OFDM

-INTRODUCTION

ECE 4338 WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY

Outline
Introduction
What is OFDM?
Multipath fading radio-channel
Principle of OFDM
OFDM Implementation and System Model
Advantages and Disadvantages
OFDM in Practice

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What is OFDM
Basic idea

Using a large number of parallel narrow-band subcarriers

instead of a single wide-band carrier to transport information

Advantages
Very easy and efficient in dealing with multi-path
Robust again narrow-band interference

Disadvantages

Sensitive to frequency offset and phase noise

Peak-to-average problem reduces the power efficiency of RF
amplifier at the transmitter

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Transmitter:
Info
Source

Source
coding

e.g. Audio

0110

Receiver:
Info
Sink

Channel
coding /
interleaving

OFDM
modulation

I/Q

Radiochannel
PSD

01101101

PSD

Source
decoding

Decoding /
deinterleaving

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*Down-

OFDM demodulation
I/Q

RF

I/Q-mod.,
upconverter

converter,
-fc
I/Q-demod.

f
fc
RF

Multipath Propagation
Reflections from walls,
etc.

Time dispersive channel

Impulse response:
p ( ) (PDP)

[ns]

Problem with high rate data

transmission:

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inter-symbol-interference
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Inter-SymbolInterference

Transmitted
signal:

Received Signals:
Line-of-sight:

Reflected:
Delays

The symbols add

up on the
channel

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Parallel Transmission Concept

(1)
Channel impulse
response

Time

1 Channel (serial)
2 Channels

Channels are transmitted

at different frequencies
(sub-carriers)

8 Channels
In practice: 50 8000
Channels (sub-carriers)

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The Frequency-Selective Radio

Channel Power response [dB]
20
15
10
5
0
-5
-10

Frequency

Interference of reflected (and LOS) radio waves

Frequency-dependent fading

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Parallel Transmission Concept

(2)

Channel impulse
response

Time

1 Channel (serial)
2 Channels

8 Channels

Frequency

Frequency

Channel
transfer funct
Signal is
broadband

Frequency

Frequency

Channels are
narrowband
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Concept of an OFDM signal

Ch.1

Ch.2

Ch.3

Ch.4

Ch.5

Ch.6

Ch.7

Ch.8

Ch.9

Ch.10

Conventional multicarrier techniques

frequency

Ch.2 Ch.4 Ch.6

Ch.8 Ch.10
Ch.1 Ch.3 Ch.5
Ch.7 Ch.9
Saving of bandwidth

50% bandwidth saving

Orthogonal multicarrier techniques
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frequency
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Generating the OFDM

signal
(1)
Symbol (QPSK) of sub-carrier i at time k

Other symbol-alphabets can be used as well (BPSK, m-QAM)

Baseband signal is generated by DSP

s BB ,i ,k (t ) w(t kT ) xi ,k exp j 2 if (t kT )
Window function

xi,k

Sub-carrier

Im
Re

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Spectrum of the modulated

data symbols
Rectangular Window
of duration T0

Magnitude

T0

Has a sinc-spectrum
with zeros at 1/ T0
Other carriers are put
in these zeros
sub-carriers are
orthogonal

Frequency

N sub-carriers:

sBB ,k (t ) w(t kT )

N 1

j 2 if ( t kT )
x
e
i ,k
i 0

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resembles
IDFT!
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Generating the OFDM

signal (2)
xn

serialtoparallel

x0,k
x1,k

IDFT

s0,k
s1,k

(IFFT)
xN,k

N data symbols:
(in frequencydomain)

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paralleltoserial

sn

sN,k
Base-band
signal
(time-domain)

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OFDM- Recall
OFDM created great expansion in
wireless networks
Greater efficiency in bps/Hz
Main air interface in the change from
3G to 4G
Also expanded 802.11 rates
Critical technology for broadband
wireless access
WiMAX

How OFDM works- Recall

Also called multicarrier modulation
Start with a data stream of R bps
Could be sent with bandwidth Nf b
With bit duration 1/R
OFDM splits into N parallel data streams
Called subcarriers
Each with bandwidth fb
And data rate R/N (bit time N/R)
OFDM 8-17

Figure 8.1 Conceptual

Understanding of Orthogonal
Frequency Division Multiplexing

Orthogonality
The spacing of the fb frequencies allows tight packing of signals
Actually with overlap between the signals
Signals at spacing of fb ,2fb, 3fb ,etc.
The choice of fb is related to the bit rate to make the signals
orthogonal
Average over bit time of s1(t) s2(t) = 0
Receiver is able to extract only the s1(t) signal
If there is no corruption in the frequency spacing
Traditional FDM makes signals completely avoid frequency overlap
OFDM allows overlap which greatly increases capacity

Orthogonality
Given an OFDM subcarrier bit time of T
fb must be a multiple of 1/T
Example: IEEE 802.11n wireless LAN
20 MHz total bandwidth
Only 15 MHz can be used
48 subcarriers
fb = 0.3125 MHz
Signal is translated to 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz bands

OFDM 8-20

Figure 8.2 Illustration of

Orthogonality of OFDM

Idea of Guard Interval (GI)

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Idea of Guard Interval (GI)

1 OFDM symbol
Insertion of guard interval (cyclic prefix):
FFT-part

Channel impulse response (shorter than GI):

time

Cyclic convolution of transmitted signal

with channel impulse response
multiplication in frequency-domain

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ISI due to multipath delay

Zero-Padding Guard Interval

to prevent ISI but introduce IC

Guard Interval with cyclic pre

to eliminate ISI and ICI
The OFDM symbol is
cyclically
extended
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in the guard time!!! 24

Guard interval (2) - Cyclic

extension

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OFDM Symbol
Transmitter pulse prototype w(t) (1)
Configuration
T

Twin

Tguard

TFFT

Prefix

effective TX-time

Postfix

time

kT

Channel impulse response

max

excess delay time

Receiver filter (implemented by FFT)

TFFT

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time

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OFDM System Model

Multiplication of data symbols with (complex-valued)
channel transfer-function:

x-N/2,k

xN/2-1,k

h-N/2,k

hN/2-1,k

n-N/2,k

nN/2-1,k

y-N/2,k

yi xi hi ni
yN/2-1,k

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Design of an OFDM
System

Data rate;
modulation
order

Channel
impulse
response
Channel
Parameters
are needed

Guard x(4 10) FFT

interval
symbol
length
length

Nr. of
carriers

Other constraints:
Nr. of carriers should match FFT size
and data packet length
considering coding and modulation schemes

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Spectral Shaping by
Windowing

To make the spectrum go down more rap

Can do for individual OFDM symbol.
Out-of-band spectrum decrease slowly
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Spectral Shaping by
Windowing
Common type of window used is the raised cosine
window:

Ts= window interval, (shorter than the total symbol

duration), allow adjacent symbols to partially
overlap the roll off region.
Time structure:

Symbol time

FFT Time

Roll off factor

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OFDM Symbol
Configuration
(2)
Not all FFT-points can be used for data carriers

Lowpass filters for AD- and DA-conversion

oversampling required

DC offsets; carrier feedtrough; etc.

Transfer function of
transmitter/receiver

fs/2
N/2,

useable sub-carriers

DC

useable sub-carriers

, 1, 0, 1,

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fs/2
, N/21

frequency
sub-carrier
index i

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Generating OFDM signal

1. Nc input QAM values are padded with zeros to
get N input samples ( used to calculate in IFFT).
2. The last Tprefix samples of IFFT output inserted
at the start of the OFDM symbol, and the first
Tpostfix samples are appended at the end.
3. The OFDM symbol is multiplied by a raised
window w(t) to quickly reduce the power out-ofband subcarriers.
4. Add the OFDM symbol to the output of the
previous OFDM symbol with a delay of Ts (overlap
in the region of Ts)

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OFDM Block Diagram

Transmitter

0110

Symbol
mapping
(modulation)

010101001

Receiver
Decoding /
deinterleaving

power spectrum magnitude [dB]

Channel
coding /
interleaving

10

OFDM
modulation
(IFFT)

I/Q
2,3

Guard
interval

I/Q

OFDM spectrum for NFFT = 128, Nw in = 12, Nguard = 24, oversampling = 1

N symbols

0
-10

1 OFDM symbol

-20
-30

FFT-part

-40

-50
symbol deOFDM
Guard
-60
-40
-20
0
20
40
60
f
[MHz]
mapping
demod.
interval
time domain signal (baseband)
0.2
(detection)
(FFT)
removal
I/Q
I/Q
Channel 0.1
impulse
response:
time
Channel est.
Time sync.
0

-0.1
-0.2

imaginary
real
0

20

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40

60

80

100
120
sample nr.

140

160

180

33

200

Benefits of OFDM
Frequency selective fading only affects some subcarriers
Can easily be handled with a forward error-correcting
code
More importantly, OFDM overcomes intersymbol
interference (ISI)
ISI is a caused by multipath signals arriving in later bits
OFDM bit times are much, much longer (by a factor of N)
ISI is dramatically reduced
N is chosen so the root-mean-square delay spread is
significantly smaller than the OFDM bit time
It may not be necessary to deploy equalizers to
overcome ISI
Eliminates the use of these complex and expensive
devices.
OFDM 8-34

Example 1:
Consider an OFDM implementation in the LTE
cellular standard. LTE uses 15kHz subcarriers
and can use an OFDM symbol of 1024
subcarriers. The nominal cyclic prefix (CP)
can account for a 7% guard time; the
extended cyclic prefix can use up to 25%.
600 subcarriers can be used for the data
transmission. The rest are needed for pilot
and null subcarriers.
i. Calculate the nominal and extended guard
symbols added to the OFDM signal.
ii. Determine the data rate for nominal and
extended CPs for a transmission bandwidth
of 10MHz and 16 QAM modulation
(4bits/symbol)
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Answer :
1.The nominal CP adds 0.07 x 1024= 72 guard symbols,
and the extended CP adds 0.25x1024=256 guard
symbols.
2.For a transmission bandwidth of 10MHz and 16 QAM
modulation (4bits/symbol), the data rate for the nominal
and extended CPs :
R nominal CP = 10MHz x( 600 data subcarriers)x(4)
1024 + 72 total symbol
= 21.9 Mbps

extended CP

= 10MHz x( 600 data subcarriers)x(4)

1024 + 256 total symbol
= 18.8 Mbps

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Difficulties of OFDM

Will increase
the cost of
power
amplifier !!

Peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR)

For OFDM signals, this ratio is much higher than for single-carrier
signals
OFDM signal is a sum of many subcarrier signals
Total can be very high or very low, so the peak value of the signal is
substantially larger than the average value.
Power amplifiers need to amplify all amplitudes equally

Should have a linear characteristic with slope K on a V out vs. Vin curve

V KV

Yet practical amplifiers have limited linear ranges

out
in
Causing distortion if outside the linear range

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OFDM 8-37

Ideal and Practical Amplifier

Characteristics

amplifier has non linear characteristic !!

Cannot produce any higher output voltage
regardless of the input voltage.
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Smaller Vin

Distortion of
signal!!

Bigger Vin
Examples of Linear and Nonlinear Amplifier
Output
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Difficulties of OFDM
PAPR problem (continued)
Expensive amplifiers have wide linear range
Solutions
1) Could reduce the peak amplitude
Called input backoff
But this would increase the signal to interference plus
noise ratio (SINR) because Noise and interference would
be relatively stronger because signal is weaker

Important to reduce the PAPR in the OFDM

signal

2) Specific PAPR reduction techniques can be used

Specialized coding, phase adjustments, clipping using
Gaussian functions, active cancellation, etc.
Single-carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) like used by LTE
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OFDM 8-40

Difficulties of OFDM

Intercarrier Interference (ICI)

OFDM frequencies are spaced very precisely
Channel impairments can corrupt this
Cyclic prefix helps reduce ICI
But CP time should be limited so as to improve spectral efficiency
A certain level of ICI may be tolerated to have smaller CPs
Doppler spread, mismatched oscillators, or even one subcarrier
can cause ICI
Spacing between subcarriers may need to be increased
Could also use different pulse shapes, self-interference
cancellation, or frequency domain equalizers.

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OFDM 8-41

OFDMA
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) uses OFDM
to share the wireless channel
Different users can have different slices of time and different
groups of subcarriers
Subcarriers are allocated in groups - Called subchannels or
resource blocks
Too much computation to allocate every subcarrier separately
Subchannel allocation are formed by :
1) Adjacent subcarriers all subcarriers could be assigned in a
contiguous block of frequencies. (similar/equal SINR for all
subcarriers)
Problems : when frequencies had poor performance.
Opportunity : system can choose across many possible blocks to find
the best allocation blocks to different users therefore optimize the
balance of channel frequency , user requirements , priority and
fairness.

Which means
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System must accurately know the

propagation channel over the full system
bandwidth for each user
1. Pilot symbols and signals
2. Prediction mechanism-so data is not out of
date when received
2) Must measure to find the best subchannel (can be
applied to LTE & WiMax)
i) Regularly spaced subcarriers diverse SINR (can be used
by LTE)
ii) Randomly space subcarriers diverse SINR and reduced
adjacent-cell interference (can be used by WiMax)

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OFDM and OFDMA

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Opportunistic scheduling
Schedule subchannels and power levels based on
Channel conditions
Data requirements

Adjust in a dynamic fashion

Use channel variations as an opportunity to schedule the best choice in users
Hence the term opportunistic scheduling
Criteria (maybe more than one used simultaneously)
System efficiency pick users with best throughput (highest SINR for the time slot).
Fairness proportional fairness considers the ratio of users current rates to the
users average rates to know when a channel is best for them (proportional fairness
metric)
Requirements audio, video
Priority public safety, emergency, or priority customers

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Single-carrier FDMA

SC-FDMA has similar structure and performance to OFDMA

But lower PAPR
Mobile user benefits battery life, power efficiency, lower cost
Good for uplinks

Uses extra DFT operation and frequency equalization compared to

OFDM at both Tx and Rx
DFT prior to IFFT
Spreads data symbols over all subcarriers
Every data symbol is carried by every subcarrier
Multiple access is not possible
At one time, all subcarriers must be dedicated to one user
Multiple access is provided by using different time slots

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Figure : Simplified Block Diagram of OFDMA and

SC-FDMA
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Example of OFDMA and SC-FDMA

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Advantages of OFDM
Solves the multipath-propagation problem

Simple equalization at receiver

Computationally efficient

For broadband systems more efficient than SC

Supports several multiple access schemes

TDMA, FDMA, MC-CDMA, etc.

Supports various modulation schemes

Adaptability to SNR/SINR of sub-carriers is possible

Elegant framework for MIMO-systems

All interference among symbols is removed

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Applications of OFDM
Wireless LAN

IEEE802.11a/g

HYPERLAN

DAB, DVB, etc.

Digital Audio/Video Broadcasting

xDSL (Digital Subscriber Line)

uses Discrete Multitone (DMT)

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Summary Essential
Ingredients
IFFT & FFT
For efficient implementation
Guard interval insertion
Obtaining simple equalization
Removing all IS- & IC-interferences
Error correction coding
To restore bits that are lost on weak sub-carriers

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