OFDM, Quick Intro

K7DEN
OUTLINE

z OVERVIEW ABOUT OFDM

z DEFINITION AND PRINCIPLES
z OFDM ADVANTAGES & DRAWBACKS
z APPLICATIONS
z CONCLUSIONS AND PERSPECTIVES
OVERVIEW ABOUT OFDM

z OFDM was invented more than 40 years ago.

z OFDM has been adopted for several technologies:
y Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) services.
y IEEE 802.11a/g, IEEE 802.16a.
y Digital Audio Broadcast (DAB).
y Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcast: DVD in
Europe, ISDB in Japan
y 4G, IEEE 802.11n, IEEE 802.16, and IEEE 802.20.
WHY OFDM ?

z High bit rate needs are clumped by the nature of

communication channels.
z Multi-path Propagation effects forbid increasing of
transmission rates.
OUTLINE

z OVERVIEW ABOUT OFDM

z DEFINITION AND PRINCIPLES
z OFDM ADVANTAGES & DRAWBACKS
OFDM DEFINITION

z OFDM = Orthogonal FDM

z Carrier centers are put on orthogonal frequencies
z ORTHOGONALITY - The peak of each signal coincides
with trough of other signals
z Subcarriers are spaced by 1/Ts
Modulation
PRINCIPLES

z BASIC IDEA : Channel bandwidth is divided into multiple

subchannels to reduce ISI and frequency-selective
fading.

z Multicarrier transmission : Subcarriers are orthogonal

each other in frequency domain.
PRINCIPLES
z Time-domain spreading:
y Spreading is achieved in the time-domain by
repeating the same information in an OFDM symbol
on two different sub-bands => Frequency Diversity.

z Frequency-domain spreading:
y Spreading is achieved by choosing conjugate
symmetric inputs for the input to the IFFT (real
output)
y Exploits frequency diversity and helps reduce the
transmitter complexity/power consumption.
FDM  OFDM

z Frequency Division Multiplexing

z OFDM frequency dividing

EARN IN SPECTRAL EFFICIENCY

OFDM THEORY
z The baseband OFDM signals can be written as
N 1
 m 
x(t )   X m exp  j 2 t , 0t T
m 0  T 
m
Where f m  T is the central frequency of the mth sub-
channel and X m is the corresponding transmitted symbol.

z The signals exp  j 2 t  are orthogonal over [0, T ] as

m
 T 
illustrated below:
T
1 exp( j 2 m t ). exp( 2 j l t )dt  
T T T
ml
0
Generic OFDM Transmitter

OFDM symbol

bits Serial to Pulse shaper

FEC Parallel IFFT Linear
& PA
DAC

add cyclic extension fc

view this as a time to
frequency mapper

Complexity (cost) is transferred back from the digital to the analog domain!
Generic OFDM Receiver

Slot &
Timing
AGC Sync.

Sampler P/S and Error

FFT Detection Recovery
fc
gross offset
VCO

Freq. Offset
fine offset Estimation
(of all tones sent in one OFDM symbol)
OUTLINE

z OVERVIEW ABOUT OFDM

z DEFINITION AND PRINCIPLES
z OFDM ADVANTAGES & DRAWBACKS
z APPLICATIONS
OFDM ADVANTAGES
z OFDM is spectrally efficient
y IFFT/FFT operation ensures that sub-carriers do not
interfere with each other.

z OFDM has an inherent robustness against narrowband

interference.
y Narrowband interference will affect at most a couple
of subchannels.
y Information from the affected subchannels can be
erased and recovered via the forward error
correction (FEC) codes.

z Equalization is very simple compared to Single-Carrier

systems
OFDM ADVANTAGES
z OFDM has excellent robustness in multi-path
environments.
y Cyclic prefix preserves orthogonality between sub-
carriers.
y Cyclic prefix allows the receiver to capture multi-
path energy more efficiently.

z Ability to comply with world-wide regulations:

y Bands and tones can be dynamically turned on/off
to comply with changing regulations.

z Coexistence with current and future systems:

y Bands and tones can be dynamically turned on/off
for enhanced coexistence with the other devices.
OFDM DRAWBACKS
z High sensitivity inter-channel interference, ICI

z OFDM is sensitive to frequency, clock and phase offset

z The OFDM time-domain signal has a relatively large peak-

to-average ratio
y tends to reduce the power efficiency of the RF
amplifier
y non-linear amplification destroys the orthogonality of
the OFDM signal and introduced out-of-band radiation
OUTLINE

z OVERVIEW ABOUT OFDM

z DEFINITION AND PRINCIPLES
z OFDM ADVANTAGES & DRAWBACKS
z APPLICATIONS
Standards

z Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB)

z Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB)
z Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL)
z Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11a
y Wireless networking, device connectivity
z Proposed for 802.16 standard
y Connection between subscriber's transceiver
station and a base transceiver station
 COFDM Transmitter

Digital Radio

z Coded OFDM Transmitter

DRM

z For HF Frequencies
y 4.5 – 5 kHz for half channel
x Data Rates of 4 – 14.5 kbit/s
y 9 – 10 kHz for full channel
x Data Rates of 8 – 35kbit/s
y 18-20 kHz for double channel
x Data Rates of 31 – 72kbit/s
Products

z AOR ARD9800
y http://www.hamradio-dv.org/aor.htm
z Icom D-Star
z WinDRM
Proprietary OFDM Flavours

Wideband-OFDM Flash OFDM Vector OFDM

(W-OFDM) of Wi-LAN from Flarion (V-OFDM) of Cisco, Iospan,etc.
www.wi-lan.com www.flarion.com www.iospan.com

-- Freq. Hopping for

-- 2.4 GHz band CCI reduction, reuse -- MIMO Technology
-- 30-45Mbps in 40MHz -- 1.25 to 5.0MHz BW -- non-LoS coverage,
-- large tone-width -- mobility support mainly for fixed access
(for mobility, overlay) -- upto 20 Mbps in MMDS

Wi-LAN leads the OFDM Forum -- many proposals submitted to

IEEE 802.16 Wireless MAN
Cisco leads the Broadand Wireless Internet Forum (BWIF)