Multi-carrier code division multiple access

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Multi-Carrier Code Division Multiple Access (MC-CDMA) is a multiple access scheme used in OFDMbased telecommunication systems, allowing the system to support multiple users at the same time. MC-CDMA spreads each user symbol in the frequency domain. That is, each user symbol is carried over multiple parallel subcarriers, but it is phase shifted (typically 0 or 180 degrees) according to a code value. The code values differ per subcarrier and per user. The receiver combines all subcarrier signals, by weighing these to compensate varying signal strengths and undo the code shift. The receiver can separate signals of different users, because these have different (e.g. orthogonal) code values. Since each data symbol occupies a much wider bandwidth (in hertz) than the data rate (in bit/s), a signalto-noise-plus-interference ratio (if defined as signal power divided by total noise plus interference power in the entire transmission band) of less than 0 dB is feasible. One way of interpreting MC-CDMA is to regard it as a direct-sequence CDMA signal (DS-CDMA) which is transmitted after it has been fed through an inverse FFT (Fast Fourier Transform)
Contents
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1 Rationale 2 Downlink: MC-CDM 3 Variants 4 References 5 Literature 6 See also

[edit]Rationale

Wireless radio links suffer from frequency-selective channel. If the signal on one subcarrier experiences an outage, it can still be reconstructed from the energy received over other subcarrier.
[edit]Downlink:

MC-CDM

In the downlink (one base station transmitting to one or more terminals), MC-CDMA typically reduces to Multi-Carrier Code Division Multiplexing. All user signals can easily be synchronized, and all signals on one subcarrier experience the same radio channel properties. In such case a preferred system implementation is to take N user bits (possibly but not necessarily for different destinations), to transform these using a Walsh Hadamard Transform, followed by an I-FF.
[edit]Variants

A number of alternative possibilities exist as to how this frequency domain spreading can take place, such as by using a long PN code and multiplying each data symbol, di, on a subcarrier by a chip from the PN code, ci, or by using short PN codes and spreading each data symbol by an individual PN code i.e. di is multiplied by each ci and the resulting vector is placed on Nfreqsubcarriers, where Nfreq is the PN code length. Once frequency domain spreading has taken place and the OFDM subcarriers have all been allocated values, OFDM modulation then takes place using the IFFT to produce an OFDM symbol; theOFDM guard interval is then added; and if transmission is in the downlink direction each of these resulting symbols are added together prior to transmission. An alternative form of multi-carrier CDMA, called MC-DS-CDMA or MC/DS-CDMA, performs spreading in the time domain, rather than in the frequency domain in the case of MC-CDMA for the special case where there is only one carrier, this reverts to standard DS-CDMA. For the case of MC-DS-CDMA where OFDM is used as the modulation scheme, the data symbols on the individual subcarriers are spread in time by multiplying the chips on a PN code by the data symbol on the subcarrier. For example, assume the PN code chips consist of {1, -1} and the data symbol on the subcarrier is -j. The symbol being modulated onto that carrier, for symbols 0 and 1, will be -j for symbol 0 and +j for symbol 1. 2-dimensional spreading in both the frequency and time domains is also possible, and a scheme that uses 2-D spreading is VSF-OFCDM (which stands for variable spreading factor orthogonal frequency codedivision multiplexing), which NTT DoCoMo is using for its 4G prototype system. As an example of how the 2D spreading on VSF-OFCDM works, if you take the first data symbol, d0, and a spreading factor in the time domain, SFtime, of length 4, and a spreading factor in the frequency domain, SFfrequency of 2, then the data symbol, d0, will be multiplied by the length-2 frequency-domain PN codes and placed on subcarriers 0 and 1, and these values on subcarriers 0 and 1 will then be multiplied by the length-4 time-domain PN code and transmitted on OFDM symbols 0, 1, 2 and 3.[1] NTT DoCoMo has already achieved 5 Gbit/s transmissions to receivers travelling at 10 km/h using its 4G prototype system in a 100 MHz-wide channel. This 4G prototype system also uses a 12x12 antenna MIMO configuration, and turbo coding for error correction coding.[2] Summary 1. OFDMA with frequency spreading (MC-CDMA) 2. OFDMA with time spreading (MC-DS-CDMA and MT-CDMA) 3. OFDMA with both time and frequency spreading (Orthogonal Frequency Code Division Multiple Access(OFCDMA))

Multi-Carrier CDMA
Multi Carrier Code Division Multiple Access (MC-CDMA) is a relatively new concept. Its development aimed at improved performance over multipath links. MC-CDMA is a modulation method that uses multi-carrier transmission (more precisely OFDM) of DS-CDMA-type signals. This scheme was first proposed at PIMRC '93 in Yokohama by Linnartz, Yee (U. of California at Berkeley) and Fettweis (Teknekron, Berkeley, currently at U. of Dresden, Germany). Independently, Fazal and Papke proposed a similar system. Linnartz and Yee showed that MC-CDMA signals can also be detected with fairly simple receiver structures, using an FFT and a variable gain diversity combiner, in which the gain of each branch is controlled only by the channel attenuation at that subcarrier. At PIMRC '94 in The Hague, optimum gain control functions were presented. Results showed that a fully loaded MC-CDMA system, i.e., one in which the number of users equals the spread factor, can operate in a highly time dispersive channel with satisfactory bit error rate. These results appeared in contrast to the behaviour of a fully loaded DS-CDMA link that typically does not work satisfactorily with large time dispersion. Since 1993, MC-CDMA rapidly has become a topic of research. At the keynote address of the ISSSTA conference 1996, Prof. Hamid Aghvami predicted that the hottest topic in spread-spectrum, viz. multi-carrier cdma, would attract 80% of the research by 1997. Around 2000, we see that MC-CDMA has attracted tremendous attention, with entire conference sessions devoted to this. Mc-CDMA is praised as a modulation solution that merges the insights due to Shannon (particularly those relating to CDMA) with insights due to Fourier (particularly those explaining why OFDM has advantages in a dispersive channel).

What is orthogonal MC-CDMA?

There are many equivalent ways to describe MC-CDMA: 1. MC-CDMA is a form of CDMA or spread spectrum, but we apply the spreading in the frequency domain (rather than in the time domain as in Direct Sequence CDMA). 2. MC-CDMA is a form of Direct Sequence CDMA, but after spreading, a Fourier Transform (FFT) is performed. 3. MC-CDMA is a form of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), but we first apply an orthogonal matrix operation to the user bits. Therefor, MC-CDMA is sometimes also called "CDMA-OFDM".

4. MC-CDMA is a form of Direct Sequence CDMA, but our code sequence is the Fourier Transform of a Walsh Hadamard sequence. 5. MC-CDMA is a form of frequency diversity. Each bit is transmitted simultaneously (in parallel) on many different subcarriers. Each subcarrier has a (constant) phase offset. The set of frequency offsets form a code to distinguish different users. The MC-CDMA method described here is NOT the same as DS-CDMA using multiple carriers. In the latter system the spread factor per subcarrier can be smaller than with conventional DS-CDMA. Such a scheme is sometimes called MC-DS-CDMA. This does not use the special OFDM-like waveforms to ensure dense spacing of overlapping, yet orthogonal subcarriers. MC-DS-CDMA has advantages over DS-CDMA as it is easier to synchronize to this type of signals.

Possible Transmitter Implementation

Figure: possible implementation of an MultiCarrier spreadspectrum transmitter.

Each bit is transmitted over N different subcarriers. Each subcarrier has its own phase offset, determined by the spreading code. MC-Code Division Multiple Access systems allow simultaneous transmission of several such user signals on the same set of subcarriers. In the downlink multiplexer, this can be implemented using an Inverse FFT and a Code Matrix.

Figure: FFT implementation of an MC-CDMA base station multiplexer and transmitter.

MC-CDMA as a special case of DS-CDMA

Figure: possible implementation of a Multi-Carrier spread-spectrum transmitter. Each bit is transmitted over N different subcarriers. Each subcarrier has its own phase offset, determined by the spreading code.

The above transmitter can also be implemented as a Direct-Sequence CDMA transmitter, i.e., one in which the user signal is multiplied by a fast code sequence. However, the new code sequence is the Discrete Fourier Transform of a binary, say, Walsh Hadamard code sequence, so it has complex values.

Figure: Alternative implementation of a Multi-Carrier spread-spectrum transmitter, using the Direct sequence principle.

Receiver design
Because of delay spread and frequency dispersion due to multipath fading, subcarriers are received with different amplitudes. An importance aspect of the receiver design is how to treat the individual subcarriers, depending on their amplitude i. Options are

Linear combining, by weighting the ith subcarrier by a factor di according to

Maximum Ratio Combining: di = i. This optimally combats noise, but does not exploit interference nulling. (See also MRC diversity) o Equal Gain: di = 1. The simplest solution. (See also EGC diversity) o Equalization: di = 1/i. This perfectly restores orthogonality and nulls interference, but excessively boosts noise. 2 o Wiener filtering: di = i/(i + c). This gives the best post-combiner signal-to-noise-plus-interference ratio. Maximum likelihood detection
o

Doppler
See also our page on MC-CDMA with Doppler, i.e., with rapid time variations of the channel.

What are the advantages of MC-CDMA?

Compared to Direct Sequence (DS) CDMA. DS-CDMA is a method to share spectrum among multiple simultaneous users. Moreover, it can exploit frequency diversity, using a RAKE receiver. However, in a dispersive multipath channel, DS-CDMA with a spread factor N can accommodate N simultaneous users only if highly complex interference cancellation techniques are used. In practice this is difficult to implement. MC-CDMA can handle N simultaneous users with good BER, using standard receiver techniques. Compared to OFDM. To avoid excessive bit errors on subcarriers that are in a deep fade, OFDM typically applies coding. Hence, the number of subcarriers needed is larger than the number of bits or symbols transmitted simultaneously. MC-CDMA replaces this encoder by an NxN matrix operation. Our initial results reveal an improved BER.

JPL's Wireless Communication Reference Website Jean-Paul M.G. Linnartz, 1993, 1995.

Publications for scientific reference:

The first paper on Multi-Carrier CDMA appeared in 1993:

[93-C4] N. Yee, J.P.M.G. Linnartz and G. Fettweis, "Multi-Carrier CDMA in indoor wireless Radio Networks", IEEE Personal Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC) Int. Conference, Sept. 1993, Yokohama, Japan, pp. 109-113. PDF 2.8MB N. Yee and J.P.M.G. Linnartz, "Multi-Carrier in an indoor wireless radio channel", Memorandum UCB/ERL M94/6, U.C. Berkeley, 1994. http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1994/ERL-946.pdf (UCB bib data ) (The original U.C. Berkeley Technical report) [94-C10] PS PDF PDF2 N. Yee and J.P.M.G. Linnartz, "Wiener filtering for Multi-Carrier CDMA", IEEE / ICCC conference on Personal Indoor Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC) and Wireless Computer Networks (WCN), The Hague, September 19-23, 1994, Vol. 4, pp. 1344-1347. PDF J.P.M.G. Linnartz, "Performance Analysis of Synchronous MC-CDMA in mobile Rayleigh channels with both Delay and Doppler spreads", IEEE VT, Vol. 50, No. 6, Nov. 2001, pp 1375-1387.