Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing

(OFDM): Concept and System-Modeling

Klaus Witrisal

Signal Processing and Speech Communication Lab
Technical University Graz, Austria

VL: Mobile Radio Systems, Ch. 5: Wideband Systems
24-Nov-05
Outline
Introduction
What is OFDM?
Multipath fading radio-channel
Principle of OFDM
OFDM Implementation and System Model
Advantages and Disadvantages
OFDM in Practice
Summary
What is OFDM?
Modulation technique
Requires channel coding
Solves multipath problems
OFDM
modulation
Source
coding
I/Q-mod.,
up-
converter
I/Q RF
Channel
coding /
interleaving

Transmitter:
Info
Source
OFDM de-
modulation
Source
decoding
Down-
converter,
I/Q-demod.
I/Q RF
Decoding /
deinter-
leaving
Receiver:
Radio-
channel
Info
Sink
e.g. Audio 0110 01101101
f
PSD
*
f
PSD
f
c
-f
c
Multipath Radio Channel
Multipath Propagation
Reflections from walls,
etc.
Time dispersive channel
Impulse response:







Problem with high rate data
transmission:
inter-symbol-interference
t
[ns]

p (
t
) (PDP)
Multipath Radio Channel
Inter-Symbol-Interference
Transmitted signal:

Received Signals:
Line-of-sight:



Reflected:


The symbols add up
on the channel
Distortion!
Delays
Outline
Introduction
What is OFDM?
Multipath fading radio-channel
Principle of OFDM
OFDM Implementation and System Model
Advantages and Disadvantages
OFDM in Practice
Summary
OFDM Technology
Concept of parallel transmission (1)
Channel impulse
response
1 Channel (serial)
2 Channels
8 Channels
Time
In practice: 50 8000
Channels (sub-carriers)
Channels are transmitted
at different frequencies
(sub-carriers)
Multipath Radio Channel
The Frequency-Selective Radio Channel
Interference of reflected (and LOS) radio waves
Frequency-dependent fading
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
20
Frequency
Power response [dB]
OFDM Technology
Concept of parallel transmission (2)
Channel impulse
response
1 Channel (serial)
Channel
transfer function
Channels are
narrowband
2 Channels
Frequency
Frequency
8 Channels
Frequency
Frequency
Time
Signal is
broadband
Implementation and System Model
Concept of an OFDM signal
Ch.1
Ch.2 Ch.3 Ch.4 Ch.5 Ch.6 Ch.7 Ch.8 Ch.9 Ch.10
Saving of bandwidth
Ch.3 Ch.5 Ch.7 Ch.9
Ch.2 Ch.4 Ch.6 Ch.8 Ch.10
Ch.1
Conventional multicarrier techniques
Orthogonal multicarrier techniques
50% bandwidth saving
frequency
frequency
Outline
Introduction
What is OFDM?
Multipath fading radio-channel
Principle of OFDM
OFDM Implementation and System Model
Advantages and Disadvantages
OFDM in Practice
Summary
Generating the OFDM signal (1)
Symbol (QPSK) of sub-carrier i at time k
Other symbol-alphabets can be used as well (BPSK, m-QAM)
Baseband signal is generated by DSP
| | ) ( 2 exp ) ( ) (
, , ,
kT t f i j x kT t w t s
k i k i BB
A = t
Re
Im
x
i,k
Window function
Sub-carrier
resembles
IDFT!
Spectrum of the modulated data symbols
Rectangular Window
of duration T
0
Has a sinc-spectrum
with zeros at 1/ T
0


Other carriers are put
in these zeros
sub-carriers are
orthogonal
Frequency
Magnitude

=
A
=
1
0
) ( 2
, ,
) ( ) (
N
i
kT t f i j
k i k BB
e x kT t w t s
t
N sub-carriers:
T
0
Generating the OFDM signal (2)
serial-to-
parallel

x
n
IDFT
(IFFT)

x
0,k
x
1,k
x
N,k
parallel-
to-serial

s
0,k
s
1,k
s
N,k
s
n
Re
Im
x
i,k
N data symbols:
(in frequency-
domain)
Base-band
signal
(time-domain)
Introduction
Idea of Guard Interval (GI)
FFT-part
time
Insertion of guard interval (cyclic prefix):
Channel impulse response (shorter than GI):
t
1 OFDM symbol
Cyclic convolution of transmitted signal
with channel impulse response
multiplication in frequency-domain
Guard interval (2) - Cyclic extension
System Proposal
OFDM Symbol Configuration (1)
Transmitter pulse prototype w(t)







Channel impulse response





Receiver filter (implemented by FFT)
time
time
Prefix Postfix effective TX-time
kT

T
win
T
guard
T
FFT
T
FFT
t excess delay time
t
max
T

Introduction
OFDM System Model
Multiplication of data symbols with (complex-valued)
channel transfer-function:
x
-N/2,k
h
-N/2,k
n
-N/2,k
y
-N/2,k
x
N/2-1,k
h
N/2-1,k
n
N/2-1,k
y
N/2-1,k
i i i i
n h x y + =
Introduction
-60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60
-50
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
10
f [MHz]
p
o
w
e
r

s
p
e
c
t
r
u
m

m
a
g
n
i
t
u
d
e

[
d
B
] OFDM spectrum for N
FFT
= 128, N
win
= 12, N
guard
= 24, oversampling = 1
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
-0.2
-0.1
0
0.1
0.2
time domain signal (baseband)
sample nr.
imaginary
real
OFDM Block Diagram
OFDM
modulation
(IFFT)
Channel
coding /
interleaving
Guard
interval
I/Q I/Q
Symbol
mapping
(modulation)
Transmitter
N symbols
OFDM
demod.
(FFT)
Decoding /
deinter-
leaving
Guard
interval
removal
Time sync.
I/Q I/Q
symbol de-
mapping
(detection)
Channel est.
Receiver
FFT-part
time
1 OFDM symbol
Channel
impulse response:
010101001 0110
Outline
Introduction
Principle of OFDM
OFDM Implementation and System Model
Advantages and Disadvantages
OFDM System Design
Parameter selection
Implementation Issues

Summary and Applications
Introduction
Design of an OFDM System
Channel
impulse
response
Guard
interval
length
Channel
Parameters
are needed
x(4 10)
FFT
symbol
length
Nr. of
carriers
Data rate;
modulation
order
Other constraints:
Nr. of carriers should match FFT size
and data packet length
considering coding and modulation schemes
OFDM System Design
OFDM Symbol Configuration (1)
Transmitter pulse prototype w(t)







Channel impulse response





Receiver filter (implemented by FFT)
time
time
Prefix Postfix effective TX-time
kT

T
win
T
guard
T
FFT
T
FFT
t excess delay time
t
max
T

OFDM System Design
Spectral Shaping by Windowing
Design of an OFDM System
OFDM Symbol Configuration (2)
Not all FFT-points can be used for data carriers
Lowpass filters for AD- and DA-conversion
oversampling required
DC offsets; carrier feedtrough; etc.
DC f
s
/2 f
s
/2
Transfer function of
transmitter/receiver
useable sub-carriers useable sub-carriers
, 1, 0, 1, N/2, , N/21
frequency
sub-carrier
index i
Outline
Introduction
What is OFDM?
Multipath fading radio-channel
Principle of OFDM
OFDM Implementation and System Model
Advantages and Disadvantages
OFDM in Practice
Summary
Advantages of OFDM
Solves the multipath-propagation problem
Simple equalization at receiver
Computationally efficient
For broadband systems more efficient than SC
Supports several multiple access schemes
TDMA, FDMA, MC-CDMA, etc.
Supports various modulation schemes
Adaptability to SNR of sub-carriers is possible
Elegant framework for MIMO-systems
All interference among symbols is removed

OFDM Technology
Problems of OFDM (Research Topics)
Synchronization issues:
Time synchronization
Find start of symbols
Frequency synchr.
Find sub-carrier positions
Non-constant power
envelope
Linear amplifiers needed
Channel estimation:
To retrieve data
Channel is time-variant
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
-0.2
-0.1
0
0.1
0.2
time domain signal (baseband)
sample nr.
imaginary
real
of frequency offset
frequency
amplitude
Introduction
Correlation-based Frequency-sync.
Correlation of duplicated parts of OFDM signal
e.g.: Cyclic prefix (Guard interval - GI):
Guard interval
(M samples)
FFT-part
(L samples)
conj.
conj.
E
...
(M times)
...
s
i
:
Peak at optimum position
Phase frequency-offset
Received signal with f-offset:
Constant phase offset between samples spaced by L

=
+
=
1
0
*
M
i
L i i opt
r r P
) / 2 exp( N i f j s r
i i
o t =
Outline
Introduction
What is OFDM?
Multipath fading radio-channel
Principle of OFDM
OFDM Implementation and System Model
Advantages and Disadvantages
OFDM in Practice
Summary
Summary and Applications
Applications of OFDM
Wireless LAN
IEEE802.11a/g
HYPERLAN

DAB, DVB, etc.
Digital Audio/Video Broadcasting

xDSL (Digital Subscriber Line)
uses Discrete Multitone (DMT)
Summary Essential Ingredients
IFFT & FFT
For efficient implementation

Guard interval insertion
Obtaining simple equalization
Removing all IS- & IC-interferences

Error correction coding
To restore bits that are lost on weak sub-carriers