.5% of the
symbol time, determine the duration of cyclic prefix
v) Determine OFDM symbol time with CP
vi) Calculate the number of samples in the CP (length of
cyclic prefix)
vii)Determine the loss in spectral efficiency
 Problems
4.3 Consider an IEEE 802.11a WLAN system in which OFDM
baseband modulation scheme is used. The OFDM system has 52
subcarriers out of which 4 subcarriers are used as pilot
subcarriers and the remaining as data subcarriers. OFDM symbol
duration including guard interval for ISI mitigation is 4 μs. If the
system uses ¾ FEC code rate and 64-QAM carrier modulation
scheme then show that the achievable transmission data rate is
54 Mbps at receiver without CP.
 Challenges in Multicarrier System
Challenges in Multicarrier System
• Peak to Average Power ratio
• Frequency and Timing offset
Peak to Average Power ratio(PAPR)
The Peak-to-Average Power Ratio(PAPR ) is a
critical problem in OFDM systems, which needs
to be handled effectively in order to limit the
distortion at the receiver.
PAPR = Peak power /Average power
 Peak to Average Power ratio(PAPR)
 Envelope Fluctuation – Superposition of
sub-carriers
 Causes Power Amplifiers to Saturate – leads
to Non-linear Distortion, Inter-modulation
and Out-of Band Radiation
 Increased Complexity of ADC and DAC
 BER high
 Spectral Spreading – Adjacent Channel
Interference (ACI) occurs
 Peak to Average Power ratio(PAPR)
• Amplifier should operate in the
linear region to avoid distortion
• Peak value is constrained in this
region
• Desirable average and peak value
as close as possible for the PA to
operate at maximum efficiency
• High PAR requires high resolution
for receiver A/D converter since
dynamic range of receiver greater
than PAPR
• High resolution A/D conversion
places a complexity and power Power amplifier Response

burden on the receiver frontend.

 Peak to Average Power ratio(PAPR)
PAPR of continuous signal

max x  t 
2

PAPR  0t T

1/ T   x  t  dt
T 2
0

Any constant amplitude signal, e.g. a square wave, has PAR=0dB. A sinewave has
PAR=3dB since max[sin2(t/T)]=1 and

So PAR = 1/.5 = 2.
 Distribution of PAPR
• For a complex baseband signal

an – Modulating symbol
N – No. of sub-carriers
• For Large N,
- real/imaginary value of x(t) –Gaussian distributed
- Amplitude – Rayleigh Distribution
- Power Distribution – chi-square distribution
With zero mean and two degrees of freedom
 PAPR Reduction Techniques
• Distortion Techniques
– Clipping
– Peak Windowing
– Peak Cancellation
• Coding
Special FEC which exclude OFDM symbol with
large PAPR
• Scrambling
Scramble OFDM to small PAPR
 Clipping
• Peak amplitude limited to desired level
• Distorts the OFDM signal amplitude
• (i.e) Self-interference occurrence degrades
BER
• Non-linear distortion – leads to Out-of band
radiation
 Peak Windowing
• Clipping is OFDM signal x w(t)(rectangular)
• w(t) =  if OFDM amplitude< threshold
• <  if OFDM amplitude> threshold
(rectangular window only to analyze Out of Band)
• Out-of band – spectrum of rectangular
window
 Contd…
• Remedy to Out-of band
• Clipping is OFDM signal x w(t)(non-
rectangular)
• To minimize Out-of band interference,
• Window NB
• Not too long in time domain
• Cosine, Hamming, Kaiser windows
Windowing of OFDM signal
 Problems
4.4 A 64 kbps voice frame is to be modulated by
OFDM scheme. The duration of OFDM symbol is
1000 µs. Total of 32 subcarriers are to be
assigned to this frame. Compute the following:
(i) Null-to-null sub-channel bandwidth assuming
square signal
(ii) Total bandwidth occupied
(iii) Number of bits in OFDM frame
 Problems
4.5 Consider an OFDM system with total passband bandwidth B = 5 MHz with
N = 512 subcarriers. The channel has a maximum delay spread of Td = 4 μs.
Answer the questions that follow.
(i) What is the symbol time of a corresponding single-carrier system?
(ii) What is the sample time of the OFDM system and the raw symbol time
without the cyclic prefix?
(iii) What is the minimum number of samples required in the cyclic prefix?
(iv) If the length of the cyclic prefix is twice the required minimum calculated
above, what is the total OFDM symbol time?
(v) What is the loss in efficiency due to the overhead of the cyclic prefix?
(vi) If the modulation employed is 16-QAM, what is the effective bit rate of
the above OFDM system?
(vii) At a carrier frequency of fc = 2.4 GHz, what is the maximum possible
velocity of a mobile for the system to be able to function
 Problems
4.5 Consider an OFDM system with total passband bandwidth B = 5 MHz with N =
512 subcarriers. The channel has a maximum delay spread of Td = 4 μs. Answer
the questions that follow.
(i) What is the symbol time of a corresponding single-carrier system? Symbol
time (Tsymbol=1/B)
(ii) What is the sample time of the OFDM system and the raw symbol time
without the cyclic prefix?
Tsample =1/B,
Traw-Symbol =1/f where f is subcarrier spacing= B/N
(iii) What is the minimum number of samples required in the cyclic prefix?
Cyclic prefix Length=maximum delay spread (Td)/sample time
(iv) If the length of the cyclic prefix is twice the required minimum calculated
above, what is the total OFDM symbol time? Tsymbol total= Traw-Symbol + 2Cyclic prefix
Length
 Problems
(v) What is the loss in efficiency due to the
overhead of the cyclic prefix? Efficiency Loss=Cyclic
prefix Length/Total OFDM symbol Length
(vi) If the modulation employed is 16-QAM, what is
the effective bit rate of the above OFDM system?
ROFDM= N Log2 M Tsymbol total
M bits/symbol modulation

vii) At a carrier frequency of fc = 2.4 GHz, what is

fthe
m =v/ maximum possible velocity of a mobile for the

system to be able to function

Tc>> Tsymbol total