ISBN: 978-15-076833-85

Proceedings of International Conference on Recent Innovations in Engineering & Technology

Date: 24.1.2015

EFFICIENT PAPR REDUCTION TECHNIQUE BASED ON LOW

COMPLEXITY MAX NORM ALGORITHM FOR OFDM SYSTEMS
1

M MADHUMITHA, 2 M PALANIVELAN
M.E. Communication Systems, 2Associate Professor, Dept. of ECE,
Rajalakshmi Engineering College, Chennai, India
(e-mails: madhumitha1392@gmail.com, velan.research@gmail.com)
ABSTRACT

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a proven technology in modern

wireless communication because of its high data rate, ability to combat multipath fading and flexibility
in digital signal processing. However, the peak to average power ratio (PAPR) of a transmitted signal is
one of the main challenges in wideband multicarrier systems that use OFDM. High PAPR requires RF
power amplifiers to be operated with large power back-offs which leads to inefficient amplification and
expensive transmitters. The nonlinearities of the power amplifier cause out-of-band radiation and
results in poor Bit Error Rate (BER) performance and loss in data rate. Therefore, it is desirable to
reduce the PAPR in OFDM systems. In this paper, an efficient Low Complexity Max Norm (LCMN)
algorithm to reduce the PAPR in OFDM system is proposed. This algorithm avoids the use of
additional Inverse Fast Fourier Transform as compared to other conventional PAPR reduction
schemes. Also, it provides better bandwidth utilization since it does not require transmission of side
information to receiver. The performance measures Saving Gain, Amplifier Efficiency and BER of the
proposed method has been evaluated and presented. The value of parametric constant introduced in
the algorithm is optimised based on the performance measures considered.
Keywords OFDM, PAPR, LCMN, ILCMN, BER
1. INTRODUCTION
There is an ever increasing demand in the communication industry towards techniques that
could offer efficient bandwidth utilization, improved spectral efficiency, economical signal processing,
high speed and low complexity hardware. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing has emerged to
be one such promising technique in the recent years especially as the spectrum is becoming a more
valuable resource. Subsequently, OFDM has become an appropriate choice for high bit rate
communications and has been widely adopted in many wireless communication standards such as
Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11a), Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB), Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB),
and IEEE fixed broadband wireless access standard 802.16.
OFDM is a special type of multicarrier modulation [5, 6] in which a signal is split into several
narrowband channels at different frequencies. The data is divided into parallel data streams each
transmitted on a separate band [1, 2]. The transmission bandwidth, B in an OFDM system is divided
into N orthogonal subcarriers, each having a bandwidth of f or B=N f . The orthogonality among
the subcarriers results in the elimination of guard bands required by Frequency Division Multiplexing
(FDM). The bandwidth is thus efficiently utilized in OFDM. Once the subcarriers are made orthogonal
to each other, the interference among them is eliminated [3, 4]. Orthogonality means that the
subcarriers are perpendicular to each other in a mathematical sense allowing the spectrum of each
subcarrier to overlap another without interfering with it. Each subcarrier is modulated by Quadrature
Amplitude Modulation (QAM) and the N data symbols are applied to the Inverse Fast Fourier
Transform (IFFT) to obtain the time domain signal, x(t ) . The signal x(t ) which is transmitted via the
transmitting PA and that has a period T 1 / f can be expressed as in Equation (1).

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Proceedings of International Conference on Recent Innovations in Engineering & Technology
N 1

x (t )

1
N

X ke

2 kt
T

, 0 t T,

Date: 24.1.2015

(1)

k 0

N1

where Xk k0 is the set of frequency domain symbols. Hence, OFDM as a transmission technique is
known to have lot of strengths compared to any other transmission technique, such as its robustness to
channel fading, its immunity to impulse interference, its high spectral efficiency and its ability in
handling very strong echoes.

Despite lot many attractive features of OFDM, certain issues still remain in the design of
OFDM systems. A major drawback of the OFDM signal is the high Peak to Average Power Ratio
(PAPR) [4-7]. The transmit signal in OFDM exhibits a large PAPR which forces the Digital-to-Analog
Converter (DAC) and the Power Amplifier (PA) to be operated with a high dynamic range. If this is
not satisfied, the signal gets distorted severely and BER performance degradation occurs. A series of
undesirable interference is encountered when the peak signal goes into the non-linear region of devices
at the transmitter, such as intermodulation distortion and out-of-band radiation [4, 8]. One solution to
this problem is to operate the power amplifier with large power backoffs but this leads to inefficient
amplification and expensive transmitters. Therefore, it is highly desirable to reduce the PAPR of the
OFDM signal before it drives the power amplifier.

The presence of a number of independently modulated subcarriers in an OFDM signal can give
a large PAPR when added up coherently. When N signals are added with the same phase, they produce
a peak power that is N times the average power. The PAPR of OFDM signals is defined as the ratio
between the maximum instantaneous power and its average power. The PAPR of a continuous time
signal, x(t ) is given by Equation (2):

PAPR[ x (t )]

max x ( t )

2
E x ( t )

(2)

For a discrete time signal, x( n) expressed as,

N 1

x(n)

1
N

X ke

2 kn
LN

, n=0, 1, . . . , NL-1

(3)

k 0

where L is the oversampling factor, the PAPR is given by,

PAPR [ x ( n )]

m ax x ( n )

2
E x ( n )

(4)

One of the most frequently employed performance measure for PAPR reduction is the Cumulative
Distribution Function (CDF). However, instead of CDF, Complementary CDF (CCDF) is commonly
used in most of the literature. CCDF is defined as the probability that the PAPR given by Equation (4)
exceeds a threshold P0 and is expressed by Equation (5):
p ( PAPR P0 ) 1 (1 e P0 ) N

(5)

Several techniques to reduce the PAPR of OFDM system have appeared in the literature such
as clipping, interleaving, coding schemes, constellation expansion, Selective Mapping (SLM), Partial

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Proceedings of International Conference on Recent Innovations in Engineering & Technology

Date: 24.1.2015

Transmit Sequence (PTS), Tone Reservation (TR) and Tone Injection (TI). Each one of these
techniques has its unique advantages and disadvantages.

In this paper, we propose a novel Low Complexity Max Norm (LCMN) algorithm to reduce
the PAPR of OFDM signals. The key novelty of the algorithm is that it is linear, reversible and reduces
PAPR at low computational complexity. This technique avoids the use of additional IFFT as compared
to other conventional PAPR reduction schemes. Also, it provides better bandwidth utilisation since it
does not require transmission of side information to the receiver. In addition, we present the analysis of
Saving Gain, Amplifier Efficiency, and BER performance of the proposed technique.

2. RELATED WORK

A number of solutions to solve the high PAPR problem in OFDM systems have been
addressed in the literature. These solutions can be largely classified as distortion or distortionless
techniques. Distortion techniques like Amplitude Clipping, Filtering [9, 10, and 11], Coding [13, 14]
create in-band distortion and peak regrowth. Coding schemes sacrifice the data rate. They require
memory to store codewords and cause delay due to the time required to find a low PAPR codeword.
Many distortionless techniques have also been proposed. The constellation expansion in [15] requires
complex optimisation process, especially when the number of subcarriers is large. Simpler and practical
constellation mapping techniques are active constellation extension [16] and tone reservation [17].
With selective mapping [18, 19], multiple sequences are generated from the original data block and the
one with the lowest PAPR is selected for transmission. However, in order to recover the original data
sequence, the side information must be transmitted to the receiver which decreases the information
throughput. In the PTS approach [20], the disjoint subblocks of OFDM subcarriers are phase shifted
separately after IFFT computation. The search for optimum subblock phase factors is computationally
complex. Due to the usage of multiple IFFTs, PTS exhibits a high complexity proportional to the
number of subblocks.

2.1 Nonlinear Characteristics of PA and DAC

The PA is employed in the transmitter to obtain sufficient transmit power. But the nonlinear
characteristic of the PA is very sensitive to variations in signal amplitudes [8]. As a result, the signals
entering into the nonlinear region introduce intermodulation between different subcarriers and cause
out-of-band radiation. This leads to poor utilisation of bandwidth. Also, this additional interference
leads to an increase in BER. Apart from this, if the PA is operated in a linear region with large power
back-offs in order to keep the out of band power below the specified limits, it will lead to inefficient
amplification and expensive transmitters. Therefore, it is important to aim at a power efficient
operation of PA that provides adequate area coverage, saves power consumption, and allows small size
terminals.

Large PAPR also demands the DAC to have a high dynamic range so as to accommodate the
large peaks [3]. But this can be supported only by a high precision DAC, which although adds only
reasonable amount of quantisation noise, it appears to be expensive. Alternatively, a low precision DAC
would be cheaper but the quantisation noise will be significant and so it reduces the Signal to Noise
Ratio (SNR).
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Proceedings of International Conference on Recent Innovations in Engineering & Technology

Date: 24.1.2015

2.2 Power Amplifier Efficiency

We consider Class A power amplifier [12] in order to analyse both PAPR reduction and power
efficiency. For Class A power amplifier, the overall efficiency is defined as,

Pout
PD C

(6)

where Pout is the average output power of PA and PDC is the total DC power consumed by the PA.
We assume an ideal linear model for the PA, where linear amplification is achieved up to the saturation
point [21]. Under these conditions, efficiency, is given by,

0.5
PAPR

(7)

From Equation (7), it is seen that the PAPR is inversely proportional to the efficiency. Therefore, to
obtain a high efficiency, it is important to apply a scheme that reduces the PAPR.
Solving Equations (6) and (7), we get a relation between the power consumption PDC and PAPR as:

PDC 2 Pout PAPR

(8)

Equation (8) signifies that if PAPR is reduced, then the consumed DC power PDC is also reduced.
Hence, from Equation (8), we obtain an expression for power saving as

Psaving PDCb PDCa

(9)

where PDCb and PDCa are DC power consumed by the PA before and after PAPR reduction
respectively.
Substituting Equation (8) into Equation (9), we get,

Psaving 2Pout ( PAPRb PAPRa )

(10)

where PAPRb and PAPRa are the PAPR obtained before and after reduction respectively.
Saving Gain is defined as Gsaving Psaving / Pout and is given by Equation (11) as:
Gsaving 2( PAPRb PAPRa )

(11)

3. PROPOSED SYSTEM

We propose a novel Low Complexity Max Norm (LCMN) algorithm to reduce the PAPR of
OFDM signal. The proposed method overcomes the drawback of heavy computational complexity and
phase search complexity found in conventional PAPR reduction techniques like SLM and PTS. It is

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Proceedings of International Conference on Recent Innovations in Engineering & Technology

Date: 24.1.2015

also not required to transmit the side information, which is used to recover data at the receiver end.
The block diagram of the proposed system is shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1: Proposed OFDM system with LCMN algorithm for PAPR reduction
The input data are mapped using 16-QAM modulation. Since QAM constellation is easy to
implement, it is widely used. Then the QAM symbols are converted into parallel data streams and
modulated using different subcarriers. All these signals are combined by the IFFT to change the
frequency domain signals into time domain signals. To eliminate the effects of Intersymbol
Interference (ISI), guard interval is introduced between the OFDM symbols. When individual signals
with same phase are added up, it results in a large peak power. This peak power should be minimized
before transmission of OFDM symbols in order to avoid signal distortion. In this section, a novel Low
Complexity Max Norm algorithm has been proposed to reduce the PAPR.

3.1 LCMN Algorithm at Transmitter for PAPR Reduction

The LCMN algorithm applied at the transmitter part to reduce PAPR includes the following
steps.
Step 1: Generate the input data, d= (d1, d2, ..., d i, ...., d N) and map the data with QAM constellation to
get the modulated data stream, D.
Step 2: Calculate IFFT for the mapped data stream, D using d= IFFT (D).
Step 3: Find the maximum value from the values obtained in Step 2.
dmax = max (d 1, d2, ....., d i, ....., d N)
dmax = d i
Step 4: Introduce a parameter, in order to define the parametric form of maximum norm. Multiply
this parametric constant, with d max.
*d max = *[max (d 1, d2, ....., di, ....., dN)]
*d max = *di
where is a parameter that ranges from 0 to 1.
Step 5: Subtract the value of *di with each of the IFFT output to get a LCMN transformed data
stream that promises a reduced PAPR.
x = d (*di)
x = ((d 1 (*d i)), (d 2 (*d i)), ..., (d i (*di)), ..., (dN (*di)))

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x = ((d 1 (*d i)), (d 2 (*d i)), ..., ((1 )*d i), ..., (dN (*d i)))
Step 6: Transmit the transformed output which offers low PAPR.

Inverse Low Complexity Max Norm (ILCMN) algorithm is applied at the receiver to recover
the original signal. The transmitted signal is received by the receiving antenna and converted into
parallel stream to apply it to Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). FFT changes the time domain signal into
frequency domain signal to obtain the OFDM symbols from different subcarriers. Then the signal is
demodulated to obtain the output binary symbols.
3.2 Inverse LCMN (ILCMN) Algorithm at the Receiver
The Inverse LCMN (ILCMN) algorithm applied at the receiver part includes the following
steps.
Step 1: Receive the transmitted data block, x
Step 2: Find the minimum value of x,
min (x) = min ((d1 (*di)), (d 2 (*d i)), ..., ((1 )*di), ..., (dN (*d i)))

(13)

min (x) = (1-)*d i

Step 3: Divide min (x) by (1-) to obtain d i.
min (x)/(1-) = di
Step 4: To obtain data block, d, add (*d i) where di is the value obtained in Step 3 to the received data
block, x. From Equation 12,
d = x + (*d i)
d = ((d1 (*di) + (*d i) ), (d2 (*di) + (*d i)), ..., (d i (*d i) + (*di)), ..., (dN (*d i) +
(*d i)))
d= (d1, d2, ..., d i, ...., d N)
Step 5: Compute FFT for d obtained in Step 4, which yields the original data block.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
To evaluate the PAPR reduction performance of LCMN algorithm, simulations have been
performed with MATLAB. In the simulation, we have used 16-QAM baseband modulation. Each
modulated symbol is passed through N=64 subcarriers by 64 point IFFT. Table 1 lists the simulation
parameters used.
Table 1: Simulation Parameters

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Proceedings of International Conference on Recent Innovations in Engineering & Technology

Date: 24.1.2015

Fig. 2 shows the CCDF performance of LCMN with N=64 when varying parametric constant,
. At the probability of clipping level 110-4, the original system offers 11.0dB, while the PAPR
reduction technique incorporated in the proposed system reduces to 5.5 dB at the same level of
clipping probability when =1. It is also observed that, if <0.2, the average signal power is low causing
high PAPR which affects the performance of power amplifier. Original refers to performance without
applying any reduction technique.

Fig. 2: PAPR reduction performance of LCMN with

varying when N=64

The saving gain and efficiency analysis of LCMN computed using Equations (11) and (7)
respectively with N=64 is presented in Table 2.

Table 2: Power Saving Gain and Efficiency Analysis of LCMN with N=64

PAPR (dB)

PAPR

Saving Gain

% Efficiency

Gsaving (dB)

()

Original

11

12.6

3.9

0.2

8.9

7.8

9.7

6.4

0.4

8.2

6.6

11.9

7.6

0.6

7.3

5.4

14.4

9.3

0.8

6.3

4.3

16.6

11.7

1.0

5.5

3.5

18.1

14.1

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Date: 24.1.2015

Fig. 3 shows the Saving Gain for different values for N=64.

Fig. 3: Saving Gain Vs for N=64

Fig. 4 shows the BER performance of LCMN technique with different values.

Fig. 4: BER Performance of LCMN with =0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8

It is seen from Fig. 4 that, for values of >0.6, the BER performance is slightly degraded.
Therefore, from Fig. 2, Fig. 3, Fig. 4, and Table 2, it is concluded that =0.6 achieves the required
performance of the proposed system.

5. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a Low Complexity Max-Norm (LCMN) technique for PAPR reduction in OFDM
system is proposed. To improve the PAPR reduction capability, a parametric constant is introduced
in the proposed technique. It is seen from the simulation results that the proposed method offers a
power reduction of 3.7 dB. In addition, Saving Gain, Amplifier Efficiency and BER performance of the
proposed system were evaluated. The value of is optimized based on PAPR reduction, saving gain,
efficiency and BER performance. The proposed scheme greatly reduces computational complexity
since it uses only one IFFT. Also, it does not require side information to be transmitted to the receiver
for recovery which avoids additional bandwidth and data rate loss.

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