DISCRETE HARTLEY TRANSFORM BASED

MULTICARRIER MODULATION
Chin-Liang Wangt, Ching-Hsien Changt, John L. Fan*, and John M . CiofJi'
'Department of Electrical Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan 300, R.O.C.
*Information Systems Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305

ABSTRACT
This paper presents a real-valued discrete multicamer modulation
approach that is based on the use of the discrete Hartley
transform (DHT) and its inverse (IDHT) to perform the
modulation and demodulation operations. Since the DHT and
IDHT definitions are identical, we can use the same hardware or
program to implement the modulator and demodulator of the
proposed multicarrier method. As compared to the complexvalued discrete Fourier transform based multicamer modulation
method, the proposed one achieves the same transmission
performance with reduced computational complexity and
implementation cost.

1. INTRODUCTION
Multicamer modulation (MCM) techniques have proved to be
effective for optimization of the transmission performance over
channels with moderate or severe intersymbol interference [I],
[2]. Such techniques have received great attention in
communication systems design recently. For example, one digital
implementation form of MCM called discrete multitone (DMT)
modulation has been selected by various standards institutes for
asymmetric digital subscriber lines (ADSL) service which offers
several megabits of data transmission per second on ordinary
phone lines [3], [4]. The DMT technique is now also being
considered for standards for very high-speed digital subscriber
lines (VDSL) service whose data rate would be as high as 26
megabits per second [SI-[7]. Moreover, another digital form of
MCM called orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)
has been standardized or extensively investigated for broadcast
digital radio applications and wireless communications [8]-[101.
For the current DMT-based or OFDM-based transceivers, the
modulator needs to compute a long-length inverse discrete Fourier
transform (IDFT), and the demodulator needs to compute a longlength DIT, where the transform length is up to 512 or more. For
such long-length DITADIT computations, a great number of
complex multiplications are required and each of them basically
involves four real multiplications and two real additions. Clearly,
the complexity of a DMT-based or OFDM-based transceiver
would be reduced if the corresponding modulator/demodulator
could be implemented using purely real transforms while fast
algorithms similar to the fast Fourier transform (FIT) algorithm
can still be applied.

architectures available for the DHT computation (see, for

example, [12]-[15] and the references therein). It is shown that the
proposed DHT-based MCM method achieves the same
transmission performance as the DFT-based MCM method, but
requires less computational complexity.

2. REVIEW OF DFT-BASED MCM

Consider a real sequence of N points denoted as ( q,al. ff2, ... ,
f f N . 2 , ~ N . I ) .where N is a power of two. To transmit the sequence
through a channel with impulse response [p,, OSnSv) by DFTbased MCM, we need to form an N-point conjugate-symmetric
complex-valued sequence { X k , OSk<_N-I, with XN.k= Xk*) from the
real sequence first. This can easily be done as X I = @ , Xk=ffzk.~
+jff,, for k=O, 1, 2, ..., N/2-1, and x N / , = f f N . ] . With this complexvalued sequence, we can summarize the basic DIT-based MCM
transmission process as follows:
1 ) Modulation: Compute the N-point IDFT of { X k ) ,i.e.,

where WN=e'2fl. Since ( X k ) is conjugate-symmetric, the

~ 103 and
sequence (x,,) is real-valued. Let x = [ x ~ . ~x ~ .... x1
x=[XN., x N . 2 ... X , x,,]'. Then we can express ( 1 ) in matrixvector form as follows:
x=QX
(2)
with

(3)

...
1
In other words, the N-point DFT of {x,,) can be expressed as
X = Q-'x

3) Channel Output: The channel output with respect to the

cyclic-prefix channel input sequence can be expressed as

In this paper, we propose a novel digital form of MCM that is

based on the discrete Hartley transform (DHT) [ I I ] and its inverse
(IDHT) for modulation and demodulation. The DHT involves
only real-valued arithmetic and has an identical inverse. Like the
DFT, there have been a number of fast algorithms and hardware

0-7803-6293-4/00/$10.0002000 IEEE.

(4)

Q and Q-' may be referred to as the IDIT and D I T transform

matrices, respectively.
2 ) Adding a Cyclic Prefix: Cyclically prefix {x,) to form a
channel input sequence as given by {x.", x.,,+~,... , x.1, XO, ... ,
XN.1) where x . ~ = x N . ~for k=l, 2, ..., v.

'pt + n , , n = 0, I , 2, .... N-1,

y, =

...

(5)

k=O

where n, is a sample of channel noise. In matrix-vector form,

we have

2513

Y=

I:

nN-ll

nN-2

YN-2

...

(6)
where P is a square NxN circular matrix, x is an Nxl channel
input vector, y is the corresponding Nxlchannel output vector,
and n is the Nxl channel noise vector. As described in [16],
the circulant matrix P can be decomposed as
P = QRQ-I
(7)
where R is a square diagonal matrix with eigenvalues of matrix
P on the diagonal. Since the channel impulse response is real,
R can be expressed as follows:
a, + j b ,
0
... 0 ...
0

1:

where H,"=sin(2xWN)+ cos(2xWN). Letting S=[SN.I S N - ~... SI solT

be the transform input vector and S=[SN-, S N . ...
~ SISolT be the
transform output vector, we can express (12) in matrix-vector
form as follows:
S=Hs
(13)
with

a 2 + j b z ... 0 ...

.. ..
. .

0
0
0

...

being the DHT transform matrix. Note that the DHT has an
identical inverse, Le., the DHT and IDHT transform matrices are
the same (H=H-I)and we have
s = H-'S = HS
(15)

It can be shown that that the IDIT transform matrix Q defined in

(3) and the DHT transform matrix H defined in (14) have the
following relationship:
Q =H.L
where L is a unitary matrix given by
...
"
I 0 ... 0
0 ... 0 ... 0 :.
0 i
1-1
0
i O F 0 -

0 a2-Jb2
0
... 0 ...
0
a, - jb,

...o...

L=

with a, and b, being real numbers. Substituting (7) into (6)

yields
y = QQQ-'x+n = QQX + n
(9)
4 ) Demodulation: Compute the N-point DFT of (y,,, n=O, 1 , 2,
.... N-l ), i.e.,

Y = Q-'y = Q-'QQX + Q-'n = RX + Q-'n

(10)
The demodulated output Y contains two components; the first
component RX is due to the transmitted data and the second
one Q-'n is due to the additive channel noise.
5 ) Equalization and Detection: From the frequency-domain point
of view, the diagonal, terms of matrix R can be thought as the
outputs of the N-point DFT of the channel impulse response
and can be estimated by some methods of adaptive signal
processing. Once these diagonal terms have been estimated, we
can perform the following matrix-vector multiplication to
remove the distortion due to the non-ideal frequency response
of the channel:

O
i
0

1
i o
o i o i
I +, j
o i o
o q o -

... 0

...
... 0
... 0 ...

'-I 0

... 0

()!go

...
0

...

witt L-' equal to the ranspose of the complex conjug: :of L.

With (1 6), the circular matrix P defined in (7) can be rewritten as

P = HLRL-'H-' = HLRL-IH = HQH

where

a = LRL-I
From (8) and (17), we can also derive the following:
a, 0
...
0
...
0 -b, 0

..

@=

R-'Y = X + R-'Q-'n = X + n'

(1 1)
This is often referred to as frequency-domain equalization
(FEQ). The equalized result is then sent to a detector for
removal of the additive noise effect (n').

......

..
0 ...
. .
'

'N12-1

.. b ~ / 2 _ , 0

:-:-

b,

...
...

0
0

..

0
..

0
..

-..

a,

..
.
...

-bN/7-I

bo

:-0

0
a~12-1

...
...

...
bN 12-1
'~/2-l4l2-I

3. DHT-BASED MCM

0
12-1

3.1 Some Properties of the DHT

dd1?-l+b2f2-I

...

N-l

S ----~s,H~,k=0,1,2
- f i "=O

...
.

"J
4R

:0

.. ... ...

**-

.. ... ...

--. 0

The N-point DHT of a real sequence is defined by

1

...

..... N-I,

...

25 14

0
0 - 2 7 0
q+q0 0 ;

3.2 MCM Transmission Using the DHT

Based on the properties of DHT described above, we propose a
DHT-based MCM method as follows. Assume that the real data
sequence to be transmitted, the channel impulse response, and the
channel noise are the same as those used in Section 11. Then we
can directly use the data sequence to form a real data vector for
s N . 2 ... s1 s ~ ] ~ = [ ~ Na N
. ~. 2 ... aI qlT. In
modulation, i.e., %[&.I
contrast to the DFT-MCM transmission process, the DHT-MCM
transmission process can be described as follows:
Modulation: Compute the N-point IDHT of S, i.e., s=[sN.] s ~ .
... SI soIT=HS.

sequence (so, sl, ..., s ~ - ~can

) be viewed as the samples of s(t)
taken at times t=nT/N for n=O, 1 , ..., N-I and Tis the duration of a
supersymbol. This can be written as follows:
1 N-I
s(r) = - S, [cospmk / T) + sin(2mk / T I ]

fi

k=O

1
= -{ao+ Po .[cos(KNt / T) + sin(nNt / T)] +

fi
xfi[(ak+ Pk).c0s(2nfk/T)-(/3,

NI2-1

k=l

=-[a,+p,.(-I)"]+
1

-ak).sin(2mk/T)]

fi

Adding a Cyclic Prefix: Cyclically prefix Is,) to form a

channel input sequence as given by is+, ~ . ~ + l..., , X I , SO, ... ,
s N . 1 ) where s . ~ = sfor
~ .k=I,
~ 2, ..., v.
Channel Output: After neglecting the first v samples at the
receiver, the received signal vector r = [ r N . l rN.2 ... rl rolT and
the IDHT-modulated data vector s have the following relation:

It can be seen that s ( t ) consists of a baseband signal and N/2-1

QAM signals (with N/2-1 different carriers) given by

r = Ps + n = HOHs + n = HOS + n
(24)
where O and its inverse @-I are given in (20) and (21)
respectively.
Demodulation: Compute the N-point DHT of r, i.e.,

1
i"4%
--bo

RN_2... RI R0]' = H r = @S+ Hn

(25)
R=
The demodulated output R contains two components; the first
component OS is due to the transmitted data and the second
one Hn is due to the additive channel noise.

Similarly, the modulator for the DIT-based MCM method uses

the N-point IDIT to synthesize a signal x ( l ) for transmission as
follows:
I
-Exk
N-l

x(t) =

Equalization and Detection: To recover the data vector S,

appropriate FEQ is required. This can be described by the
following matrix-vector multiplication operation:
W'R = S + W'Hn = S + n"

+Po .(-1)",

fi

. eJ2A'/'

1;O

(26)

Like the DIT-MCM, the coefficients of @-I for FEQ can be

estimated by some adaptive signal processing methods. After
FEQ, we can further remove the additive noise effect (n") by
using an appropriate detector.
, OlrlT
(29)
Note that n(r) also consists of a baseband signal and N/2-1 QAM
signals (with N/2-1 different carriers), which are

4. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS AND

COMPARISON

f
To assess the performance of the proposed DHT-based MCM
method and then make a comparison of performance with the
DFT-based MCM method, we assume that the real data sequence
to be transmitted is expressed by {a,,,el,a2,..., a N / 2 . 1 , p0, p N I 2 . 1 ,
p N / 2 2 , ... , PI). For the DHT-based method, the data vector for
modulation is set to be s=[s,.,s N . 2 ... si solT= [ f i b , Jzp, ...

f i ~ , , ~ P_u , &aN /?-, fiaNI2_,

... &a2 &a, %lT.n a t is, the
information symbols to be transmitted are allocated in a manner as
shown in Fig. I . For the DIT-based method, the data vector for
modulation is set to be x=[x,., x N - 2 ... xi xolT= [aI-jp1a2-jpZ ...
a N / 2 . I-JpN/2-I

~ N l 2 . I + J ' p N I 2 - I ffN12-2+JpN12-2

... @+$2

al+JbI

%IT>

where the symbol allocation format is shown in Fig. 2. With such

symbol allocations, it is shown below that both the IDHT-based
modulated signal and IDIT-modulated signal involve the same
transmission power.
For the DHT-based MCM method, the N-point IDHT is used to
synthesize the modulated signal s(t), where the discrete-time

----bo + P o .(-I)"],
"JX

We can see from (28) and (30) that s(t) and x(r) contain the same
baseband component and involve the same transmission power.
To compare the transmission performance of the DHT-based and
DFT-based MCM methods, we need only to consider the signalto-noise ratio (SNR) measured at the detector's input for each
QAM signal. Assume that s(t) and n(t) are transmitted through a
channel with additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) of zero
mean and power spectral density Nd2. To recover the transmitted
symbol at the receiver, we can use a correlation-type demodulator
as shown in Fig. 3. It can easily be derived that the demodulated
in-phase and quadrature components are respectively equal to
&(a, + p, ) +4 and &(pi -a, ) +4 for the DHT-based MCM
system, and are respectively equal to 2ffA+dL and 2 w + 4 for the
DFT-based MCM system. It is also clear that the noise

2515

J. M. Cioffi, Asymmetric digital subscriber lines, Chapter

34 of the Communications Handbook, Editor-in-Chief,J. D.
Gibson, CRC Press in Cooperation with IEEE Press, 1997.

components appearing in the decision-making process of a, and

are & / 4 1$-&/4 0, and , h i 4 l?k+&l4 4, respectively, at the
DHT-based receiver, and are 1 / 2 4 and 1/2Uk,respectively, at the
DlT-based receiver. Since bk, 4, ik,and 4 are zero-mean
uncorrelated Gaussian random variables with a common variance
Nd2, 1/2up, 1/2up, , h i 4 & - A I 4 4,and , h i 4 6,
0, are
all zero-mean Gaussian with variance I/SNo. Accordingly, the
DlT-based and DHT-based MCM receivers have the same SNR
( S E [ a ? ] / N , or SE[p?]/N,) when detecting the same information
symbol (akor p,). In other words, both MCM methods provide
the same transmission performance.

VDSL Alliance SDMT VDSL Draft Standard Proposal.

ETSl STCRM6, April 1998.
J. M. Cioffi, Very high-speed digital subscriber lines
(VDSL), in Proc. IEEE lnt. Symp. Circuits and Systems.,
May 1998, vo1.3, pp. 590-594.
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Technical
Requirements (TI El .4/98-043R2), Draft
Document - Revision 14A, ANSI TlE1.4, May 1998.
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frequency-division multiplexing, Proc. IEEE, vol. 83, pp.
982-996, June 1995.
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prETS 300 744 (Draft, Version 0.0.3), Apr. 1996.
S. Hara and R. Prasad, Overview of multicarrier CDMA,
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2, 1999, pp. 51-55.
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Communications. Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 1996.

5. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we have presented a purely real-valued
discrete MCM technology that is based on the real DHT,
instead of the complex DFT. One prominent feature of the
new method is that it employs the same transform for
modulation and demodulation. This implies that we can
make use of the same hardware or program to implement
the MCM modulator and demodulator. In addition, the
availability of fast algorithms or structures for the DHT
computation would reduce the computational/hardware
complexity of the modulator/demodulator in a similar
manner to that of the FFT techniques for the DFT
computation. All these distinct advantages would make a
DHT-based MCM transceiver easier to implement than a
DIT-based MCM transceiver. T o demonstrate this, let us
consider a recently proposed DHT-based FT/IFFT
approach for MCM applications in [15]. For this approach,
post-processing is required for converting the intermediate
D H T values (obtained by a fast algorithm) into the DFT
results, and pre-processing is required for rearranging input
data before computing the IDFT based on the fast D H T
algorithm. Thus, if this fast DHT algorithm is adopted, the
proposed DHT-based MCM method removes the postprocessing and pre-processing requirements as compared to
the DFT-based MCM method. It is also worth noting that
both MCM methods have the same computational load for
frequency-domain equalization before detecting the
information symbols transmitted. This can easily be verified
from ( 1 1 ) and (26). Moreover, the proposed DHT-based
MCM method reaches the same transmission performance
as the DFT-based method. From both of the implementation
and performance points of view, the proposed approach
would be an alternative for designing future MCM-based
communication systems.

.....Nl2-1
I

..... N-I

NI2

Nl2+1

Nl2+2

N 5

Fig. 1. Allocation of information symbols for IDHT-based

modulation.

al+Jfll

bJ

aN/2-l+;pN/2-l

..... NI;-I

aN/2-l j P N I 2 - I a N / 2 - 2 j p N / 2 - 2

al-Jbl

.....N-1
N;2+2
I

;I2

Nl2+1

Fig. 2. Allocation of information symbols for 1DlT-based

modulation.

6. REFERENCES
[I]

[2]
[3]

J. A. C. Bingham, Multicarrier modulation for data

transmission: An idea whose time has come, IEEE
Commun. Mag., pp. 5-14, May 1990.
J. Proakis, Digital Communications, 3rd ed. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1995.
American National Standard - T1.413-1995, ADSL
Metallic Interface Specification, New York, NY, 1995.

V I

Sample at
t=T

Fig. 3. Correlation-typedemodulation of a QAM signal.

2516