2015 Fifth International Conference on Advanced Computing & Communication Technologies
BER analysis in Wavelet based SC-FDMA for LTE
uplink transmission
Naresh Kumara, Ishub
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Panjab University
Chandigarh-160014, India.
a
naresh_uiet@yahoo.com, bishu5634@gmail.com
Abstract— Long Term Evolution (LTE) has adopted Single
Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SCFDMA)
technique for uplink and Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiple Access (OFDMA) for downlink. SCFDMA is often
called as Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) spread OFDMA. In
this paper, Wavelet based SCFDMA is proposed for analyzing
Bit Error Rate (BER) performance. Analysis is carried out using
different wavelets and different modulation schemes under
AWGN channel. This analysis will show that the reduction in
BER takes place by using wavelet transform in SCFDMA. Thus
wavelet based SCFDMA provides better BER performance than
that of DFT based SCFDMA.
Keywords— Long term Evolution (LTE); Single carrier Frequency
Division Multiple Access (SCFDMA); Orthogonal Frequency
Division Multiple Access (OFDMA); Peak to Average Power Ratio
(PAPR); Bit Error Rate (BER)
I. INTRODUCTION
The evolution of technologies got started from 1970s.
Technologies have experience from 4 or 5 generations of
revolution. For the improvement of wireless communication,
the technologies are evolved from 1st generation (1G) to
Fourth Generation (4G). The predecessor of 1st generation of
cellular telephones, which is also called Zero Generation (0G)
itself, was used in cars before the advent of mobile phones. To
make the large scale communication possible, 1G includes the
narrow band analogue wireless network. Thus the voice calls
and sending of text messages were made possible. Digital
wireless network in 2G brings more clarity to the
conversation. In second and half generation, the packet
switching domain and circuit domain are implemented. Video
chatting and high internet speed are main assets of third
Generation (3G). But its construction is expensive [1]. The 3G
systems meet the international telecommunication unit (ITU)
in theory but not in practical deployment. The improvements
to the standards were done to meet the targets. There have
been different releases of Universal Mobile
Telecommunication System (UMTS). In order to complete
Third and half Generation (3.5G), High Speed Downlink
Packet Access (HSDPA) and Enhanced Dedicated Channel
(E-DCH) were added in third Generation (3G). Long Term
Evolution (LTE) was started in 2004. Main goals of LTE were
2327-0659/15 $31.00 © 2015 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ACCT.2015.49
better performance, high internet speed, lower power
consumption, flexible use of frequency bands [2].
Latency reduction and spectral efficiency improvement
was done in HSPA. Main objectives of LTE could be achieved
by either evolving the existing W-CDMA air interface (which
incorporates HSPA) or by adopting a new air interface based
on OFDM. At the end of the study phase, 3GPP decided that
the project objectives could be entirely met by an OFDM air
interface, not by evolving HSPA. The existing W-CDMA air
interface is also evolved [2].
LTE has adopted the OFDMA for downlink
transmission and SCFDMA for uplink transmission. OFDMA
is multi user version of OFDM. SCFDMA combines the
OFDMA advantages such as high spectral efficiency, less
sensitivity to the carrier frequency offsets with the lower peak
to average power ratio (PAPR) [3].
In this paper Bit Error performance is evaluated in
SCFDMA transmission. BER performance of SCFDMA using
DFT is compared with BER performance of Wavelet based
SCFDMA. Wavelet transform possess better orthogonality. It
reconstructs the signal effectively. It is less prone to Inter
Channel Interference (ICI) and Inter symbol Interference (ISI),
as there occurs no loss of orthogonality [4].
The rest of paper is organized into following sections.
The next 2nd section describes the basic principles of SC-
FDMA and its system model. 3rd section describes the
Wavelet transform. The proposed method with which BER
performance is going to be better is explained in section 4.
The calculation part and result are shown in section 5. The
paper is concluded in last section 6.
II. SINGLE CARRIER FREQUENCY DIVISION MULTIPLE ACCESS
A. Basic Principle
Multiple access schemes allow a large number of users to
use the channel efficiently. In Frequency Division Multiple
Access (FDMA), the channel is assigned to a user which is not
shared by another user. But in Time Division Multiple Access
(TDMA), the users are allowed to share the channel, but only
unique time slot is provided to each user. OFDMA is multiple
access technique in which subcarriers are made orthogonal to
each other as we can see it in figure. In SC-FDMA, DFT is
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performed prior to the OFDMA operation [3]. Multiple access
techniques TDMA, FDMA, SC-FDMA and OFDMA are
shown in figure 1(a,b) and 2(a,b) [5].
The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) or
evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) brought
some modifications in OFDMA to improve the uplink
transmission. SCFDMA is pre-coded version of OFDMA.
SCFDMA is the extension of single carrier with Frequency
Domain Equalization (FDE) to access multi users. In
OFDMA, subcarriers are transmitted over channel in parallel.
But in SCFDMA, the orthogonal subcarriers are sent on
channel sequentially rather than in parallel. This helps in
prolonging the battery life and making system power efficient.
That’s why it is called single carrier FDMA. SCFDMA has
drawn great attention than OFDMA in uplink transmission.
SCFDMA benefits from multipath protection even with its
short symbols [4,5].
. signal. In OFDMA demodulation, the signal is demapped from
Fig. 1(a): FDMA; 1(b) TDMA
Fig. 2(a) SC-FDMA; 2(b) OFDMA
B. System model
For uplink communication, 3GPP uses the SCFDMA for
multiple access. System Model of SC-FDMA has shown in
Figure 3. SCFDMA can be referred to as DFT spread OFDMA
in which modulated symbols are transformed to the frequency
domain by using M point DFT prior to the OFDMA
modulation. The modulated symbols xm are converted into the
XF frequency domain set. This is expressed in equation (1) [5].
m=M-1
XF= xme-j2mF/M (1)
m=0
XF is mapped onto N number of subcarriers on which N point
IDFT is performed. Here N is product of bandwidth expansion
factor and fftsize. Yk is subcarrier mapped set where k =0, 1,
2, .. N-1, from which M are of non- zero amplitude. yn is the
set of the time domain symbols after IDFT where n= 0, 1, 2
...., N-1. This is described in equation (2) [5].
438
k=N-1
yn= Ykej2nk/N (2)
k=0
Cyclic prefix is used to eliminate the inter symbol
interference (ISI) by adding the guard interval between the
symbols. It can also be added between block of symbols rather
than two consecutive symbols. Because the symbol rate in
time domain is faster than frequency domain. The time
domain cyclic padded data is sent over the channel. Noise gets
added over the channel. Data symbols are sent over the
channel in serial transmission rather than parallel as in
OFDMA. Each symbol is sent over channel at one time as like
in Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA). The each user
occupies the different sub carriers, but the transmission of
only single carrier takes place [5, 6, 7]. Noised data is received
at the receiver antenna where firstly the guard interval is
removed and then DFT is performed. After that OFDMA
demodulation process is carried out to get back the input
various subcarriers and demapped symbols are inverse Fourier
transformed to get back the modulated information.
Demodulation process is done to get the data [5, 6, 7].
Fig. 3: Conventional SC-FDMA
III. WAVELET TRANSFORM
Wavelet Transform is the way of decomposing the input
signal into smaller frequency components called Wavelets, by
providing a way to analyze the signal with different
resolutions. Wavelets are the oscillatory small waveforms
which are non zero for limited period of time [8]. It is multi
resolution analysis mechanism in which input signal is
analyzed by examining the coefficients of wavelets. It
provides the advantages such as flexibility, bandwidth
efficiency, less sensitivity to channel effect, power
conservation. To analyze the local properties of a signal such
as edges and transients, wavelet transform is an efficient tool.
Each decomposed frequency component in it is studied with
resolution matched to its scales. Here, we are going to use its
property to reduce inter symbol interference (ISI) in
SCFDMA. Wavelet orthonormal bases separates signal and
noise. Hence recovers the true signal from noisy data. Also it
provides a better way to eliminate multi path distortion than its
Fourier counterparts [9, 10].
IV. WAVELET BASED SINGLE CARRIER FREQUENCY DIVISION
MULTIPLE ACCESS (W-SCFDMA)
In Wavelet based SC-FDMA, same process is carried out as in
FFT based SCFDMA, instead of using DFT and IDFT
operations for transformation to frequency domain. Block
diagram for wavelet based SC-FDMA has shown in
figure4[11,13]. These DFT and IDFT blocks are replaced by
wavelet transform (DWT) and inverse wavelet transform
(IDWT) respectively. Modulated input binary is converted to
the frequency domain with use of Discrete Wavelet transform
(DWT). On conversion in frequency domain, signal is
decomposed into approximation and detailed coefficients.
These approximation coefficients and detailed coefficients are
mapped onto subcarriers. These sub carriers are inversely
transformed to time domain with use of inverse discrete
Wavelet transform (IDWT). The time domain symbols are
made parallel with the cyclic prefixing between each symbol.
The addition of cyclic prefixing eliminates the inter symbol
interference (ISI) [11, 12].
At the receiver, reverse operations are performed as that of
the transmitter. CP is removed that was added between the
symbols. DWT is performed to get the frequency domain
symbols. Demapping process is done and demapped data is
transformed to time domain by IDWT. Demodulation is
performed to get back the input signal [12-15].
B. Results
The BER performance is calculated using these parameter
values. Results are compared using Matlab® software. The
following figures illustrates the comparison between DFT
based SC-FDMA and Wavelet based SC-FDMA for different
modulation schemes. These show better results for W-
SCFDMA than DFT based SC-FDMA. Performance of
AWGN is best than the other channels. We are using AWGN
channel for carrying out these results. Figure 5 and 6 show the
results of BER in SCFDMA for 16- Quadrature Amplitude
Modulation (16-QAM) and 64-Quadrature Amplitude
Modulation (64-QAM) respectively. As the order of
modulation increases, BER increases. Wavelet Transform
provides better orthogonality and reconstruction property.
Hence improves Inter Symbol Interference (ISI) between
symbols. This property helps in reducing BER of transmission
system.
BER performance for 16 QAM
0
10
DFT-SCFDMA
W-SCFDMA

-1
10

BER
-2
10

-3
10

Fig. 4: Wavelet based SC-FDMA -4

10
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
V. CALCULATION AND RESULTS snr(db)

A. Calculation of BER
Fig. 5: Comparison of BER performance using DFT and DWT in SC-FDMA
BER is calculated for the values of SNR ranging from 0 to for 16-QAM
30. It can be defined as the ratio of number of error bits to
length of transmitting data bits [12].
BER performance for 64 QAM
BER = Total no. of error bits/ total number of transmitted 0
10
bits. DFT-SCFDMA
W-SCFDMA
®
Matlab software is used for carrying out the numerical
calculations. Parameters which are we going to use are shown -1
10
in Table 1.
BER

-2
TABLE I. PARMETER VALUES 10

Parameters Values
Input block size 1024
-3
System Bandwidth 5MHz 10

Cyclic Prefix 1 sample per each symbol

Modulation Scheme 16-QAM, 64-QAM
DFT/DWT size (M) 1024 -4
10
IDFT/IDWT size (N) 1274 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
SNR(db)
Sub Carrier Mapping Localized
Channel AWGN Fig. 6: Comparison of BER performance using DFT and DWT in SC-FDMA
Wavelets Haar, Daubechies of order 4 and 10 for 64-QAM.

439
 Figures 7 and 8 illustrate BER performance of SC-FDMA signal from noise effectively and possesses better
using different wavelets for 16-QAM and 64-QAM orthogonality. We also applied Wavelet transform for different
respectively. BER performance has been studied using the modulations in SCFDMA for LTE uplink transmission under
Wavelets Haar and Daubechies. Daubechies Wavelet of AWGN channel. BER performance of SCFDMA using
order 4 and 10 are used to carry out the analysis of BER different Wavelets has also studied.
performance.
Acknowledgment
The authors thank Dr. Renu Vig, Director, UIET, Panjab
0
BER performance for 16 qam modulation using different wavelets University Chandigarh for providing the lab facilities to
10
complete this work.
DFT-SCFDMA
W-SCFDMA using Haar Wavelet
W-SCFDMA using db4 Wavelet
-1
10 W-SCFDMA using db10 Wavelet

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