ICI CANCELLATION FOR OFDM SYSTEMS

March 26, 2003 Group: Principal Investigators: OFDM I Mihir Anandpara Elmustafa Erwa James Golab Roopsha Samanta Huihui Wang

Abstract Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is the projected modulation of choice for fourth-generation broadband multimedia wireless systems. However, it suffers from intercarrier interference (ICI) in the absence of precise frequency synchronization. This project will investigate the effectiveness of the extended Kalman filtering (EKF), self-cancellation (SC), and maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE) techniques for mitigation of ICI in OFDM systems. Computer simulations will be carried out to evaluate the performance of the three techniques. It is expected that the carrier-to-interference ratio (CIR) and bit-error rate (BER) will be reasonably improved compared to the standard OFDM systems.

1. INTRODUCTION Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems have recently gained increased interest. OFDM is used in the European digital broadcast radio system and is being investigated for broadband indoor wireless communications. Standards such as HIPERLAN2 (High Performance Local Area Network) and IEEE 802.11a have emerged to support IP-based services and provide some quality of service (QoS) support. Such systems are based on OFDM and are designed to operate in the 5 GHz band [1]. The main advantage of OFDM transmission is its robustness to frequency-selective fading characteristics of a mobile radio channel. In OFDM, the entire spectrum is divided into subcarriers which are narrow-banded with respect to the coherence bandwidth of the channel. This provides resistance against frequency-selectivity of the channel for wideband data transmission. A well-known problem of such a multi-carrier modulation technique, however, is its vulnerability to frequency-offset errors caused by oscillator inaccuracies and the Doppler shift. In such situations, the orthogonality of the carriers is no longer maintained, which results in intercarrier interference (ICI). Depending on the Doppler spread in the channel and the block length chosen for transmission, ICI can potentially cause a severe deterioration of QoS in OFDM systems. Researchers have proposed various methods to combat the ICI in OFDM systems. The existing approaches that have been developed to reduce ICI can be categorized as frequency-domain equalization [2, 3], time-domain windowing [4], and the ICI selfcancellation (SC) scheme [5]. These methods give a higher signal-to-uncancelled-ICI ratio than standard OFDM [6]. Several new schemes are also being exploited and compared with existing methods. In this project, three schemes to mitigate ICI distortion in OFDM will be explored. The self-cancellation (SC), maximum likelihood estimation (MLE), and extended Kalman filtering (EKF) methods will be simulated and compared. The SC scheme is a two-stage technique that uses redundant modulation to suppress ICI efficiently in OFDM. The MLE method also adds redundant symbols at particular intervals and estimates the frequency offset based on the phase difference between the redundant symbols. It is noted that Kalman filter-based techniques are common in the literature and have found various applications in communications. It is expected that the EKF method will be a computationally efficient technique in comparison with the current techniques such as SC and MLE methods in combating ICI. 2. APPROACH

Fig. 1 shows a typical discrete-time baseband equivalent model of an OFDM system. As shown, a stream of input bits are first encoded into N symbols Xm using MQAM. The N symbols are transferred by the serial-to-parallel converter (S/P) to the OFDM modulator. The modulated symbols are serialized using a parallel-to-serial

converter (P/S), then converted to analog via the digital-to-analog converter (D/A) before being sent down to the channel. At the receiver side, the received symbols are converted from analog to digital using the analog-to-digital converter (A/D) and transferred by the S/P to the OFDM demodulator. The ICI cancellation is done after demodulating the symbols.

Fig. 1 A baseband block diagram for an OFDM system [3]. 2.1 Self-Cancellation Scheme The first method of mitigating ICI errors in OFDM systems is the SelfCancellation Scheme proposed in [5]. For OFDM systems, the received signal at subcarrier k can be expressed as
Y (k) = X (k)S(0) k =0,1,.... N 1 + X (l )S (l k ) +n
N k

l = , l k 0

(1)

where N is the total number of OFDM subcarriers, X(k) is the modulated subcarrier, nk is additive noise, and S(l-k) are the complex coefficients for the ICI components in the received signal. These coefficients are given by
S(l - k) = sin( (l + k )) 1 exp( j (1 )( l + k )) N sin( (l + k ) / N ) N

(2)

f where represents the normalized frequency offset, that is, = f /(1 / NT ) , where is the frequency difference between the transmitter and the receiver, and NT denotes the interval of an FFT period [5]. The self cancellation method relies on the fact that the real and imaginary parts of the ICI coefficients change gradually with respect to the subcarrier index k; therefore, the difference between consecutive ICI coefficients, S(l-k)-S(l-k+1), is very small.

During modulation, one data symbol is mapped onto two consecutive subcarriers with predefined weighting coefficients. The weighting coefficients are calculated carefully such that the ICI signals within the successive subcarriers are cancelled by each other at the receiver end; hence this technique is called self-cancellation. It is worth noting that the redundant modulation in the self-cancellation scheme reduces the bandwidth efficiency. The investigators will explore ways to compensate for that problem if possible. With this scheme, carrier-to-interference ratio (CIR) will increase, thus improving the bit error rate (BER) at the receiver. The goal in this part of the project is to simulate different OFDM channels and use the self-cancellation scheme to determine and compare the improvements in the CIR and BER. 2.2 MLE Scheme Another way of canceling the effect of ICI in OFDM systems is statistically estimating the frequency offset and canceling this offset at the receiver. In this technique, an OFDM symbol stream of N symbols is replicated such that the duplicate symbols are N positions apart in the symbol stream. These symbols are then modulated using a 2Npoint inverse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT). At the receiver, the first set of N symbols are demodulated using an N-point discrete Fourier transform (DFT) to yield the sequence Y1k, and the second set is demodulated with another N-point DFT to yield the sequence Y2k. The frequency offset is the phase difference between Y1k and Y2k, that is, Y2 k = Y1k e j 2 . The maximum likelihood estimate of the normalized frequency offset is given by:

= (1 / 2 ) tan {(
1

k =K

Im[ Y

2k

Y ]) /(

* 1k

k =K

Re[ Y

2k

Y1* ])} k (3)

This maximum likelihood estimate is a conditionally unbiased estimate of the frequency offset and will be computed using the received data [7]. Once the frequency offset is known, the ICI distortion in the data symbols can be reduced by multiplying received symbols with a complex conjugate of the frequency shift. To test the accuracy of the estimate, a mean squared error (MSE) metric, calculated between the estimated offset and the actual offset for different values of the frequency offset, will be used. 2.3 EKF Scheme The Extended Kalman Filtering (EKF) technique is another method to estimate the frequency offset in the received signal. It is assumed that the channel is slowly time varying so that the time-variant channel impulse response can be approximated to be 4

quasi-static during the transmission of one OFDM frame. Hence the frequency offset is considered to be constant during a frame. The preamble preceding each frame can thus be utilized as a training sequence for estimation of the frequency offset imposed on the symbols in this frame. Let s(n) be the training sequence in the time domain, which is generated at baseband by taking the IDFT of the M-QAM modulated preamble. In the case of frequency offset, the signal s(n) will be distorted by a frequency shift e j 2n / N where is the same normalized frequency offset as defined in the SC method. Without cyclic prefix, the received training sequence is expressed as
y ( n) = s ( n)e j 2 n ' / N + w( n) ,

(4)

where n denotes the modulation of the index n by N and w(n) the complex white Gaussian additive noise. To estimate the quantity

using an EKF, a state-space model is built as (5)

( n) = ( n 1)
y ( n) = e j 2 n / N ( n ) s ( n) + w( n)

Through a recursive iteration procedure, an estimate of the frequency offset can be obtained. Fig. 2 shows the estimates for various normalized frequency offsets . It is observed that the EKF technique offers fast convergence. The ICI distortion in the following data symbols can be mitigated by multiplying the received signal with a complex conjugate of the estimated frequency offset.

Fig. 2 Recursive estimation of the normalized frequency offset , SNR = 30 dB. 3. EXPECTED OUTCOME

Numerical simulations of the three ICI mitigation schemes will be performed and their performance will be evaluated and compared in terms of various parameters such as CIR, BER, bandwidth efficiency, and computational complexity. These simulations will be implemented in MATLAB. The normalized frequency offset for these simulations will be in the range of | |< 0.5 . The EKF technique is expected to be more computationally efficient as compared to the SC and MLE techniques. OFDM is currently being used in several communication standards such as IEEE 802.11a and HIPERLAN2, and is one of the most promising fields in wireless communications. ICI mitigation techniques are essential in improving the performance of an OFDM system in an environment which induces frequency offset error in the transmitted signal. The comparisons of the three schemes in terms of various parameters will be useful in determining the choice of ICI mitigation techniques for different applications and mobile environments. 4. REFERENCES [1] B. G. Evans and K. Baughan, Vision of 4G, Electronics & Communication Engineering
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[2] N. Al-Dhahir and J. M. Cioffi, Optimum finite-length equalization for multicarrier [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
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