Wireless Broadband Communications

CLO 2

OFDM
Komunikasi Nirkabel Pitalebar - 2017
Faculty of Electrical Engineering
General Information

The target of the course is to give a general overview

on basic concepts, design criteria, technologies and
standards related to modern broadband transmission
systems.
A student should have an overall understanding on
the existing major wireless standards as well as
current state-of-the art in global R&D on wireless.
The goal for this course

To gain understanding on the basic broadband

transmission schemes.
To understand the challenges of the propagation
environment in wireless broadband system design.
To understand differences between wireless
standards, and to have an idea on future broadband
technology directions.
Course Learning Outcomes

1. Student can distinguish the basic transmission technologies

used in the broadband wireless communication systems.
2. The student can differentiate and compare the key points
behind these technologies, why they are used and what are
their advantages and disadvantages.
3. Student can explain how the wireless channel impacts the
design of the overall system.
4. The most relevant standards are introduced and explained, so
that student can attain information from past and especially
the forthcoming wireless standards.
Text Books and Recommended Books
Tentative Course Syllabus
[Week 1] Introduction to Wireless Broadband Communications
[Week 2,3,4] Transmission Media
Technical challenges of wireless communications, noise- and interference- limited systems,
Characteristics of mobile radio channels, NB vs. WB fading models, impact of radio channels on the
system design, mm-wave propagation
Capacity of Wireless Channels
[Week 5,6] OFDM
Basic Features, Signal Generation, Modulation and Coding, OFDM in Multipath Channels,
Design Aspects of OFDM Systems Cyclic Prefix, Carrier Spacing, Signal Spectrum and
Spectrum Limitation Advantages and Disadvantages of OFDM
Frequency and Timing Synchronization Schemes, Channel Estimation Principles, Peak Power
Problem, Variants of OFDM
[Week 7] == MID-TERM
[Week 8, 9] MIMO
Narrowband MIMO model, Parallel Decomposition of MIMO channel, MIMO Channel Capacity,
Diversity-Multiplexing Trade-Offs
[Week 10,11] Cognitive Radio
Principles of CR, Cognitive transceiver architecture, Principle of Interweaving, Spectrum Sensing,
Spectrum Management, Spectrum Sharing
[Week 12,13] Open and Softwarization
[Week 14] == FINAL TEST
 Outline

Basic Idea
OFDM Signal Generation
Analogue and digital implementation
OFDM in Multipath Channels
Frequency-selective channels: cyclic prefix
Design Aspects of OFDM Systems Cyclic Prefix, Carrier Spacing

Channel estimation
Peak-to-average ratio
Inter-channel interference
Adaptive modulation

7
Why OFDM

For very high data rates (a.k.a Wideband or Broadband

Communications), equalization and Rake reception becomes
difficult
Important quantity: product of maximum excess delay and system
bandwidth
Especially critical for wireless LANs and PANs

Solution:
Transmit multiple data streams with lower rates on several carriers
Have carriers multiplexed in the most efficient possible way:
Signals on the carriers can overlap and stay orthogonal
Basic ideas:
Avoid ISI by multiplexing high rate data stream into several lower data
streams
by utilizing several distinct frequency bands
=> Frequency division Multiplexing (FDM)
Parallel Transmission to Avoid Distortions
EXAMPLE
Data rate 10 Mbps with BPSK => B=10 MHz
Channel with max. delay spread of 10 ms
Singlecarrier scheme: Multicarrier w/ 1000 subcarriers
Ts,sc=1/10MHz=0.1 ms Ts,mc=1000 *Ts,sc=100 ms

ISI will extend over ISI will extend over

100 symbol intervals 0.1 symbol interval

SC scheme will require very long time domain equalizer, which is not necessarily needed in the MC scheme.
Bandwidth Efficiency

How close can we space the carriers?

Carriers are still orthogonal

By allowing TX bands to overlap,
guard bands are not needed and the
same system bandwidth can be used
to increase the transmission rate.
 Example: 4 orthogonal subcarriers
Proof of Orthogonality
Proof of Orthogonality (2)

Each OFDM block (or OFDM symbol) contains subcarriers

which are non-zero over Ts,mc.
Spectrum of one OFDM symbol is convolution of sinc-pulse with
Dirac pulses at subcarrier frequencies

=> Other pulses are zeros at the maximum point of each

subcarrier signal.
Proof of Orthogonality (3)
Spectrum of OFDM Signal
Spectrum of OFDM Signal (2)
OFDM Signal Generation
Comparison of IDFT and Discrete-Time Presentation for
OFDM Signal

OFDM signal can be produced by using IDFT!

OFDM modulator relatively simple to implement by using IFFT
Analogue vs. Digital Implementation
Why can we use an IFFT

This is the
definition of IFFT
OFDM in Multipath Channel
What Happens in Multipath Channel?
Although OFDM modulation almost eliminates ISI, multipath
propagation causes distortion and loss of some orthogonality:
 Multipath caused distortion can be made smaller by
introducing guard time:
Introduction of guard time solve inter OFDM-symbol interference (called ISI):
Introduce cyclic prefix to maintain orthogonality between subcarriers and
avoid ISI within one OFDM symbol (called inter carrier interference ICI):

Guard interval alone

Guard with cyclic prefix

 No ISI and ICI occur, if guard interval is longer than channel
delay spread.
The loss of energy because of the discarded energy in the
cyclic prefix is:
Frequency-selective Channels
Cyclic prefix, i.e., repeat last samples at beginning of symbol
Converts linear to circular convolution
An example with 16 carriers in a two path channel:
 Cyclic prefix has to be larger than the delay spread of the channel.
Example:
OFDM link with 48 subcarriers, 16-QAM, 2-ray multipath channel
(0 dB and -6 dB)
(a) multipath delay < Tcp
(b) multipath delay exceeds Tcp by 3% of FFT interval
(c) multipath delay exceeds Tcp by 10% of FFT interval
Design Aspects of OFDM
Systems:
Cyclic Prefix, Carrier Spacing
Basic System Design Parameters

Basic parameters for designing an OFDM System:

number of subcarriers,
guard time, OFDM symbol duration,
subcarrier spacing,
modulation type per subcarrier and
the type of forward error correction coding
OFDM System Requirements
Choice of basic parameters is influenced by the system requirements:

Available bandwidth,
Required bitrate,
Tolerable delay spread and
Max. Doppler values

Channel time-frequency correlation functions influence on pilot

symbol placing strategy (to be discussed later)
Choice of OFDM Parameters
1. Delay spread dictates guard interval Tcp
2. Symbol duration: to minimize SNR loss due to using cyclic
prefix, it is desirable to have T >> Tcp
3. Larger Ts means:
more subcarriers with a smaller subcarrier spacing
larger implementation complexity
more sensitivity to phase noise and frequency offset
increased peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR)
4. After Tcp and Ts fixed, the number of subcarriers N:
N= required bit rate / bit rate per subcarrier, the bit rate per subcarrier is
defined by the modulation type, coding rate and symbol rate

[ FFT integration time = OFDM symbol duration without cp]

Choice of OFDM Parameters
Choice of OFDM Parameters
Example

Determine parameters for OFDM system operating under the

following conditions:

Bit rate Rb 20 Mbps

Tolerable rms delay spread 200 ns
System bandwidth B 15 MHz
Loss due to cyclic prefix max. 1 dB
 Lets choose Tcp=800 ns*), to allow for timing errors<~0.6 ms
In order to have loss due to cyclic prefix less than 1 dB:

Lets choose T = 4.8 ms => SNR loss=0.8 dB

*) Cp length should be 2-4 times max. delay spread, depending on the data
mod. and ch. coding robustness against ICI.
 Then subcarrier spacing becomes Df=1/TS= 250 kHz
Number of subcarriers becomes:
N=B/Df = 15 MHz/250 kHz = 60
IFFT/FFT of size 64 should be chosen
To achieve 20 Mbps, each transmitted OFDM symbol (including
cp) must carry 96 bits of information (96/4.8ms = 20Mbps)
 16-QAM with rate 1/2 coding gives 4*1/2*N/4.8ms= 20 Mbps =>
N=48 subcarriers for data

QPSK with rate 3/4 coding gives 2*3/4*N/4.8ms= 20 Mbps =>

N=64 subcarriers for data

However, 64 subcarriers would mean bandwidth of

64*250kHz=16MHz

The first option is selected to maintain under 15MHz bandwidth

(48*250kHz=12MHz).
 The receiver operates by using samples. Hence an integer
number of samples must be collected both from FFT interval
and OFDM symbol interval:
64-FFT => sampling freq. 64*250kHz=16MHz, BUT
16MHz*0.8ms=12.8 samples for cp

The parameters need to be readjusted to meet this requirement.

 The bandwidth constraint needs to be rechecked since the
carrier spacing is slightly modified:

Df=253.90625kHz => (16-QAM needs 48 carriers for data)

B=12.1875MHz.

Data rate requirement is achieved since OFDM symbol interval

is now a bit shorter.
Example
How the system parameters would be changed if the channel
delay spread is 1msand the number of subcarriers is kept the
same?
Lets assume that 0.6 ms is enough to cover timing errors etc.
=> Tcp=1.6ms

Lets chooseT= 8.4 ms => SNRloss= 0.9 dB

Then subcarrier spacing becomes Df=1/TS= 147 kHz
 48 subcarriers results in 48* 147 kHz = 7 MHz system bandwidth.

16-QAM with rate 1/2 coding gives

4*1/2*48/8.4ms= 11.4 Mbps

QPSK with rate 5/6 coding gives

2*5/6*48/8.4ms= 9.5 Mbps

The larger delay spread causes lowering the data rate and lowering
the system bandwidth if the number of subcarriers is kept constant
Discussion on the Choice of Parameters

The guard interval often isn't negligible compared to the OFDM data
symbol length (often, it's 1/4th of the useful symbol size). Why not
use a very long OFDM data symbol after a guard interval in order to
decrease the redundancy (i.e. to minimize the loss due to cyclic
prefix) ?

Subcarrier spacing is inverse of the OFDM symbol length

Subcarriers would be more closely spaced to keep bandwidth
constant
=> tighter frequency and phase synchronization requirements
Discussion on the Choice of Parameters
If we define an OFDM system for a quasi-AWGN-channel
context (i.e. channel impulse response is short) -so, the data
throughput can be increased by choosing a short guard interval.

Long enough cyclic prefix relaxes timing requirements

TX and RX filters also cause extra delay, i.e., lengthening of channel
impulse response

Longer cyclic prefix makes system implementation easier

CP >> channel delay spread
Performance in frequency selective channel (1)
 How to improve performance?
Adaptive modulation (different signal alphabets in different subcarriers)
Spreading the signal over all tones (multicarrier CDMA)
Coding across different tones