CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

OFDM-IDMA Wireless Communication Systems

Submitted to Department of Electronic Engineering in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy

by

Li Yueqian

March 2007

Abstract
Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing code-division multiple-access (OFDM-

CDMA) also referred as multi-carrier CDMA (MC-CDMA) is a spread-spectrum transmission technique introduced in 1993. Since then, numerous technical papers about OFDM-CDMA have been published. OFDM-CDMA is considered to be a promising candidate for the air interface of the fourth generation (4G) wireless communication systems. Interleave-division multiple-access (IDMA) is a recently proposed multiple access scheme, which employs random interleavers as the only method for user separation. As a particular case of CDMA, IDMA inherits many distinguished features of well-studied CDMA. Furthermore, it allows a low-cost turbo-type multiuser detection (MUD) algorithm applicable to the system with large numbers of users, which is crucial for high-rate multiple access communication. The work presented in this thesis is completely devoted to the investigation of an OFDM-IDMA scheme. The proposed scheme employs IDMA instead of CDMA in the OFDM-CDMA scheme and combines advantages of both OFDM and IDMA. With sufcient guard intervals, OFDM can completely remove intersymbol interference (ISI). IDMA with a chip-by-chip (CBC) iterative multi-user detector can overcome both crosscell and intra-cell multiple access interference (MAI) problems efciently. We rst present the basic principles of OFDM-IDMA transmitter and receiver. Comparative studies between OFDM-IDMA and OFDM-CDMA are carried out. We also compare OFDM-IDMA with IDMA with LLRC algorithm. Thanks to the independent processing of ISI and MAI, OFDM-IDMA offers better performance than plain IDMA with LLRC in terms of both bit error rate (BER) and complexity. Then we derive a simple and effective performance analysis method for OFDMIDMA based on SNR evolution. To support large number of users and achieve high rates, we optimize the transmitted power proles with the aid of the SNR evolution technique.

Several power allocation methods are presented, which are selected according to the system congurations and channel conditions. The comparisons between OFDM-IDMA and OFDM-TDMA based on bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) are carried out, which demonstrates a spectral-power efciency advantage of non-orthogonal multiple access approaches over orthogonal ones. The proposed OFDM-IDMA scheme provides a competitive alternative to the conventional OFDM-CDMA scheme for future high-rate multiuser communications over multipath fading channels.

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Contents
I Abstract i iii vii x xi 1 1 3 5 6 7 7 7 8

II Acknowledgement List of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations 1 Introduction 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 The Development of Wireless Communication Systems . . . . . . . . . . Research Problems and Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thesis Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2 Preliminaries: Channel Models, MC-CDMA and IDMA 2.1 Multipath Channel Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 2.1.2 2.2 2.3 Radio Channel Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Channel Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Multicarrier Modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Multicarrier CDMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2.3.1 2.3.2 OFDM-CDMA Transmitter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 OFDM-CDMA Receiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

2.4 2.5

IDMA over Multipath Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 24

3 OFDM-IDMA

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3.1 3.2 3.3

Motivation of OFDM-IDMA Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Principles of OFDM-IDMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 OFDM-IDMA vs. OFDM-CDMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 3.3.1 3.3.2 3.3.3 OFDM-CDMA with PIC Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 OFDM-CDMA with CBC Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 OFDM-IDMA with Low-rate FEC Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

3.4

OFDM-IDMA vs. IDMA with LLRC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 3.4.1 Performance Comparison between OFDM-IDMA and IDMA with LLRC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 3.4.2 Complexity Comparison between OFDM-IDMA and IDMA with LLRC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

3.5

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 43

4 Performance Evaluation and Optimization 4.1 4.2

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Performance Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 4.2.1 Performance Analysis Method for OFDM-IDMA btase on SNR Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 4.2.2 Numerical Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

4.3

Power Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 4.3.1 4.3.2 Transmitters with the Knowledge of Average Channel Gains . . . 50 Transmitters without the Knowledge of Average Channel Gains . 60

4.4

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 65

5 Conclusions and Future Research Work 5.1 5.2

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Future Research Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 68

Appendix A: Linear Programming Method v

Appendix B: The Power Proles Obtained by damping Method References Publications

70 72 77

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List of Figures
1 (a) An illustration of the IDMA-OFDM scheme. (b) An equivalent system modeling of (a). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Bandwidth consuming illustration: (a) General multicarrier modulation, (b) OFDM modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 3 4 Block diagram of a OFDM digital communication system . . . . . . . . . 11 Block diagram of uplink OFDM-CDMA transmitter with K simultaneous users. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 5 Block diagram of the detector for OFDM-CDMA system. Note that the MMSE detection block comprises the despreading process. . . . . . . . . 15 6 Transmitter and receiver structures of an IDMA scheme with K simultaneous users. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 7 Transmitter and receiver structures of the OFDM-IDMA scheme with K simultaneous users, where k is the interleaver of user-k. For simplicity, the above gure does not include the insertion and removing of the guard intervals between OFDM symbols. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 8 Performance comparison between OFDM-IDMA (solid line) and OFDMCDMA (dashed line) with different iteration numbers. K =16 and S=16. . 30 9 Performance comparison between OFDM-IDMA and OFDM-CDMA. CBC detection algorithm is adopted by both schemes. K = 32, S = 16, and iteration number = 10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 10 Performance comparison between OFDM-IDMA based on turbo-Hadamard code (solid line) and OFDM-CDMA (dashed line) based on turbo code. User number K is marked in the gure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 4

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11

Performance comparison between OFDM-IDMA (solid line) and IDMA with LLRC (dashed line) in a quasi-static Rayleigh fading multipath channel with different path numbers L = 1, 2, 4, 8. K = 32 and S = 16. Iteration number= 10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

12

Performance comparison between OFDM-IDMA (solid line) and IDMA with LLRC (dashed line) in a quasi-static Rayleigh fading multipath channel with different iteration number= 1, 5, 10. The path number L = 8. K = 40 and S = 16. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

13

Performance comparison between OFDM-IDMA (solid line) and IDMA with LLRC (dashed line) in an quasi-static Rayleigh fading multipath channel with different user number K = 1, 16, 32, 40, 56. The path number L = 8. Iteration number= 10 and S = 16. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

14

Comparison between simulation results (solid line) and corresponding evolution results (dashed line) of OFDM-IDMA in uncorrelated Rayleigh fading channel. K = 2S and sum rate = 2 bits/symbol for all curves. . . . 48

15

Comparison between simulation results (solid line) and corresponding evolution results (dashed line) of OFDM-IDMA with a spreading factor S=16 in an uncorrelated Rayleigh fading channel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

16

The lowest-power users BER performance of a OFDM-IDMA system after power allocation obtained by simulation (solid line) and evolution (dashed lines) over an uncorrelated fading channel. Iteration number = 30 and S = 8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

17

The BER performance of OFDM-IDMA with sum rate = 2, 3, 5 bits/symbol in an uplink cellular scenario with path loss, log-normal shadowing and uncorrelated Rayleigh fading channel conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

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18

The required average transmitted power versus Pout (G0 ) of OFDM-IDMA with sum rate = 2, 3, 5 bits/symbol in an uplink cellular scenario with path loss, log-normal shadowing and uncorrelated Rayleigh fading channel conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

19

The BER performance of OFDM-IDMA with sum rate = 2, 3, 5 bits/symbol in an uplink cellular scenario with path loss, log-normal shadowing and multipath quasi-static Rayleigh fading channel conditions. . . . . . . . . 56

20

The required average transmitted power versus Pout (G0 ) of OFDM-IDMA with sum rate = 2, 3, 5 bits/symbol in an uplink cellular scenario with path loss, log-normal shadowing and multipath quasi-static Rayleigh fading channel conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

21

The comparison between OFDM-IDMA using superposition coding and OFDM-TDMA with throughput = 3 bits/symbol in an uncorrelated Rayleigh fading channel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

22

The comparison between OFDM-IDMA using superposition coding and OFDM-TDMA with throughput = 3 bits/symbol in an uplink cellular scenario with path loss, log-normal shadowing and uncorrelated Rayleigh fading channel conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

23 24

Flowchart of damping power allocation method based on SNR evolution. 61 The lowest-power users BER performance of a OFDM-IDMA system after power allocation obtained by simulation (solid line) and evolution (dashed lines) over quasi-static Rayleigh fading multipath channel. Iteration number = 30 and S = 8. Safe margin T = 0.1. . . . . . . . . . . . 62

25

The lowest-power users BER performance of a OFDM-IDMA system after power allocation obtained by simulation (solid line) and evolution (dashed lines) over quasi-static Rayleigh fading multipath channel. Iteration number = 30 and S = 8. Safe margin T = 0.12. . . . . . . . . . . . 63

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List of Tables
1 Complexity comparison between OFDM-IDMA and IDMA with LLRC with with K = 32, L = 8, iteration number (it) = 10 and Nc = 512. . . . 41 2 The optimized received power proles obtained by linear programming method. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 3 The optimized received power proles for 24 layers obtained by linear programming method. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 4 5 The power proles with safe margin T = 0.1 for Fig. 24. . . . . . . . . . 70 The power proles with safe margin T = 0.12 for Fig. 25. . . . . . . . . 71

List of Abbreviations
1G 2G 3G 4G AMPS APP AWGN BER BICM BS CBC CDMA DEC DFT ESE FDMA FEC FFT GSM IDMA IFFT IS-54 IS-95 ISI ITU ITU-R First Generation Second Generation Third Generation Fourth Generation Advanced Mobile Phone System A Posterior Probability Additive White Gaussian Noise Bit Error Rate Bit Interleaved Coded Modulation Base Station Chip-by-Chip Code-Division Multiple-Access Decoder Discrete Fourier Transform Elementary Signal Estimator Frequency-Division Multiple-Access Forward Error Correcting Fast Fourier Transform Global System for Mobile Communications Interleave-Division Multiple-Access Inverse FFT Interim Standard 54 Interim Standard 54 Inter-symbol Interference International Telecommunication Union International Telecommunication Union Recommendation xi

LLR LLRC LOS MAI MAP MC-CDMA

Log-likelihood Ratio Log-likelihood Ratio Combining Line of Sight Multiple-Access Interference Maximum A Posteriori Multi-Carrier CDMA

MC-DS-CDMA Multi-Carrier Direct-Sequence CDMA MMSE MRC MT MT-CDMA MUD NMT OFDM OFDMA OFDM-IDMA Minimum Mean Square Error Maximum Ration Combining Mobile Terminal Multi-Tone CDMA Multi-user Detection Nordic Mobile Telephone Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing OFDM-FDMA Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing Interleave-Division Multiple-Access PAPR PDC PIC P/S QPSK SIC SISO SISO S/P SNR Peak-to-Average Power Ratio Pacic Digital Cellular Parallel Interference Cancellation Parallel to Serial Quadrature Phase Shift Keying Successive Interference Cancellation Soft-in Soft-out Single Input Single Output Serial to Parallel Signal to Noise Ratio xii

SUD TACS TDMA TD-SCDMA W-CDMA

Single User Detection Total access Communication System Time-Division Multiple-Access Time-Division Synchronous CDMA Wideband-CDMA

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