A Review Article on Broadband MIMO OFDM Systems

Introduction
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a popular method for high data rate wireless transmission. OFDM may be combined with antenna arrays at the transmitter and receiver to increase the diversity gain and enhance the system capacity on time variant and frequency selective channels resulting in a Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) configuration. MIMO OFDM is an important technology for WiFi, WiMax and 4G communication systems. WHAT ALL TOPICS ARE COVERED IN THIS REVIEW ARTICLE.

MIMO OFDM System Model

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N x M MIMO OFDM System where N and M are the number of input and outputs respectively

The system employs multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver as shown in the figure. They transmit independent data (say x1, x2 xN) on different transmitting antennas simultaneously and in the same frequency band. At the receiver, a MIMO decoder uses M N antennas. Assuming N receiving antennas, and representing the signal received by each antenna as rj we have:

As can be seen from the above set of equations, in making their way from the transmitter to the receiver, the independent signals {x1, x2, , xN} are all combined. Traditionally this combination has been treated as interference. However, by treating the channel as a matrix, we can in fact recover the independent transmitted streams {xi}. To recover the transmitted data stream {xi} from the {rj} we must estimate the individual channel weights hij, construct the channel matrix H. Having estimated H, multiplication of the vector r

with the inverse of H produces the estimate of the transmitted vector x. This is equivalent to solving a set of N linear equations in N unknowns. Because multiple data streams are transmitted in parallel from different antennas there is a linear increase in throughput with every pair of antennas added to the system. An important fact to note is that unlike traditional means of increasing throughput, MIMO systems do not increase bandwidth in order to increase throughput. They simply exploit the spatial dimension by increasing the number of unique spatial paths between the transmitter and receiver. OFDM converts a frequency-selective channel into a parallel collection of frequency flat sub channels. The sub carriers have the minimum frequency separation required to maintain orthogonality of their corresponding time domain waveforms, yet the signal spectra corresponding to the different sub carriers overlap in frequency. Hence, the available bandwidth is used very efficiently. An OFDM signal consists of a sum of sub carriers that are modulated by using phase shift keying (PSK) or quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). If di are the complex QAM symbol, Ns is the number of sub carriers, T the symbol duration, and fi=fo+i/T the carrier frequency, then one OFDM symbol starting at t=ts can be written as:

s(t) = di exp( j2fi (t-ts) , t s t ts + T

i=0

Ns-1

s(t) = 0 , t < ts t > ts+T

The amplitudes and phases may be modulated differently for each sub carrier. Also each sub carrier has exactly an integer number of cycles in the interval T, and the number of cycles between adjacent sub carries differs by exactly one. This properly accounts for the orthogonality between sub carriers.

Orthogonality of the sub carriers

An OFDM modulator can be implemented as an inverse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT) on a block of N information symbols followed by an analog-to-digital converter (ADC). To mitigate the effects of inter symbol interference (ISI) caused by channel time spread, each block of N IDFT coefficients is typically preceded by a cyclic prefix (CP) or a guard interval consisting of G samples, such that the length of the CP is at least equal to the channel length. Under this condition, a linear convolution of the transmitted sequence and the channel is converted to a circular convolution. As a result, the effects of the ISI are easily and completely eliminated. Moreover, the approach enables the receiver to use fast signal processing transforms such as a fast Fourier transform (FFT) for OFDM implementation.

OFDM Transmitter

OFDM Receiver

All MIMO-OFDM receivers must perform time synchronization, frequency offset estimation, and correction and parameter estimation. This is generally carried out using a preamble consisting of one or more training sequences. Let X={X1, X2XN-1 } denote the length N data symbol block. The IDFT of the date block X yields the time domain sequence x = {x1,x2xN-1 } , i.e., x n = IFFTN {X k }(n)

To mitigate the effects of channel delay spread, a guard interval comprised of either a CP or suffix is appended to the sequence. In case of a CP, the transmitted sequence with guard interval is xgn = x(n)N , n = -G,.,-1,0,1,N-1 where G is the guard interval length in samples, and (n)N is the residue of n modulo N . The OFDM complex envelope is obtained by passing the sequence xg through a pair of ADCs (to generate the real and imaginary components) with sample rate 1/T s, and the analog I and Q signals are up converted to an RF carrier frequency. To avoid ISI, the CP length G must be equal or exceed the length of the discrete-time channel impulse response. The time required to transmit one OFDM symbol Ts = NT + GT is called the OFDM symbol time. The OFDM signal is transmitted over the pass band RF channel, received, and down converted to base band. Due to the CP, the discrete linear convolution of the transmitted sequence with the channel impulse response becomes a circular convolution. Hence, at the receiver the initial G samples from each received block are removed, followed by an N point discrete Fourier transform (DFT) on the resulting sequence.

Frame Structure for Q X L OFDM System

The frame structure of a typical MIMO-OFDM system is shown in the figure. The OFDM preamble consists of Q training symbols of length NI + G , where G NI N, NI = N/I and I is an integer that divides N.