(0)Y (0)/b(0), b can be written as
(CHF) of < b

Exact BER analysis of FRFT-OFDM system

over frequency selective Rayleigh fading
channel with CFO

 
w< [b(0)Y (0)/b(0),b] jv =

S. Kumari, S. Kr. Rai, A. Kumar, H. D. Joshi, A. Kr. Singh

and R. Saxena
The bit error rate expression of the binary phase-shift keying modulation scheme has been derived in a frequency selective fading
channel for the fractional Fourier transform (FRFT) based orthogonal
frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) system in the presence of
carrier frequency offset (CFO). The performance of the FRFT based
OFDM system has been found to be better than FFT-based OFDM
at different values of FRFT angle parameter .

Introduction: One of the major problems of orthogonal frequencydivision multiplexing (OFDM) is its sensitivity to carrier frequency
offset (CFO) which induces inter-carrier interference (ICI) at the receiver [1]. Several methods are available in the literature to reduce the
effect of ICI at the receiver such as receiver windowing, ICI selfcancellation and use of the fractional Fourier transform (FRFT) based
OFDM system [13]. In [3], it has been established that ICI can be
reduced to a large extent by using IDFRFT/DFRFT instead of IFFT/
FFT in the OFDM system. However, an ICI or signal-to-interference
ratio comparison is not as meaningful as an appropriate bit error rate
(BER) comparison. Therefore, an exact expression of BER is derived
in this Letter for the FRFT based OFDM system in frequency selective
fading channels. With the help of numerical and simulation results, it
has been shown that the performance of the FRFT-OFDM system is
better than that of the FFT based system in terms of BER at different
values of FRFT angle parameter .
BER analysis: In the present study, the FRFT-OFDM system model has
been considered in which the IFFT/FFT blocks are replaced by IDFRFT/
DFRFT blocks [3]. After taking the N-point DFRFT at the receiver, the
received signal for the qth sub-carrier can be expressed as
Y (q) = b(q)X (q)S(q, q) +

N
1

b(k)X (k)S(q, k) + W (q)

where X(k) is the transmitted symbol over (k + 1)th sub-carrier,

S(q, k) is the ICI coefcient, W(q) is the additive white Gaussian
noise (AWGN) with variance 2, (k) is the channel response in
the frequency domain for (k + 1)th sub-carrier and {((0), (1), ,
(N 1))T = FLh} represents the channel response for all sub-carriers,
here (.)T denotes the transpose of matrix. FL represents the rst
L columns of the N N DFRFT matrix [3], h = (h1, h2,, hl )T is
the channel coefcients in the time-domain. The ICI coefcient
S(q, k) is dened as
S(q, k) = N1

e(j2p1n)/N

n=0

N1

e(j(m

n2 )Ts2 Cota)/2

2
2 2
e(j(q k )u Cota)/2 e(j2p(mknq))/N

m=0

(2)
where Ts and u are the sampling intervals in the time and fractional
Fourier domain, respectively; (=f Tu) is the carrier frequency
offset normalised to sub-carrier spacing 1/Tu, N is the number of subcarriers, Tu is the useful period of one OFDM symbol, f is the CFO
and is the angle parameter of the DFRFT kernel [3]. Considering
the binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) modulation scheme (X(k)
{+1, 1}), symbol X(0) = +1 is transmitted on the rst subcarrier.
After multiplying (1) by the conjugate of (0), represented as b (0)
and taking the real part <[.] only
 

 


(0)Y (0) = b(0)2 < S(0, 0)
<b
+

N1






(0)b(k)X (k)S (0, k ) + < W (0)b

( 0)
<b

ejv |b(0)|

<[S (0,0)]



2 2
e v sb /2

2
2N

1 

T
T
ejv<[b(0)(Sk ) b] + ejv <[b(0)(Sk ) b]

k=0

(4)


T
2
where b = b(0), b(2), ..., b(N 1) , sb2 = b(0) s2 and Sk =
diag [S(0, 1), S(0, 2),..., S(0, N 1)] ek, where ek is the (k + 1)th
column of the N 2N 2 matrix EN 1 [4]. Here, diag(.) denotes
 the

(0)Y (0)/b(0), b , 0.
diagonal matrix. Error will occur only if < b

Using the CHF dened in (4), the conditional bit error probability can
be written as


Pb j/b(0), b =

2
2N

1




|b(0)|2 <[S (0,0)]+<[b
(0)(Sk )T b] /s

2N 1 k=0



2
T


+ Q |b(0)| <[S (0,0)]<[b(0)(Sk ) b] /sb

(5)

With the help of (5), the unconditional BER (Pb) can be determined as [4]
 


Pb j/b(0), b pb/b(0) (b/b(0))dbpb(0) (b(0))db(0) (6)
Pb =
b(0) b

where p\(0) (/(0)) is the conditional probability density function (PDF)

with mean E(/(0)) and covariance c/(0) [(27) of 4], E(.) representing
the statistical expectation. Since Pb involves N-dimensional integration,
therefore, it will be difcult to evaluate. Hence, converting this multidimensional integration into many-single dimensional integration by
averaging Pb(/(0), ) over P/(0)(/(0)) in (6)
 



P j/b(0) pb(0) b(0)
(7)
Pb =
d b(0)
b(0)

where P(/(0)) is dened as

(1)

k=0, k=q

N
1

1
2N1

(3)

k=1



1
P j/b(0) = N 1
2

2
2N

1

b(0)|(<[S (0,0)]+zk )
b(0)|(<[S (0,0)]zk )
|
|

Q 
+ Q 






k=0
s 1 + ak /2s2
s 1 + ak /2s2

(8)

Here, P(/(0)) has been evaluated using the mean and variance of the
conditional random variable (bk/(0)) dened as [4]

2
2

 
T


(9)
E(bk /b(0)) = b(0) Cb1
(0)b(0) < (Sk ) Cbb(0) = b(0) zk

2

2


Var bk /b(0) = 12b(0) (Sk )T Cb/b(0) S
k = 12b(0) ak
(10)





(0) , Cb/b(0) = Cbb

(0)(Sk )T b , Cbb(0) = E b b
where bk = < b
H
H

C
C
and
C
=
F
hF
[4].
Var(.) and (.)H denote
Cb1
bb(0) bb(0)
bb
l
l
(0)b(0)
the variance and Hermitian matrix, respectively. Rearranging (8) by
using the denition of the
formof the Q-function and making the
 polar
2
g and using the denition
change of variable as b(0) /2s2  g/

of the PDF of the Rayleigh distribution in terms of [5], Pb can be
written as

1

2 !
N 2

2

1 p/2

g <[S (0, 0)] + zk
1


exp 
pg (g) dg
Pb = N 1
p2
g 1 + ak /2s2 sin2 u
0

k =0

"##########################$%##########################&
Mg (s1 )

1

2 !

g <[S (0, 0)] zk


 2 pg (g)dg du
+ exp 

g 1 + ak /2s2 sin u

"#########################$%#########################&

Mg (s2 )

By using the identity [(3) of 4], the conditional characteristic function

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 26th September 2013 Vol. 49 No. 20 pp. 12991301

(11)

M (s1) and M (s2) are the scaled Laplace transform of the PDF p ()
which can also be termed as the moment generating function of this
PDF [(2.8) of 5]. Solving (11) by using the denition of the moment generating function for the Rayleigh fading channel and multiplying in the
numerator and denominator, Pb can be obtained as
1 1 2

Pb = N
2 2 k=1
N 2

'

g2s2 [<(S (0, 0))+zk ]2

+
1+g{2s2 [<(S (0, 0))+zk ]2 +ak }

'
g2s2 [<(S (0, 0))zk ]2
1+g{2s2 [<(S (0, 0))zk ]2 +ak }

(12)
Substituting = /2 in S(q, k) and Cb1 b1 = 2s in (12), it will convert into
the BER expression of the BPSK for the conventional OFDM system.
This is in conformity with the fact that FRFT-OFDM will be a generalisation of the conventional OFDM system. However, the above result is not
suitable for all the values of CFOs because, at the higher value of CFOs,
the argument of the Q-function is found negative [6]. By changing the
order of integration, (7) can be solved for the negative argument of the
Q-function. Hence, for all CFOs, Pb can be obtained as
2

N2
'
1
1 2

g2s2 [<(S (0, 0))+zk ]2
Pb = N
A1
1+g{2s2 [<(S (0, 0))+zk ]2 +ak }
2 2 k=1
(13)
'
g2s2 [<(S (0, 0))zk ]2
+ A2
1+g{2s2 [<(S (0, 0))zk ]2 +ak }
 

 

where A1 = sgn < S(0, 0) zk and A2 = sgn < S(0, 0) + zk with
sgn(.) used as a signum function. These theoretical results are validated
by the simulation results shown in Figs. 1 and 2, where the variation of
BER for BPSK in FRFT-OFDM as well as the FFT-OFDM system
over the frequency selective Rayleigh fading channel with N = 8 and
L = 2 is demonstrated.

It is clearly visible from the plots of Figs. 1 and 2 that at = /2, the
FRFT-OFDM system behaves similar to the FFT-OFDM system.
However, the FRFT-OFDM system has a lower BER than the
FFT-OFDM system for some values of . Fig. 1 also shows that the
simulation results (marked as X) are perfectly matching with the analytical results given in (13). The BER for = 0.15 with different values of
is included in Fig. 2, which also shows that the BER is minimum for
opt = 1.584 and BER performance will be degraded when is varied
in both the directions of opt.
Conclusion: In this Letter, an exact expression of BER of the FRFT
based OFDM system in a frequency selective Rayleigh fading channel
under the effect of CFO has been successfully derived. The results
show that at = /2 the FRFT-OFDM system performs similar to that
of the FFT-OFDM system and for other values of its performance is
better than that of the FFT-OFDM system. This study conrms that
the FRFT-OFDM system prevails because its BER can be controlled
by varying the FRFT order under the effect of CFO.
The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2013
30 March 2013
doi: 10.1049/el.2013.0980
One or more of the Figures in this Letter are available in colour online.
S. Kumari, S. Kr. Rai, A. Kumar, A. Kr. Singh and R. Saxena
(Department of ECE, Jaypee University of Engineering and
Technology, Guna 473226, Madhya Pradesh, India)
H. D. Joshi (Department of Electronics and Communication
Engineering, Thapar University, Patiala, 147004, India)
E-mail: hemdutt@gmail.com
References

100
FFT
( = /2)

= 0.3, 0.2, 0.1

BER

101

102

FFT
FRFT
simulation

103

104

10

FRFT
( = 1.584)
20
30
Eb /N0, dB

= 0.1, 0.2, 0.3

40

50

Fig. 1 BER for BPSK in FRFT-OFDM over frequency selective Rayleigh

fading channel with N = 8 sub-carriers and L = 2 taps

1 Saxena, R., and Joshi, H.D.: Performance improvement in OFDM

system with MBH combinational pulse shapes, Digital Signal
Processing, Elsevier Publication, 2013, 23, (1), pp. 314321
2 Beaulieu, N.C., and Tan, P.: Effect of transmitter Nyquist shaping on ICI
reduction in OFDM systems with carrier frequency offset, Electronics
Lett., 2005, 41, (13), pp. 746748
3 Zhang, J., and Wang, Z.: ICI analysis for FRFT-OFDM systems to frequency offset in time frequency selective fading channels, IEEE
Commun. Lett., 2010, 14, pp. 888890
4 Dharmawansa, P., Rajatheva, N., and Minn, H.: An exact error probability analysis of OFDM systems with frequency offset, IEEE Trans.
Commun., 2009, 57, (1), pp. 2631
5 Simon, M.K., and Alouini, M.-S.: Digital communication over fading
channels (New York, Wiley, 2005, 2nd edn.)
6 Mahesh, R.U., and Chaturvedi, A.K.: Closed form BER expressions for
BPSK OFDM systems with frequency offset, IEEE Trans. Commun.,
2010, 14, (8), pp. 731733

100
= 0.15

BER

101

102
= 1.62
FFT( = /2)
= 1.576

103

= 1.58
= 1.582
= 1.584

104

10

20

30

40

50

Eb /N0, dB

Fig. 2 BER for BPSK in FRFT-OFDM over frequency selective Rayleigh

fading channel with N = 8 sub-carriers and L = 2 taps

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 26th September 2013 Vol. 49 No. 20 pp. 12991301