Wireless and Mobile Communications

By
Abhijit Bhowmick
SENSE
VIT, Vellore, TN, India

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 Digital Modulation
OFDM

• Fourth generation wireless system.

• LTE and WiMAX are dominant standards in 4G. These are
based on OFDM

LTE- Long Term Evolution

WiMAX-Wireless Interoperability for Microwave Access

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 OFDM

OFDM is a key wireless Broadband (large bandwidth)

technology

• GSM works at 200 KHz while OFDM system works at 20

MHz.
• High data rate (more than 100 Mbps upto 1 Gbps)
• Several wireless standards- 802.11a, 802.11g, 802.11n and
so on.

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 Basic principle of OFDM

Single carrier

Carrier frequency

Symbol time B = 10 Mz
1 1
Ts  
B 10 10 6
 0.1 s B  Ts 
Delay spread of the channel , Td  2  3  s
Ts Td
Leads to ISI It is a significant challenge in
broad band wireless system
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 Principle to overcome ISI

Smaller bands
A sub-carrier is placed (subbands) = N
in each subband

B = 10 Mz

 Total BW is divided into N number of subbands

 In each subband, a sub-carrier is placed.
B
 BW of a subband =
N

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 Principle to overcome ISI

Example:

B = 10 Mz
N = 1000
B 10 106
BW of each subband    10 KHz
N 1000
1
Symbol time in each subband , Ts, new 
BW of each subband
1
  0.1ms
10 103
Delay spread of the channel , Td  2  3  s
Ts, new Td

 Multiple subbands and subcarrier in each subband removed ISI

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 Principle to overcome ISI

 A system with multiple subbands and multiple subcarriers is

termed as Multi Carrier Modulation (MCM) system.

Basis for OFDM

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Orthogonality of signals

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 MCM

B
f0 
B N
 fi   i f 0   i
N
Transmission BW  (N  1) f
1 B
where f  
Ts N
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OFDM subchannels

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 MCM

B
f0 
B N
 fi   i f 0   i
N
Transmission BW  (N  1) f
1 B
where f  
Ts N
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 Problem

 A 64 Kbps voice frame is to be modulated by OFDM scheme. The

duration of OFDM symbol is 1000 s . Total of 32 subcarriers are to
be designed to this frame. Find out
a) The null-to-null sub-channel BW
b) Total BW occupied, and
c) The number of bits in OFDM frame.

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 Problem

1
a ) f   0.001MHz  1KHz
Ts
Null  to  null BW  2f  2 KHz
b) N  32
Transmission BW  (N  1) f  33KHz
1
c) Bit duration   15.625 s
64  103
No. of bits per frame  1000 / 15.625  64bits

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Problem

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 Problem

Considering the typical case, five 100 kHz channels are placed nearer
to each other modulated by single-carrier scheme with five different
carriers. If the same five carriers are placed orthogonally to each
other, compare the occupied bandwidth in both the cases and find out
the saving in bandwidth due to multicarrier scheme.

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 Problem

For sin gle  carrier system,

Re quired BW  5 100  500 kHz (without guard interval)

For multi  carrier system,

100
f   50 KHz
2
N 5
Transmission BW  (N  1)f  (5  1)50  300 KHz
The saving of BW is (500  300)  200 kHz

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 OFDM

Modulation
Channel S/P (M-
Coding conversion PSK/QAM)
exp  jwnt 
exp  jw1t 
exp  jw0t 

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 OFDM

n=N

N
OFDM signal   si exp  jwi t 
i 1

IFFT

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 Tx section in OFDM

Modulation
Channel S/P (M- IFFT
Coding conversion PSK/QAM)

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 FFT and IFFT processing


X 0 , X1, X 2 ... X (N 1)

Tx N-


point
Channel y(0), y(1), y(2)... y( N  1)
IFFT

N-
Rx
point
x(0), x(1), x(2)...x( N  1)
FFT

X 0 , X1, X 2 ... X (N 1)

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 FFT and IFFT processing

1
T 
B

B
 Fmax   Fmax 
B
2 2

 Sampling frequency is Fs  2 Fmax  B

1 1
Sampling interval   T
 Sampling freq. B

1
 l  th sampling interval  l  lT
B
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 FFT and IFFT processing

N
x(t )   X k e j 2 kf0t
k 1

l-th component can be represented as

N
 x(l )  x(lT )   X k e j 2 kf0lT
k 1
B 1 l
N j 2 k l N j 2 k
  Xk e N B 
 Xk e N
k 1 k 1

Expression of IDFT/IFFT
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 Net transmitted signal across N subcarriers is

N
S t    X k e j 2 kf0t
k 1

 The received signal can be modeled as (avoiding the effect of noise )

N
y t    X k e j 2 kf0t
k 1
Fourier series

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 Now the aim is to extract X l from y(t)

1/ f 0
X l  f0  e  j 2 lf0t y (t ) dt
0
1/ f 0 N
 j 2 lf 0t
 f0  e  X k e j 2 kf0t dt
0 k 1
N 1/ f 0
  Xk f0  e j 2 ( k l ) f 0t dt
k 1 0

1 if k  l
  (k  l )
0 if k  l

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 N
Xl   X k  (k  l )
k 1
 Xl

In receiver, coherent demodulation is employed with e j 2 lf0t to extract

the l-th component.

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 FFT and IFFT processing

h  h 0 , h 1,.........h n 
In absence of noise, the received signal is
y  h. x

n-th received signal can be denoted as

y (n)  h(0) x(n)  h(1) x(n  1)  h(2) x(n  2) 

...  h( L  1) x(n  L  1)

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 Inter block interference (IBI) /ISI

2 consecutive OFDM symbols:

X 0 , X1, X 2 , X 3 ,......, X N 2 , X N 1 X 0 , X1, X 2 ,......... X N 2 , X N 1

IFFT IFFT

x(0), x(1), x(2), x(3),......, x(N1) x(0), x(1), x(2),.........x(N1), x(N 2)

Tx samples of OFDM symbol block-1 Tx samples of OFDM symbol block-2

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 Inter block interference (IBI) /ISI

2 consecutive OFDM symbols:

X 0 , X1, X 2 , X 3 ,......, X N 2 , X N 1 X 0 , X1, X 2 ,......... X N 2 , X N 1

IFFT IFFT

x(0), x(1), x(2), x(3),......, x(N1) x(0), x(1), x(2),.........x(N1), x(N 2)

Tx samples of OFDM symbol block-1 Tx samples of OFDM symbol block-2

Inter block interference (IBI) /ICI

y (0)  h(0) x(0)  h(1) x(N  1)  h(2) x(N  2) 

...  h( N  L  1) x( L  1)
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How IBI/ICI can be removed?

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 Cyclic prefixing

y(0)  h(0) x(0)  h(1) x(N  1)  h(2) x(N  2) 

...  h( N  L  1) x( L  1)

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 Problem

Modulation
Channel S/P (M- Add
IFFT
Coding conversion PSK/QAM) CP/GI

T1  Tdata  TGI
 Guard interval (GI) preserve the orthogonality of the symbol carriers and
independence of subsequent OFDM symbols in multipath scenario.
 GI should be larger than maximum excess delay of the radio channel
(worst case scenario).

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 Windowing
 A rectangular pulse has a
very large BW due to the
side lobes of its spectrum
(due to sinc function).

 Windowing eliminate these

unwanted side lobes and
reduce the signal power
transmitted out of band

 Hamming window, Hanning window, and

Bartlet window etc. can be used.

 It is considered as a pulse shaping filter.

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 OFDM Transmission frame
Bits for
Bits for CP/GI Bits for Data
Windowing

T  Tdata  TGI  Twin

T  T1 f  f1

TFFT  Tdata

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 OFDM

N
OFDM signal   si exp  jwi t 
i 1

OFDM signal  sk t  kT 
  N /2 j 2  f c   t  kT  
 i

Rewt  kT   xi , k e  T   if t  t  t
sk t  kT      1
  iN / 2 2

 0 otherwise

t1  kT  TGI  Twin
t 2  kT  Tdata  Twin

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  Channel induced phenomena

 Multicarrier modulation technique

 Channel induced phenomena

These channel-induced phenomena can potentially degrade the quality of
the received signal by
a) affecting the sub carrier orthogonality
b) introducing ambiguities in carrier phase and symbol timing.

 Multicarrier modulation technique

PAPR (peak avg. power ratio)

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MCM

B
f0 
N

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PAPR in OFDM

B
f0 
N

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PAPR in OFDM

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 PAPR in OFDM

Find PAPR for x(t)= sin(2πft)

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 PAPR in OFDM

Bad impact of high PAPR

Therefore, RF power amplifiers should be operated in a very

large linear region. Otherwise, the signal peaks get into non-
linear region of the power amplifier causing signal distortion.
This signal distortion introduces intermodulation among the
subcarriers and out of band radiation.

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PAPR in OFDM

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 BER in OFDM

Signal power
2
H (k) P
SNR 
N 2
Noise variance
Noise is I.I.D.

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 BER in OFDM

2 Number of channel
For Rayleigh fading, H (k) L taps due to multipath.
Here L = 4, i.e. C1, C2,
C3, and C4.
BER for Rayleigh fading,

 L 
1  SNRtx 
BER  1  N 
2 L
2  SNRtx 
 
 N 
P
Transmit SNR ( SNRtx ) 
2

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 BER in OFDM

Problem 1

Find the BER of an OFDM system with L=16channel taps,

and N=256 subcarriers. Consider the channels are
Rayleigh faded and transmitting SNR is 35dB.

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 BER in OFDM

SNRtx  1035/10  103.5

N  256
L  16

 L   16 
103.5
1  1 
SNRtx
BER   1  N   1  256 
2 2
L
SNRtx  2 2
16
103.5 
   
 N   256 
 25  103

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 BER in Rayleigh fading environment

 L  P
1  SNRtx  SNRtx 
BER  1  N  2
2 L
2  SNRtx 
 
 N 

Problem 2

Find the BER of an OFDM system with L= 16 channel taps,

and N = 256 subcarriers. The transmitter transmits with
100 Watt power and the noise variance is 1. Consider the
channels are Rayleigh faded

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 BER in OFDM

SNRtx  100 / 1  100

N  256
L  16

 L   16 
1  1 
SNRtx 100
BER   1  N  .0   1  256 
2 2
L
SNRtx  2 2
16
100 
   
 N   256 
 0.065

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Loss in efficiency

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Problem

Find the total BW of an OFDM system with N=256 subcarriers

with a BW of 15.625 kHz per subcarrier. Consider the coherence
BW is 250 kHz. Find the type of fading each subcarrier will
experience.

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Soln

Find the total BW of an OFDM system with N=256 subcarriers

with a BW of 15.625 kHz per subcarrier. Consider the coherence
BW is 250 kHz. Find the type of fading each subcarrier will
experience.

Each subcarrier will experience flat fading

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Problem

Find the total BW of an OFDM system with N=256 subcarriers

with a BW of 15.625 kHz per subcarrier. Consider the coherence
BW is 250 kHz. Find the OFDM symbol time without CP.

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Problem

Find the total BW of an OFDM system with N=256 subcarriers

with a BW of 15.625 kHz per subcarrier. Consider the coherence
BW is 250 kHz. Find the OFDM symbol time without CP.

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Problem

Let the total BW of an OFDM system is 4 MHz with N=256 subcarriers with a
BW of 15.625 kHz per subcarrier. Consider the coherence BW is 250 kHz.
 Find the OFDM symbol time without CP.
 If the CP is 12.5% of the ODFM symbol time then find the duration of CP
and number of samples in CP.
 Find the total length of the OFDM frame.

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 Problem
Let the total BW of an OFDM system is 4 MHz with N=256 subcarriers with a
BW of 15.625 kHz per subcarrier. Consider the coherence BW is 250 kHz.
 Find the OFDM symbol time without CP.
 If the CP is 12.5% of the ODFM symbol time then find the duration of CP
and number of samples in CP.
 Find the total length of the OFDM frame.

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 Problem

Let the total BW of an OFDM system is 4 MHz with N=256 subcarriers with a
BW of 15.625 kHz per subcarrier. Consider the coherence BW is 250 kHz.
 Find the OFDM symbol time without CP.
 If the CP is 12.5% of the ODFM symbol time then find the duration of CP
and number of samples in CP.
 Find the loss in spectral efficiency

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 Problem

Let the total BW of an OFDM system is 4 MHz with N=256 subcarriers with a
BW of 15.625 kHz per subcarrier. Consider the coherence BW is 250 kHz.
 Find the OFDM symbol time without CP.
 If the CP is 12.5% of the ODFM symbol time then find the duration of CP
and number of samples in CP.
 Find the loss in spectral efficiency

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 Problem
A communication system uses OFDM scheme with 64 point FFT. Each subcarrier is
modulated by a sub-symbol frame. Find the duration of OFDM frame if the duration
of a frame for a single carrier system is 20 µs.

Ans
Duration of OFDM frame = 20X64 =1280 µs.
Because if there are N number of subcarriers, frame duration equal to NTs time where
Ts is the duration of a frame for a single carrier system.

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Problem
An OFDM symbol duration is of 1280 µs. It uses 64 point IFFT. If such a frame
is modulated by OFDM scheme, transmitted over the channel and received after
the delay of 450 ns at the receiver.
What should be the minimum duration of the cyclic prefix?
Find BW of OFDM frame without CP.
Show that CP doesn’t affect occupied spectrum much.
Comment on ISI

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Problem
An OFDM symbol duration is of 1280 µs. It uses 64 point IFFT. If such a frame is
modulated by OFDM scheme, transmitted over the channel and received after the delay of
450 ns at the receiver.
i) What should be the minimum duration of the cyclic prefix?
ii) Find BW of OFDM frame without CP.
iii) Show that CP doesn’t affect occupied spectrum much.
iv) Comment on ISI

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 OFDM

1
Tsc 
Rsc

Symbol time for single Symbol rate for single

carrier carrier

A received symbol can theoretically be

influenced by
 max Maximum excess delay
ISI 
Tsc

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 OFDM

1
Tm c 
Rm c

Symbol time for multi- Symbol rate for multi-

carrier carrier

In multicarrier system, a received symbol

can theoretically be influenced by

 max Maximum excess delay

ISI 
Tm c

How Tmc is related to Tsc if there are N number of subcarriers ?

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 OFDM

1
Tm c 
Rm c

Symbol time for multi- Symbol rate for multi-

carrier carrier

In multicarrier system, a received symbol

can theoretically be influenced by

 max Maximum excess delay

ISI 
Tm c

How Tmc is related to Tsc if there are N number of subcarriers ?

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 OFDM

Rsc
Rm c 
N

1 N
Tm c    NTsc
Rm c Rsc

 max  max
ISI  
Tm c NTsc

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 OFDM

In the case of DVB, if Nc = 6817, find out the ISI for the maximum
delay spread of 0.67 µs. The bit rate of the system is 2 Mbps.
Assume 16 QAM modulation mapping.

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 OFDM

In the case of DVB, if Nc = 6817, find out the ISI for the maximum
delay spread of 0.67 µs. The bit rate of the system is 2 Mbps.
Assume 16 QAM modulation mapping.

Symbol time for 16 QAM modulation = 4 X Tb

Tb = 1/ Rb = 1/ 2 µs

Tsc = 4 X Tb = 2 µs

 max 0.67 µs
ISI    0.00004
NTsc 6817 X 2 µs

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Synchronisation in OFDM

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Carrier frequency offset

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 Synchronization in OFDM frame

Three synchronization problems arises :

o Symbol synchronisation.
o Sampling frequency synchronisation.
o Carrier frequency synchronisation.

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 Synchronisation in OFDM

 Symbol synchronisation.

--- If there is timing offset in terms of starting point, it gives

rise to phase rotation of subcarriers.

 Sampling synchronisation.

--- If there is any sampling timing offset, the useful signal

component is rotated and attenuated.
--- lack of sampling synchronisation may lead to ICI.

 Carrier frequency synchronisation.

--- If there is any offset exists, reduces signal amplitude.

--- subcarriers loss their orthogonality and introduces ICI.

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 Effect of Frequency Offset

𝑥(𝑛) Txd signal

𝑥(𝑛) y(𝑛)
X +

Rxd signal

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Effect of Frequency Offset

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No Frequency Offset

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With Frequency Offset

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 OFDM

Prob.

• If subcarrier bandwidth is 15.625 kHz, find frequency offset Δf.

• Further, considering a typical 4G carrier frequency of 2.4 GHz, find

the carrier-frequency offset as a fraction of the centre frequency

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 Prob.

• If subcarrier bandwidth (Bs) is 15.625 kHz, find frequency offset Δf.

• Further, considering a typical 4G carrier frequency of 2.4 GHz, find the carrier-
frequency offset as a fraction of the centre frequency

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 Synchronization in OFDM frame
o Three synchronization problems arises : symbol, sampling frequency, and
carrier frequency synchronisation.
o Pilot subcarrier is basically a reference signal known to the receiver and is
used to estimate the channel means it is used measure the current channel
behaviour such as channel delay, phase, and channel power etc.
o DC subcarrier is the subcarrier whose frequency is equal to the RF
centre frequency of the transmitting station. It corresponds to frequency
zero (Direct Current) if the FFT signal is not modulated.
o The centre subcarrier (DC subcarrier) is inactive. The centre subcarrier
provides a distinctive notch which can be easily detected by a receiver, and
viewed with a spectrum analyzer. This allows the receiver to quickly find
the centre and begin synchronization.

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LTE OFDM frame

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OFDM frame with 64 point FFT

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 OFDM

1
Tsc 
Rsc

Symbol time for single Symbol rate for single

carrier carrier

A received symbol can theoretically be

influenced by
 max Maximum excess delay
ISI 
Tsc

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 OFDM

1
Tm c 
Rm c

Symbol time for multi- Symbol rate for multi-

carrier carrier

In multicarrier system, a received symbol

can theoretically be influenced by

 max Maximum excess delay

ISI 
Tm c

How Tmc is related to Tsc if there are N number of subcarriers ?

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 OFDM

1
Tm c 
Rm c

Symbol time for multi- Symbol rate for multi-

carrier carrier

In multicarrier system, a received symbol

can theoretically be influenced by

 max Maximum excess delay

ISI 
Tm c

How Tmc is related to Tsc if there are N number of subcarriers ?

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 OFDM

Rsc
Rm c 
N

1 N
Tm c    NTsc
Rm c Rsc

 max  max
ISI  
Tm c NTsc

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 OFDM

In the case of DVB, if Nc = 6817, find out the ISI for the maximum
delay spread of 0.67 µs. The bit rate of the system is 2 Mbps.
Assume 16 QAM modulation mapping.

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 OFDM

Symbol time for 16 QAM modulation = 4 X Tb

Symbol rate (Rsc) = 1/ Symbol time Tb = 1/ Rb = 1/ 2 µs

=1/ (4 X Tb )
= Rb / 4 Tsc = 4 X Tb = 2 µs
= 2/4 = 0.5 Mbps

Therefore, Tsc = 1/ Rsc = 2 µs

 max 0.67 µs
ISI    0.00004
NTsc 6817 X 2 µs

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 Tx OFDM
signal
Up-
P/S RF
Channel OFDM Convers
D/A convert amplifier
Coding modulation ion to
er
IF

Channel Coding (FEC):

Convolution
Scrambler Puncher Interleaver
Encoder

OFDM modulation :

Pilot Cyclic prefix

Mapper IFFT
insertion insertion

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 OFDM

 Multicarrier system replaces the single carrier serial high data

rate with a number of slower parallel data streams.

 Each parallel data stream then modulates each subcarrier.

 If there are N number of subcarrier, allocated time for each data

stream is expanded by N times, i.e. NTsc .

 As symbol time increases, ISI decreases.

 The summation of all individual sub-channel data rates is the

desired symbol rate.

 Sub-carriers are orthogonal to each other and they are

separated by Δf = B/N = 1/ NTsc

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 OFDM

Consider after coding, the coded signal is BPSK modulated. Let the
BPSK modulated bit stream is

{1, 1, -1,-1,1,1,1,-1,1,-1,-1,-1,-1,1,-1,-1,-1,1,1,-1,-1,-1,1,1}

If OFDM system has 4 carriers. Therefore each OFDM symbol

consists of 4 BPSK bits.

symbol 1=[1,1,-1,-1]

symbol 2=[1,1,1,-1]

symbol 3=[1,-1,-1,-1]
N 1
 j 2 nk 
Find IDFT of symbol 1. Use X (k )   si exp  
i 0  N 

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OFDM Transmitter and Receiver

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