Third 2008 International Conference on Convergence and Hybrid Information Technology

New Techniques to Reduce Sidelobes in OFDM System

Saleem Ahmed, Razi Ur Rehman, Humor Hwang

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Myongji University, Yongin, South Korea
saleem@mju.ac.kr, meetrazi@mju.ac.kr, hmhwang@mju.ac.kr

Abstract system, a crucial task in designing such an overlay system

is the avoidance of interference towards the existing legacy
In this paper, we consider out-of-band radiations caused systems. Therefore, the sidelobe suppression has been an
by high sidelobes in orthogonal frequency division mul- essential topic.
tiplexing (OFDM) system. Suppression of sidelobes in In this paper, we have combined multiple-choice se-
OFDM system allows higher spectral efficiency and less quence (MCS) [2] sidelobe suppression technique with sub-
interference with existing legacy systems in OFDM based carrier weighting (SW) [3] and MCS with cancellation car-
overlay system. We combine different sidelobe suppression riers (CCs) [4]. Numerical results show that by combining
techniques to suppress the sidelobes in OFDM system. The MCS with SW and MCS with CCs, sidelobes in OFDM
multiple-choice sequence (MCS) is combined with cancella- system can be significantly reduced.
tion carriers (CCs) and also MCS is combined with subcar-
rier weighting (SW) technique. MCS is applied prior to CCs
or SW techniques. Simulation results show that combining
MCS with CCs and MCS with SW techniques the sidelobes
in OFDM system can be significantly reduced, which allow
a successful co-existance between OFDM overlay system
and an existing legacy system.

1. Introduction

In Europe orthogonal frequency division multiplexing

(OFDM) has been succesfully used by standards such as
the digital audio broadcasting and the digital video broad-
casting for modulation. OFDM is mostly motivated by its
two features: it is spectrally efficient and it offers a better
way to deal with equalization of dispersive slowly fading
channels. OFDM has an inherent robustness against nar-
rowband interference. The OFDM system has property of
not requiring continuous transmission band, which makes
OFDM very attractive to implement in so called spectrum
sharing systems [1]. The OFDM system has main draw-
back of the high sidelobes generated by OFDM transmis-
sion signal. The high sidelobes in OFDM system are crit-
ical issue in OFDM based overlay systems where OFDM
system is overlaid on top of existing legacy systems. As il-
lustrated in Fig. 1, OFDM based overlay system uses the
unused parts of the spectrum assigned to the existing legacy
systems. As this concept requires successful co-existence
between the legacy system and the OFDM based overlay
Figure 1. OFDM spectrum sharing concept
with existing systems
The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, the sys-
tem model is described. In Section 3, the sidelobe suppres-
sion techniques are explained. Numerical results are given
in Section 4. Finally, Section 5 is the conclusion.
2. System Model
We consider an OFDM system with total number of N
subcarriers. The block diagram of the OFDM transmitter
which includes combination of MCS with SW and combi-
nation of MCS with CCs are illustrated in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3,
respectively. The MCS sidelobe suppression unit is applied
prior to the SW or CCs sidelobe suppression units.

978-0-7695-3407-7/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE 117

DOI 10.1109/ICCIT.2008.157
 The input bits are symbol-mapped by applying the mod-
ulation technique of phase-shift keying (PSK) or quadra-
ture amplitude modulation (QAM) and N data symbols
dn , n = 1, 2, ..., N, are generated and then symbols are
serial-to-parallel (S/P) converted which results into an vec-
tor d = (d1 , d2 , ..., dN )T , where (.)T denotes transposition.
The vector d is fed into the MCS sidelobe suppression unit
which outputs the sequence selected from the MCS set, de-
noted by q = (q1 , q2 , ..., qN )T , and the index of a sequence
which is chosen from the MCS set is denoted with Q. The
MCS block output q is fed into the CCs or SW sidelobe sup-
pression unit. If the MCS block output is fed into SW side-
lobe suppression unit which outputs the sequence denoted
by r = (r1 , r2 , ..., rN )T . Resulting sequence r is modu-
Figure 3. Block diagram of the OFDM trans-
lated onto N subcarriers using the inverse discrete fourier
mitter with MCS and CCs sidelobe suppres-
transform (IDFT). After that, parallel-to-serial (P/S) con-
sion unit.
version is performed and finally cyclic prefix is added.
As shown in Fig. 3, if the MCS block output is fed
into CCs sidelobe suppression unit which inserts a few so-
called CCs on the both sides of the used OFDM spectrum. conversion is performed.
These special subcarriers carry complex weighting factors
mw ∈ m = [m1 , ..., mW ]T . After the insertion of the CCs
the transmit symbol vector is modulated on N +W subcarri-
ers using the IDFT. After that, P/S conversion is performed
and finally cyclic prefix is added. In addition, the index
of the selected MCS sequence Q is converted into bits and
transmitted over the corresponding signaling channel.

Figure 4. Block diagram of the OFDM receiver

with MCS and CCs/SW inverse operations.

3. Sidelobe Suppression Techniques

Figure 2. Block diagram of the OFDM trans- 3.1. Sidelobe Suppression by MCS
mitter with MCS and SW sidelobe suppres-
sion unit. Using MCS specific set of sequences are produced.
From these set, the sequence which suppress the maximum
sidelobes is chosen. The MCS system is divided into two
The block diagram of the OFDM receiver is illustrated parts, where first part generates different MCS sets and the
in Fig. 4. At the receiver, initially cyclic prefix is removed. second part selects the sequence which has minimum side-
After the removal of cyclic prefix the S/P conversion is per- lobe power.
formed then the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) is per- A single subcarrier sn (x), n = 1, 2, ..., N, in frequency
formed, and the transmitted sequence is obtained by apply- domain is represented as
ing OFDM detection method, then CCs/SW inverse opera-
tion is performed. The result of CCs/SW inverse operation sin(π(x − xn ))
is inserted into MCS inverse operation block, finally P/S sn (x) = dn , n = 1, 2, ..., N (1)
π(x − xn )

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In Equation (1), x is normalized frequency which is given is divided in two approximately equal parts which start from
as the first sidelobes outside the OFDM transmission band-
x = (f − f0 )T0 (2) width.
Where f denotes the frequency and f0 is the center fre-
quency and xn , n = 1, 2, ..., N is the normalized subcarrier
frequencies and T0 is the OFDM symbol duration without
guard interval.
Using MCS, a set of P > 1 sequences, d(p) =
(p) (p) (p)
(d1 , d2 , ..., dN )T , p = 1, 2, ..., P, produced from the
data sequence d. The average sidelobe power denoted with
A(p) , p = 1, 2, ..., P, is calculated for each MCS gener-
ated sequence d(p) . To determine A(p) , a certain frequency
range called optimization range spanning several OFDM
sidelobes are considered using discrete frequency samples.
A(p) is given by
N
K 
2
 
(p)  (p) sin(π(yk − xn )) 
A = 1/K  dn  , p = 1, 2, ..., P
 π(yk − xn )  Figure 5. Block diagram of the optimization
k=1 n=1
range and OFDM signal in frequency domain.
n = 1, 2, ..., N
k = 1, 2, ..., K
(3)
3.2. Sidelobe Suppression by SW
Here we observe K samples at the normalized frequencies
yk , k = 1, 2, ..., K, which are in the frequency range where As depicted in Fig. 2, the output of MCS sidelobe
the optimization of the sidelobes is performed. suppression unit is fed into the SW sidelobe suppression
The index Q of the selected sequence with maximum unit. SW sidelobe suppression unit performs the multi-
sidelobe suppression is given by plication of a real valued weighting factors with the re-
Q = arg minA(p) , p = 1, 2, ..., P (4) sult of MCS sidelobe suppression unit. The vector q is
p fed into the SW sidelobe suppression unit which outputs
(Q) (Q) (Q)
r = (r1 , r2 , ..., rN )T . Hence, the vector r is given by
So, the sequence d(Q) = (d1 , d2 , ..., dN ) is the one
selected from the MCS set, i.e. q = d(Q) . rn = gn qn , n = 1, 2, ..., N (5)
Many practical MCS algorithms for generation of the
The weighting factors gn , n = 1, 2, ..., N, are chosen such
MCS set can be derived. Few simple and promising algo-
that the sidelobes of the transmission signal are suppressed.
rithms to generate an MCS set are proposed and analysed,
Finally, the weighted vector r is modulated on N subcarri-
i.e. symbol constellation approach, phase approach and in-
ers using the IDFT. After that, P/S conversion is performed.
terleaving approach. Using symbol constellation approach,
A single non-weighted subcarrier sn (x), n = 1, 2, ..., N,
the set of sequences can be generated such that the elements
(p) in frequency domain is shown in Equation (1). As we are
dn , n = 1, 2, ..., N, of d(p) belongs to the same contella- suppressing sidelobes in certain frequency range so we con-
tion as elements of d. In this approach the P index vectors sider sn (x) only in that region. We observe V samples at
are determined, the MCS vectors d(p) , p = 1, 2, ..., P are the normalized frequencies uv , v = 1, 2, ..., V, which are in
obtained by taking the symbols from the constellation space the frequency range where the optimization of the sidelobes
according to the determined vectors. In the phase approach, is performed. With that, Equation (1) reduces to
the random phase shifts are applied to the original symbols
to produce the MCS symbols. In the interleaving approach, sin(π(uv − xn ))
sn,v = sn (uv ) = qn ,
the input sequence is permuted in pseudorandom order to π(uv − xn )
(6)
produce the MCS sequences. Approaches proposed are not n = 1, 2, ..., N
the only approaches to generate MCS set. Other approaches
v = 1, 2, ..., V
can be developed to generate MCS set.
As we are suppressing sidelobes in certain frequency By collecting sn,v , v = 1, 2, ..., V, into a vector we get sn =
range so we consider sn (x) only in that region. The op- (sn,1 , sn,2 , ..., sn,v )T , n = 1, 2, ..., N . Stacking the vectors
timization range is shown in Fig. 5. The optimization range sn into a matrix we get S = (s1 , s2 , ..., sN ).

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 To minimize the sidelobes of the weighted transmis- represented by the matrix C = (c1 , c2 , ..., cW ) with cw
sion signal r, we have to determine the vector g = containing samples of the spectrum of the wth CC in the
(g1 , g2 , ..., gN )T by solving the following optimization optimization range. The constraint in Equation (9) makes
problem sure that not much power is spent on the CCs. The power of
2
minSg (7) CCs is limited to α. The optimizatation range for MCS, SW
g
and CCs have to be determined according to the combined
There are two constraints on the weighting vector g. The technique.
first constaint ensures that the transmission power should
not change. The second constraint ensures that the elements
of g are in between the limits. Each subcarriers transmis-
sion power is controlled through the ratio ρ = gmax /gmin . 4. Numerical Results
As we increase the ratio ρ, few subcarriers get small trans-
mission power which results in performance degradation
because if any subcarrier has less power at receiver it cannot Numerical results illustrates the effectiveness of the
be decoded properly. combination of MCS with SW and MCS with CCs for side-
lobe suppression. BPSK modulation is applied and no chan-
3.3. Sidelobe Suppression by CCs nel coding is considered. The number of used subcarriers is
set to N = 32. Here we use the MCS set of P = 4 to gener-
As depicted in Fig. 3, the output of MCS sidelobe sup- ate MCS sequences. The spectra of the OFDM signals with
pression unit is fed into the CCs sidelobe suppression unit. combination of MCS with SW and without combination of
CCs sidelobe suppression unit inserts a few so-called CCs MCS with SW are illustrated in Fig. 6. Here the ratio ρ for
on the left and right hand side of the used OFDM spectrum. SW is set to 2. The MCS with SW reduces OFDM side-
These CCs are not employed for data transmission, but to lobes by more than 16 dB. If the MCS set size P and also
carry complex weighting factors mw , w = 1, ..., W, which ratio ρ for SW are increased then even higher sidelobe sup-
are determined in such a way that the sidelobes of the CCs presion results can be achieved but it degrades the system
cancel the sidelobes of the original transmit signal. The re- performance.
sulting symbol vector consists the MCS symbols and the
weighting factors mw of the CCs which are normalized in
such way that the transmit power without CCs is equal to
the signal power with CCs. After the insertion of the CCs
the transmit symbol vector is modulated on N + W sub-
carriers using the IDFT then modulated symbols are send to
the P/S block.
To suppress the sidelobes of transmission signal we in-
sert Wl and Wr CCs on the left and on the right hand side
of the used OFDM spectrum, respectively. Here we insert
Wl = 2 CCs at left and Wr = 2 CCs at the right side, i.e.
W = 4. As a result, the bandwidth of the OFDM spectrum
is increased by W = Wl + Wr . A single CC in frequency
domain is represented as
sin(π(x − zw ))
cw (x) = , w = 1, 2, ..., W (8)
π(x − zw )
Figure 6. OFDM spectrum for MCS with SW
In Equation (8), zw is the normalized center frequencies of
the W CCs. To minimize the sidelobes of transmission sig-
nal each CCs is multiplied by weighting factor which is de-
termined such that sidelobes of CCs suppress the sidelobes The spectra of the OFDM signals with combination of
of original transmitted signal. The sidelobes can be sup- MCS with CCs and without combination of MCS with CCs
pressed by solving the following optimization problem are illustrated in Fig. 7. MCS set size is same as it is in
case of SW. Two CCs i.e. W = 4 are inserted at both sides
2
minB + Cm subject to m2 ≤ α (9) of the spectrum. The power which is spent on the CCs is
m
limited to 25%. As we spent more power on the CCs then
where B contains samples of the original transmission sig- the performance of system will degrade. The MCS with
nal in the optimization range. The samples of W CCs are CCs reduces OFDM sidelobes by more than 19 dB.

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Figure 7. OFDM spectrum for MCS with CCs
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straint, Numer. Math., vol. 36, pp. 291-307, 1981

5. Conclusion

We combined MCS technique with SW and MCS tech-

nique with CCs to suppress the sidelobes of OFDM trans-
mission signal. By combining MCS with SW and CCs
the spectral efficiency of OFDM based transmission sys-
tems can be improved and this approach can be applied to
OFDM based overlay system to avoid interference towards
the legacy system sharing the same frequency band. MCS
with SW reduces OFDM sidelobes by more than 16 dB and
MCS with CCs reduces OFDM sidelobes by more than 19
dB.

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