Course 11: OFDM

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing

Agenda

z History of multi-carrier modulations

z The need for OFDM
z OFDM principles (parallel transmission,
orthogonal carriers, IFFT modulator, cyclic
prefix)
z OFDM: drawbacks and challenges
z OFDM in real life

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 History

z FDM = Frequency Division Multiplexing: a way to share a single

transmission channel between several users
Ch.1 Ch.2 Ch.3 Ch.4 Ch.5 Ch.6 Ch.7 Ch.8 Ch.9 Ch.10

FDM Principle frequency

z Every user has a dedicated bandwidth, guard intervals required

z Rather a multiple access/multiplexing technique than a
modulation
z Used in PSTN, for the multiplexing of telephone calls
3

History of OFDM

The step towards OFDM

z Kineplex receiver
(1958): 20 orthogonal Ch.1 Ch.2 Ch.3 Ch.4 Ch.5 Ch.6 Ch.7 Ch.8 Ch.9 Ch.10

carriers are used to

simultaneously convey
data over a frequency
selective radio channel FDM frequency
z A single transmitter !!!
z Bandwidth saving Ch.1 Ch.3 Ch.5 Ch.7 Ch.9

achieved, but prohibitive Ch.2 Ch.4 Ch.6 Ch.8 Ch.10

Saving of bandwidth
complexity
z The orthogonal carriers 50% bandwidth saving
are very difficult to Orthogonal multicarriers frequency
generate by analog
circuits

4
 The need for OFDM

z Most of the transmission channels are frequency-

selective
frequency components from the input signal affected
differently by the channel
meaning that the channels transfer function H(f) is not flat
over the bandwidth
this introduces Inter-Symbol interference (ISI)
ISI can be seen as a time-domain manifestation of the
frequency selectivity
z OFDM is exceptionally robust to IIS
z Well suited to all the dispersive channels, and
especially to the wireless channel

ISI: why so critical?

z In a large number of cases, the

IIS is the most annoying
phenomenon affecting the digital
transmission
z E.g.: in a radio channel, the
receiver gets multiple copies of
the transmitted signal, with
different delays and attenuations
(=> time spreading of the signal)
z Example: single-carrier
transmission at RS=10Mbps
z TS=1/RS=0.1s ISI for 100
z Multipath delay (time spreading): symbols !!!
10s*
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 OFDMs trick

z The symbol duration is increased, to be much longer

than the multi-path delay
z N low-rate parallel flows transmitted
(RP =1/(NTS) the data rate of each flow)
Symbol duration: T=1/NTS
The overall rate is preserved (like in the single carrier case):
RS=NRp
z Reminder: B1/TS
z E.g: if N=1000 and TS=0.1s, T=100 s

The transmitted symbol is ten times

longer than the multipath delay!!!
7

Parallel transmission on multiple

carriers

Longer
S(f)
z
s(t)
TS

symbol 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1

duration on t f

each parallel
B=1/T
s1(t)
S(f) S

carrier t
S1(f)
S2(f)
S3(f)
3TS
z The multiple s2(t)
t f
carriers must s3(t)
B=3/4TS

be t

orthogonal
Principle of the parallel transmission on multiple carriers

8
 Comments on the previous slide

z The direct effect of increasing the symbol

duration is that its bandwidth decreases
correspondingly
z In OFDM, data is transmitted through a large
number of narrow-band streams Multiple channels
Single-carrier are narrowband
signal is
broadband

Frequency
9 Frequency

Orthogonal carriers
z The OFDM carriers are orthogonal, their
frequencies being f0, 2f0, 3f0 etc.
( k +1)T
2 1, if m = n
T sin(mf0t ) sin(nf0t ) dt =
0, if m n
(1)
kT

z Complex exponentials of limited duration

used in practice
Their duration equals OFDMs symbol time (T)
z The orthogonality is met if: f0=1/T

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 OFDM: the carriers and their spectra

1/T
1

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2
Amplitudine

-0.2

-0.4

-0.6

-0.8

-1
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
timp
T
OFDMs carriers spectra.
11 OFDMs orthogonal carriers.

Comments on the previous slide

z In the time domain, every carrier covers an integer number of

cycles (periods) during the symbol time (T)
This is a condition for orthogonality
z The carriers are time-bounded by a rectangular window, giving
the symbol duration
z The sinc shape of the spectrum corresponds to a sine carrier
multiplied by a rectangular time window
z At the central frequency of each carrier, all the other carriers
cross zero
This is the orthogonality frequency view
Carriers must be separated by 1/T on the frequency axis

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 Modulaia multipurttoare cu purttoare sinusoidale

OFDM signal generation

z The signal corresponding to an OFDM symbol:
1 N 1
ss (t ) = An e j ( nt +n ), pentru t [kT ,(k + 1)T ] (2)
N n =0

z If ss(t) is sampled every TS seconds:

1 N 1
ss (kTS ) =
N n =0
An e j n e jnkTS , k = 0,..., N 1 (3)

z Inverse Fast Fourier Transform

1 N 1 n jn 2k / N
g (kTS ) = G e (4)
N n =0 NTS
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Comments on the previous slide

z The data symbol to be transmitted (from eq. 2) is:X[n] = An ejn

This symbol corresponds to a certain modulation scheme
(e.g. BPSK, QPSK, QAM etc)
z The signal from (2) corresponds to a single OFDM
symbol (the time spanning is T)
z In equations (3) and (4), TS is the sampling time, and
it matches the duration of the serial symbol to be
transmitted
j n 2
z Eq. (3) and (4) are equivalent if: An e n = G( NT ) and = T
s
z The data symbols to be transmitted can be regarded
as complex valued frequency-domain samples
z Eq. 4 is very close to IFFTs formula
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 IFFT modulator
z A discrete version of the OFDM symbol is obtained
by applying IFFT to the data sequence to be
transmitted
IFFT
2
j0n
e N x[0]
2
X[0] X[1] . . . X[N-1] j1 n
e N x[1]

x [n ] =
N 1
X [k ] e
jk
2
N ,
n
(1.5)

k =0 2
j ( N 1) n x[N-1]
n = 0,..., N 1 e N

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Comments on the previous slide

z FFT is a fast algorithm for the DFT implementation

z The orthogonal carriers are the complex 2
jk n
e N
exponentials
z Usage of IFFT cancels the need for analog
oscillators generating the orthogonal carriers
z N is the total number of (multiple) carriers used in
transmission
z Demodulator uses the direct transform (FFT)

OFDM signal is generated in the

16 baseband by signal processing only!!!
 Cyclic prefix: why?

z If the channel is not ideal (is time-dispersive), the

successive OFDM blocks will interfere
z This happens because each symbol is dispersed in time
by the channel (see silde 6)
a)

Symbol i-1 Symbol i Symbol i+1 Channel

b)

i-1 i i+1

Interference Interference

The transmission of several OFDM symbol and their interference to the

receiver

z Inter-Block Interference (IBI) arises

Sometimes referred to as Inter-(OFDM)Symbol Interference
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Modulaia multipurttoare cu purttoare sinusoidale

OFDMs cyclic prefix

z Sometimes referred to as guard time
z Cancels IBI
z Simplifies equalization
z Eases synchronization (a signal is always transmitted)
z Cyclic Prefix is removed by the demodulator

Symbol i Symbol i+1

Simbol i Simbol i+1

Symbol i Symbol i+1

Symbol i Symbol i+1
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 Comments on the cyclic prefix
z IBI cancellation
Occurs only if the CP is longer than the multipath delay
Longer CP duration means higher protection against ISI, but
smaller efficiency
z Synchronization is simpler if a signal is always transmitted
E.g. a peak in the autocorrelation of the OFDM symbol could
indicate the OFDM symbol start
z Equalization is simpler, because the linear convolution
(x[n]*h[n]) is transformed into a periodic one
This allows to use a very simple, one-tap, frequency domain
equalizer
Every received sample R[k], must be divided by H[k], the channels
response at the k-th frequency line

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The transmitter
X0,k x0,k
serial-to- X1,k IDFT x1,k parallel-
dn parallel to-serial xn
(IFFT)
N data
symbols: XN,k xN,k
Base-band
(in frequency- signal
domain) (time-domain)
Xi,k z k is the index of the OFDM
Im symbol
z The base-band signal is
Re converted to an analog signal,
and modulates a high-frequency
carrier before being transmitted
z N is a power of 2 (256, 512 etc)
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 OFDM Block Diagram

I/Q I/Q
Channel Symbol OFDM Guard
Transmitter coding / mapping modulation interval
interleaving (modulation) (IFFT)

OFDM s pectrum for N = 128, N = 12, N = 24, overs am pling = 1

0110 010101001 FFT w in guard

power s pectrum m agnitude [dB ]

10
N symbols
0

-10
1 OFDM symbol
-20
Receiver -30

-40
FFT-part
-50
Decoding / symbol de- -60 -40OFDM -20 0 Guard
20 40 60
deinter- mapping demod. f [M Hz ] interval
tim e dom ain signal (baseband)
leaving (detection)0.2 (FFT) removal
Channel 0.1 I/Q I/Q
impulse est.
Channel response: Time sync. time
0

-0.1
Introductionim aginary
real
-0 2

OFDM: drawbacks and challenges

z High sensitivity to time and frequency

synchronization errors
The channel attacks the carriers orthogonality
z High value of Peak-to-Average-Power Ratio
(PAPR) (highly variable envelope)
z Overhead due to CP
z Insufficient out-of-band attenuation

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 OFDM in real world

z Most of the wireless transmission standards

WiMAX (IEEE 802.16), WiFi (IEEE 802.11), LTE
(3GPP release 8), DAVB
Proprietary solutions: Flash OFDM (Flarion)
z Wired broadband access
xDSL
z Data transmission through power line (PLC =
Power Line Communications)

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Acknowledgement

Some of the pictures from this slide are

reproduced from the course slides published
on-line by Klaus Witrisal (Signal Processing
and Speech Communication Lab Technical
University Graz, Austria). The title of his
presentation is
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
(OFDM): Concept and System-Modeling

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