Chapter 4

OFDM Techniques
(Orthogonal Frequency
Division Modulation)

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 Introduction
• The ISI caused by multipath effect in the radio
channel will drastically decrease the data rate
• May be use the frequency equalizer to correct the
waveform and cancel ISI but it is expensive.
• OFDM techniques creates a waveform containing
multiple carriers:
– Orthogonal to each other and carry the independent low-
speed data streams simultaneously
– This is done by the Fourier transformation
– For each carrier the channel is flat so no need to
equalizer but for all waveforms, the channel is delay spread
so need guard interval
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 Flat channel for low rate
subchannel

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 Orthogonality of subcarriers

k (t )  exp( j 2f k t )

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 Block diagram with CP

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 The guard interval is replaced
by Cycle Prefix (CP)
• CP replace the guard interval to ensure
the orthogonality between sub-carriers not
broken

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 Questions
• How many carriers should be used in the
given frequency band?
• How to choose CP design?
Answer:
• Tc > Symbol (OFDM) length ~1/f
• Large Tc allows f to be small (size of
15kHz) ---> Number of Carriers
• Minimum CP~ L (sample of delay spread)
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• However, as the block length N increases, the decoding
delay at the receiver also increases as one has to wait for
arrival of the entire block of N samples before it can be
demodulated. Hence, there is a trade-off for increasing N
vs decoding delay

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 on the other hand

• Combining this with the earlier condition that N >> Lc

• This can also be recast as Bc >> B/N . Interestingly, this

is the same condition for frequency flat fading across
each subcarrier since this implies that the subcarrier
bandwidth B/N is required to be much less than the
coherence bandwidth Bc
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 OFDM Example

• Also, observe that the subcarrier bandwidth is less than

the coherence bandwidth, i.e.,Bs = 15.625kHz << Bc =
250 kHz. Therefore, each subcarrier experiences
frequency flat fading. The OFDM symbol time without CP
is

• Thus, the total transmitted OFDM symbol duration with

cyclic prefix is 64 μs + 8 μs = 72 μs.
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• Also, the number of samples in the CP is

The total number of samples is 256 + 32 = 288

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 Bit-Error Rate (BER) for OFDM
• The system model in Eq. (7.6) represents a standard
Rayleigh fading channel of power gain L with receiver
noise N (k) of variance Nσn2. Therefore, the average
SNR = LP/Nσn2 Hence, the BER is given by the standard
expression for that of a Rayleigh fading wireless channel
as

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 Effect of Frequency Offset in
OFDM
• Example illustrates the effect of ICI in reducing the SINR
at the output of the OFDM receiver.

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 OFDM–Peak-to-Average Power
Ratio (PAPR)

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 SC-FDMA
• SC-FDMA, which stands for Single-Carrier Frequency
Division for Multiple Access, can be employed to reduce
the peak-to-average power ratio in an OFDM system
• by the insertion of an N-point FFT block before the N-
point IFFT block. It can then be seen that the FFT and the
IFFT cancel the effect of each other and the net output is
the exact input symbol stream, i.e., corresponding to a
single-carrier system
•

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• This drastically reduces the PAPR, since, as seen
previously, the PAPR of a single-carrier system is 0 dB.
However, instead of using an N-point FFT, one can use
an M-point FFT, where M < N, to reduce the PAPR,
while still retaining the properties of the OFDM system.

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 Subcarrier Mapping in SC-
FDMA
• The M samples at the output of the M-point FFT are
mapped to the N subcarriers, is a key operation in SC-
FDMA
• The various possible SC-FDMA subcarrier mappings are
illustrated through the following example
• Consider M = 4 SC-FDMA symbols and N = 12
subcarriers. Let x(0) , x (1) , x (2) , x (3) denote
• the symbols and X (0) , X (1) , X (2) , X (3) denote the
corresponding M = 4-point FFT samples which are to be
loaded onto the subcarriers

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 A Design Example
• Designing an OFDM system satisfies the
following requirements:
+ Bit rate: 20Mbps
+ Tolerance allows delay spread: 200ns
+ Bandwidth: <15Mhz
• Solution: From the assumption we determine the
protection period Tg = 800ns (4 times the delay
spread tolerance). Select the OFDM symbol
duration by 6 times to protection period

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 Solution
• Ts = 6.800ns = 4.8μs for smaller SNR loss of 1dB
• The distance between the subcarriers is 1 / (4.8-0.8) =
250KHz.
• Number of subcarriers is determined based on the ratio
of the bit rate requirements and speed OFDM symbols.
To achieve 20Mbps, each OFDM symbol carrying 96 bits
of information (96/4.8 s = 20Mbps) so there are two
choices:
• + Using 16QAM, coding ratio 1/2 to 2bit/moi carrier, this
case needs 96/2 = 48 subcarriers.

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• Using QPSK, code rate of 3/4 to 1.5bit / each carrier.
In this case need 96/1.5 = 64 subcarriers.
But with 64 subcarriers, the bandwidth W is 64 * 250 =
16MHz, should not be satisfied.
• So to have W <16MHz, then the carrier must be less than
64, so 48 carrier waves and select 16QAM modulation is
response requirement.
• Another advantage of this choice can be made ​IFFT / FFT
radix 4 of 64 very effective when added 16 carrier by zero
to 48 in order to increase the sampling rate required to
avoid spectrum overlap can occur.

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 Computer Simulation

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 Pilot for channel compensation

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 The 802.11a Standard
• 52 carrier made ​64 point FFT. In which 48 carriers
data, 4 bring pilot for phase error compensation.
• 800ns guard interval: in the 5 GHz frequency this
range is enough delay spread of the channel.
• 20MHz sampling rate
• Modulation: the WLAN environment, differentiation
D8PSK code, QPSK,16 QAM..

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 Frame structure

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 Error Performance

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 Error Performance

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 Peak-to-Average power ratio
(PAPR) high
max[ x(t ) x* (t )]
PAPR 
E[ x(t ) x* (t )]

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 Sensitive to frequency offset

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 Summary
• OFDM is the modulation technique in frequency domain,
where information is posted on the orthogonal subcarriers
create greater spectrum efficiency. For the subcarrier,
channel is considered to be flat due to parallel each flow,
rate should slow without the receiver equalizer.
• Orthogonality between the subcarriers are secured by
IFFT transform in the transmitter and FFT in the receiver
side satisfied
△f=1/N
And insert the CP to OFDM symbol to protect in the case
of delay spread multi-path channel

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• Since the frequency domain modulation
technique sensitive to frequency offset. Hence
need a additional signal Pilot in OFDM frames to
estimate channels
• According to IEEE 802.11a strandard in 64 IFFT
frames only has 52 subcarriers included 4
Carrier Pilot
• Two basic drawback of OFDM Techniques is
high PAPR and sensitive to frequency offset

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