Peak to Average Power Ratio in Digital Communications

Dov Wulich, Lev Goldfeld and Gill R. Tsouri

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev,
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Communications Laboratory
Beer-Sheva 84105, ISRAEL,
Tel: ++ 972-8-6461517, Fax: ++ 972-8-6472949,
e-mail: dov@ee.bgu.ac.il
ABSTRACT
The Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR) is currently
viewed as an important implementation issue in
communication systems. Specifically, for wireless cellular
systems the price of the mobile unit is required to remain
low. This means that a limited PAPR can be supported.
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and
Single Carrier (SC) are the prominent candidates for the
next generation of wireless communications physical layer
standards. PAPR was considered extensively for OFDM
and much attention was given to the issue by academy and
industry. This paper shows that PAPR should be
considered for SC just as well.
PAPR as a function of bandwidth efficiency for OFDM
and SC modulation techniques is considered. It is shown
that high PAPR for both types of modulation technique
appears as a result of high bandwidth efficiency demand,
regardless of the modulation technique used. This property
is not unique to OFDM.
Index Terms Peak to Average Power Ratio, OFDM,
bandwidth efficiency.
I. INTRODUCTION
As is widely known, the high Peak to Average Power Ratio
(PAPR) appears to be a main disadvantage of OFDM. For
the Single Carrier (SC) this problem is almost not
discussed in the literature. The aim of this paper is to show
that PAPR depends on the bandwidth efficiency regardless
of the modulation structure: SC or OFDM. The problem of
high PAPR is usually associated with OFDM because it is
much easier to reach high bandwidth efficiency for OFDM
than for SC.
We define here bandwidth efficiency, a parameter that
indicates how efficiently the given modulation technique
uses the bandwidth. The bandwidth efficiency will be
represented by a number between 0 and 1. The modulation
technique occupying a bandwidth as dictated from the
Nyquist criterion has the highest bandwidth efficiency and
equals to 1.
The bandwidth efficiency must not be confused with the
spectral efficiency though they are closely related: the
spectral efficiency tells us about the number of bits/sec per
Hz of the bandwidth. The spectral efficiency depends on
bit loading (constellation) and on the bandwidth efficiency.
There exist a large number of publications devoted to the
PAPR problem in OFDM. On the other hand, there are
only a few publications dealing with the PAPR in SC. In
[1, p. 9, Fig. 3] the PAPR as a function of the roll-off
factor for 50% TX/RX split Nyquist shaping (Squared
Root Raised Cosine SRRC) is presented. In [2] an
attempt to find the PAPR for SC is given using a special
kind of symbol sequence that is supposed to produce a
maximal peak of the modulated signal.
Analysis of the results shown in [1] and [2] leads to the
conclusion that the PAPR increases as the roll-off factor
decreases. On the other hand, when the roll-off factor
decreases the bandwidth efficiency increases [3], i.e., the
roll-off factor plays just the role of mediator between the
PAPR and the bandwidth efficiency. The PAPR depends
on the bandwidth efficiency and when the bandwidth
efficiency increases the PAPR also increases.
Analysis of OFDM leads to the same conclusion. When the
number of sub-carriers increases the PAPR and bandwidth
efficiency also increases. The number of sub-carriers plays
the role of mediator between the PAPR and bandwidth
efficiency. The PAPR increases as the bandwidth
efficiency increases.
II. BASIC DEFINITIONS
Let < < t t s ), ; ( be a baseband digitally
modulated signal with some parameter . The PAPR is
defined as [4]:
) (
) ; ( max
) (
2

q
s
t
def
P
t s
< <
= (1)
where ) (
s
P is the average power of ) ; ( t s . The
bandwidth efficiency is defined according to:
) (
) (
) (
) , (
) (
min
min

s s
f
f
def
P
P
P
df f S
= =
)

(2)
779
where
min
f is the smallest possible bandwidth needed to
transmit R complex symbols/sec and ) , ( f S is the
power spectral density of ) , ( t s . From the Nyquist
criterion [3] it follows that:
R f 5 . 0
min
= (3)
For bandwidth non-efficient systems may be close to
zero, while for highly efficient systems approaches 1
from below.
We assume that the same constellation is used for both SC
and OFDM to eliminate the influence of the constellation
on the PAPR.
III. SINGLE CARRIER CASE
For SC we have:
_

=
=
k
k
kT t g c t s ) ( ) ( (4)
where ) (t g is a shaping pulse and T denotes the symbol
duration. We choose here ) (t g from the family of SRRC
functions, namely:
( ) ( )
1
4
4
1 sin 1 cos
4
) ; (
2
|
.
|

\
|

+
(

+
= =
T
t
t
T
T
t
T
t
T
t g
|
|
t
|
t
|
t
|
|
(5)
7
where | is the roll-off factor and is identified here as the
parameter .
A. PAPR
The PAPR
( )
SC
q as a function of | is given in [1] and
shown in Fig. 1.It is clearly seen that:
=

) ( lim
0
| q
|
SC
.
Fig. 1. PAPR as a function of roll-off factor for SC, as
taken from [1].
B. Bandwidth efficiency
Here T R 1 = and therefore T f
min
2 1 = .
We have:
| | |
o
|
t
o o
| 1817 . 0 1
1
5 . 0 1 ) ( ) (
2 2
2 1
2 1
2
2
=
(

|
.
|

\
|
= =
)

T T
df f G
T
P
c c
T
T
c
(6)
where [2]
2
1
2T
- 1
2
1
cos 1 5 . 0
2
1
0
) (

| +
s s
|
)
`

|
.
|

\
| |

|
t
+

s s
=
T
f
T
f
T
T
T

f T
f G
We also have the following:
( )
T
df f G
T
P
c c
s
2
2
2
o o
| =
)
=

) ( (7)
By introducing (6) and (7) into (2) we finally have:
| | 1817 . 0 1 ) ( =
SC
(8)
It is clearly seen from (8) that 1 ) ( lim
0
=

|
|
SC
.
IV. OFDM CASE
The baseband signal of OFDM, defined for one symbol
duration, is given as follows:
T t ft
N
n j c t s
N
n
n
< s
)
`

A |
.
|

\
| +
=
_
=
0 ,
2
1
2 exp ) (
1
) (
t
(9)
780
where it is assumed that N is an even number. T denotes
the OFDM symbol duration and it is assumed that
f T A =1 .
) (n
c denotes the transmitted symbol of the n-
th sub-carrier. It is assumed that all
) (n
c belong to the
same constellation with zero mean and variance
2
c
o .
Although, the shaping pulse ) (t g does not appear in (9)
however, the statement that T t < s 0 is equivalent to the
statement that ) (t g has a rectangular shape, i.e.,

< s
=
otherwise 0
0 ; 1
) (
T t
t g .
The number of carriers N is identified here as parameter .
A. PAPR
As is widely known [5,6], for OFDM:
N N
OFDM
= ) ( q and =

) ( lim N
OFDM
N
q .
B. Bandwidth Efficiency
The average power of the n-th subcarrier equals to:
2
0
2
2
2
2
) ( ) ( ) (
c
T
c c
s
dt t g
T
df f G
T
n P o
o o
= = =
) )

(10)
The sub-carriers are orthogonal, therefore the average
power ) ( N P
s
= is equal to:
2
1
) ( ) (
c
N
n
s s
N n P N P o
_
=
= = (11)
To find ) (N P let us observe that T N R = and
therefore T N f 5 . 0
min
= . Consequently we have:
)
_

=
(

|
.
|

\
| +
=
T
N
T
N
N
n
c
df T
T
N n
f c T
T
N P
5 . 0
5 . 0
1
2 2
2
) 1 ( 5 . 0
sin ) ( t
o
(12)
As a result of routine calculations, (12) becomes:
( ) | | ( ) | | {
_
=
+ =
N
n
c
n Si n N Si N P
1
2
5 . 0 2 5 . 0 2 ) ( t t
t
o
( )( )
)
`

5 . 0 5 . 0 n n N
N
t
(13)
which together with (11) gives the bandwidth efficiency
for OFDM:
( ) | | ( ) | | {
_
=
+ =
N
n
OFDM
n Si n N Si
N
N
1
5 . 0 2 5 . 0 2
1
) ( t t
t

( )( )
)
`

5 . 0 5 . 0 n n N
N
t
(14)
where ) ( Si is an integral sine function.
From (14) it follows that 1 ) ( lim =

N
OFDM
N
.
Fig. 2. PAPR as a function of bandwidth efficiency for
OFDM (solid line) and SC (broken line).
V. DISCUSSION
In both cases, SC and OFDM, we have found that the
PAPR and the bandwidth efficiency depend on one
parameter only: (i) the roll-off factor for SC, or (ii) the
number of sub-carriers for OFDM. Moreover, when
0 | or N then q and 1 .
Now, let us find q as a function of for | or N as a
parameter, using the results of the section 3 and 4. The
results are shown in Fig. 2 that was obtained for
8 . 0 0 s < | and 64 2 s s N . From Fig. 2 it follows
that the PAPR of SC is lower than that of OFDM for the
same bandwidth efficiency. However when the bandwidth
efficiency approaches 1 the PAPR for both cases
approaches infinity!
781
Fig. 3. Bandwidth efficiency as a function of number of
subcarriers for OFDM.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
The PAPR depends on bandwidth efficiency. The PAPR as
a function of the bandwidth efficiency behaves
asymptotically almost identically for SC and OFDM. SC
may have a high PAPR: a high PAPR is not unique to
OFDM! It will appear whenever one is willing to have
high bandwidth efficiency.
It is interesting to see that a high bandwidth efficiency, say
0.99 is obtained for N=64 or for 055 . 0 = | : examine
Fig. 3 and equation (8) respectively. It is much easier, in
practice, to implement OFDM for N=64 than SC
for 055 . 0 = | . This simple example explains why the
high PAPR problem is usually identified with OFDM.
REFERENCES
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[2] J. Proakis, Digital Communications, McGraw-Hill, 2-
nd ed., 1989.
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efficiency of high speed single-channel transmission in a
channel with limited peak power and transmission
bandwidth, Telecommunications and Radio Engineering,
Part 2 (Radio Engineering), vol. 46, No. 8, pp. 98-100,
1991
[4] S. Boyd, Multitone signal with low crest factor, IEEE
Trans. On Circuits and Systems, vol-CAS-33, No. 10, pp.
1018-1022, 1986.
[5] D. Wulich, Peak factor in orthogonal multicarrier
modulation with variable levels, Electronics Letters, vol.
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[6] P.W.J. Van Eetvelt, S.J. Shepherd and S.K. Barton,
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