Comparison of OFDM, SC-FDMA and MC-CDMA As Access

26th IEEEP Students Seminar 2011
Pakistan Navy Engineering College

National University of Sciences & Technology
Comparison of OFDM, SC-FDMA and MC-CDMA as Access
Techniques for Mobile Communication

Abstract--a limited amount of bandwidth
is allocated for wireless services. A
wireless system is required to
accommodate as many users as possible
by effectively sharing the limited
bandwidth. Therefore, in the field of
communications, the term multiple access
could be defined as a means of allowing
multiple users to simultaneously share the
finite bandwidth with least possible
degradation in the performance of the
system. There are several multiple access
techniques.
In this paper, we have compared Bit
Error Rate (BER) performance of access
techniques such as Orthogonal Frequency
Division Multiplexing (OFDM), Single-
Carrier Frequency Division Multiple
Access (SC-FDMA) and Multi-Carrier
Code Division Multiple Access (MC-
CDMA) that are used in uplink and
downlink channels for wireless
communication. Through our analysis, we
will be able to conclude, on the basis of
BER results, which of the Access
techniques are better for uplink and
downlink for wireless communication.
(Abstract)

Keywords-components; OFDM, SC-FDMA,
MC-CDMA, BER (keywords)

I. INTRODUCTION
The technique of multi-carrier
transmission has received wide interest,
especially for high data rate broadcast
applications. It provides the basic principle
of transmitting data simultaneously through
a band-limited channel without interference
between sub-channels (without inter-channel
interference, ICI) and without interference
between consecutive transmitted symbols
(without inter-symbol interference, ISI) in
the time domain [1]. In multi-carrier
transmission, the Fourier Transform is used
for baseband processing instead of a bank of
sub-carrier oscillators.
The basic principle of multi-carrier
modulation relies on the transmission of data
by dividing a high-rate data stream into
several parallel low rate sub-streams. These
sub-streams are modulated on different sub-
carriers [2, 3, 4]. Since the amount of filters
and oscillators necessary is considerable for
a large number of sub-carriers, an efficient
digital implementation of a special form of
multi-carrier modulation, called orthogonal
frequency division multiplexing (OFDM),
with rectangular pulse-shaping and guard
time was proposed [4]. OFDM can be easily
realized by using the Discrete Fourier
Transform (DFT). OFDM, having densely
spaced sub-carriers with overlapping spectra
of the modulated signals, abandons the use
of steep band-pass filters to detect each sub-
carrier as it is used in FDMA schemes.
Therefore, it offers high spectral efficiency.
Zohaib Shaikh
Department of Telecommunication,
I2CT, Mehran UET, Jamshoro
Jamshoro, Pakistan
zohaibshaikh87@gmail.com
Waseem Mahar
Jamshoro, Pakistan
waseemmahar@yahoo.com
Ahad Jan Pathan
Jamshoro, Pakistan
ahad.jan94@gmail.com
Another access technique called SC-
FDMA. DFT-spread OFDM is a single-
carrier FDMA scheme that guarantees a low
PAPR. This is essential for the power
efficiency of the mobile terminal transmitter.
A certain amount of flexibility in resource
allocation and scheduling is achieved with
DFT-spread OFDM in the uplink.
Following this section, in section 2,
the basic principles of single-carrier and
multi-carrier transmission are outlined.
Section 3 presents the mathematical model
of the systems under consideration in this
paper. The simulations results are discussed
in section 4, and finally some conclusions
are drawn in section 4.
II. SINGLE-CARRIER TRANSMISSION &
MULTI-CARRIER TRANSMISSION
High data rate requires smaller
symbol period, however, if symbol period is
less than delay spread then we have ISI.
Therefore, we have limited data rate with
single carrier transmission. Having multiple
carriers and making the symbol period on
each carrier higher than the delay spread of
the channel effective rate will be high
because we are using multiple carriers
(serial to parallel conversion) [1]. This is
similar to FDM where we use different
carriers in non-overlapping frequency bands
bands that degrade the spectral efficiency.
This problem of poor spectral efficiency can
be resolved using OFDM, due to the
orthogonality property of the carriers we
place them as close as possible ensuring
bandwidth efficiency. Compared to
conventional SC (Single-Carrier), MC
(Multi-Carrier) offers higher spectral
efficiency by avoiding the need for large
guard bands between users' signals. The
main advantages of multi-carrier
transmission are its robustness in frequency
selective fading channels and, in particular,
the reduced signal processing complexity by
equalization in the frequency domain.

Figure 1. Shows orthogonality of sub-
carriers
To take the advantages of both multi-carrier
modulation and the flexibility offered by the
spread spectrum technique, both techniques
can be combined known as Multi-Carrier
Spread Spectrum (MC-SS). This has
introduced new multiple access scheme
called MC-CDMA. The basic MC-CDMA
signal is generated by a serial concatenation
of classical DS-CDMA and OFDM. Multi-
carrier modulation and multi-carrier spread
spectrum are today considered potential
candidates to fulfill the requirements of
next-generation (4G) high speed wireless
multimedia communications systems, where
spectral efficiency and flexibility are
considered as the most important criteria for
the choice of the air interface.
III. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
The transmitter and receiver of
OFDM, SC-FDMA and MC-CDMA are
shown in figure 2, 3 and 4 respectively.
OFDM is actually a template of MC-CDMA
and SC-FDMA. In this paper, main
differences and performance of these
systems are focused.
A communication system with multi-carrier
modulation transmits Nc complex-valued
source symbols1 Sn, n = 0, . . . ,Nc 1, in
parallel on to Nc sub-carriers. The source
symbols may, for instance, be obtained after
source and channel coding, interleaving, and
symbol mapping. The source symbol
duration Td of the serial data symbols
results after serial-to-parallel conversion in
the OFDM symbol duration
Ts = NcTu (1)
The principle of OFDM is to modulate the
Nc sub-streams on sub-carriers with a
spacing of
Fs =
1
Ts
(2)
in order to achieve orthogonality between
the signals on the Nc sub-carriers,
presuming a rectangular pulse shaping.
TheNc parallel modulated source symbols
Sn, n = 0, . . . ,Nc 1, are referred to as an
OFDM symbol. The complex envelope of an
OFDM symbol with rectangular pulse
shaping has the form
x(t) =
1
Nc
_ (Sne
j2Int
),
n=1
(3)
A key advantage of using OFDM is that
multi-carrier modulation can be
implemented in the discrete domain by using
an IDFT, or a more computationally
efficient IFFT. When sampling the complex
envelope x(t ) of an OFDM symbol with rate
1/Td the samples are
xv =
1
Nc
_Sne
]2Inv
Nc
],
Nc-1
n=0
(4)
where
v = u,1,2, Nc - 1.
The sampled sequence xv, v = 0, . . . , Nc
1, is the IDFT of the source symbol
sequence Sn, n = 0, . . . , Nc 1. The block
diagram of a multi-carrier modulator
employing OFDM based on an IDFT and a
multi-carrier demodulator employing
inverse OFDM based on a DFT is illustrated
in Figure 2.
When the number of sub-carriers increases,
the OFDM symbol duration Ts becomes
large compared to the duration of the
impulse response max of the channel, and
the amount of ISI reduces. However, to
completely avoid the effects of ISI and thus,
to maintain the orthogonality between the
signals on the sub-carriers, i.e. to also avoid
ICI, a guard interval of duration
Tg imax (5)
has to be inserted between adjacent OFDM
symbols. The guard interval is a cyclic
extension of each OFDM symbol, which is
obtained by extending the duration of an
OFDM symbol to
Ts = Tg + Ts (6)
The discrete length of the guard interval has
to be
Lg
tmaxNc
Ts
(7)
samples in order to prevent ISI. The sampled
sequence with cyclic extended guard
interval results in
xv =
1
Nc
_ (Sne
j2InvNc
),
Nc-1
n=0
(8)
where
v = -Lg , Nc - 1.
The output of the channel, after RF down-
conversion, is the received signal waveform
y(t ) obtained from convolution of x(t ) with
the channel impulse response h( , t) and
addition of a noise signal n(t ), i.e.
y(t) = ] x(t - i)
-
h(i, t)ui + n(t) (9)
The received signal y(t ) is passed through
an analogue-to-digital converter, whose
output sequence yv, v = Lg, . . . ,Nc 1, is
the received signal y(t ) sampled at rate 1/Td
. Since ISI is only present in the first Lg
samples of the received sequence, these Lg
samples are removed before multi-carrier
demodulation. The ISI-free part v = 0, . . .
,Nc 1, of yv is multi-carrier demodulated
by inverse OFDM exploiting a DFT. The
output of the DFT is the multi-carrier
demodulated sequence Rn, n = 0, . . . , Nc
1, consisting of Nc complex-valued symbols
Rn = _ (yve
-j2InvNc
),
Nc-1
n=0
(10)
Since ICI can be avoided due to the guard
interval, each sub-channel can be considered
separately. Furthermore, when assuming that
the fading on each sub-channel is flat and
ISI is removed, a received symbol Rn is
obtained from the frequency domain
representation.
Rn = BnSn +Nn, (11)
where
n = u,1,2, , Nc - 1
where Hn is the flat fading factor and Nn
represents the noise of the nth sub-channel.
The flat fading factor Hn is the sample of
the channel transfer function Hn,i according
to Equation (11) where the time index i is
omitted for simplicity. The variance of the
noise is given by
2
= E{|Nn|
2
] (12)
The following matrixvector notation is
introduced to describe multi-carrier systems
concisely. Vectors are represented by
boldface small letters and matrices by
boldface capital letters. The symbol ()
T
denotes the transposition of a vector or a
matrix. The complex-valued source symbols
Sn, n = 0, . . . , Nc 1, transmitted in
parallel in one OFDM symbol, are
represented by the vector
S = (s
0
, s
1
, , s
Nc-1
)
T
(13)
The Nc Nc channel matrix
H=_
B
0
u
. .
u B
Nc-1,Nc-1
_ (14)
is of the diagonal type in the absence of ISI
and ICI. The diagonal components of H are
the complex-valued flat fading coefficients
assigned to the Nc sub-channels. The vector
n = (N
0
, N
1
, , N
Nc-1
)
T
(15)
represents the additive noise. The received
symbols obtained after inverse OFDM are
given by the vector
i = (R
0
, R
1
, , R
Nc-1
)
T
(16)
The block diagram of OFDM is shown in
figure 2. User generates the serial data
stream which is then M-ary Phase Shift
Keying (either Binary Phase Shift Keying
(BPSK) or any other) modulated. After
converting the modulated data into parallel
streams, are mapped onto the subcarriers.
Since all these operations have been taken
into frequency domain, eventually IFFT is
taken to convert into time domain that is to
be transmitted into medium. Receiver of
OFDM is just a replica of transmitter.
The block diagram of SC-FDMA is
shown in figure 3. In SC-FDMA, we have
taken DFT before OFDM operation is
performed so it is also called DFT-spread
OFDM. DFT-spread OFDM guarantees low
PAPR. This is essential for the power
efficiency of the mobile terminal transmitter.
A certain amount of flexibility in resource
allocation and scheduling is achieved with
DFT-spread OFDM in the uplink. PAPR of
SC-FDMA is much lower because of single
carrier transmission.
In order to achieve MC-CDMA, the
basic template of OFDM is changed. The
block diagram of MC-CDMA is shown in
the figure 4. The M-ary Phase Shift Keying
(either Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK)
or any other) modulated streams are spread
by SF factor. So energy of data stream is
spread over wide spectrum due to this
reason, transmitted MC-CDMAs signal
have lower PAPR. However, in the receiver,
combiner is used to combine the EbNodB of
repeated data bits (repeated data by factor of
SF). Therefore, at the receiver, repeated
data bits are combined to increase the SNR
that results in lower BER. Also, it is noted
that OFDM provides lower BER than SC-
FDMA.

IV. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS AND
RESULTS

In this section, in order to measure
the BER performance of OFDM, SC-FDMA
and MC-CDMA, we have considered the
parameters shown in table 1.
Since FFT sampling frequency is 20MHz, so
FFT size is Sampling FFT frequency times
data symbol duration= FFT size=20e6*3.0e-
6=64. Similarly, no. of cyclic prefix is
Sampling frequency times cyclic prefix
duration=CP=0.8e-6*20e6=16. BER of
stated access techniques are simulated by
using these parameters. Parameters and
simulation results are shown in below.

MPSKDemod
Rxdata
Parallel to
serial
converter
Mpoint
(IFFT)
Equalizer
Inverse
OFDM
(FFT)
Figure 3: SC-FDMA block diagram
User
MPSK
AWGN
Rayleigh
Serial to
parallel
converter
OFDM
(IFFT)
Mpoint
(FFT)
Figure 2: OFDM block diagram
User
MPSK
MPSK
Demod
Rxdata
AWG
Rayleig
Serialto
parallel
converter
OFDM
(IFFT)
Parallelto
serial
converter
Inverse
OFDM
(FFT)
Equalizer

Figure 5 actually shows BER performance
of OFDM, SC-FDMA and MC-CDMA with
QPSK modulation. Graph clearly shows
BER and Eb/No values.

Figure 5: BER of OFDM, SC-FDMA and
MC-CDMA with QPSK

Figure 6: BER of OFDM, SC-FDMA and
MC-CDMA with 16PSK
Figure 6 shows BER performance of
OFDM, SC-FDMA and MC-CDMA with
16PSK modulation. Through these graphs
we can easily judge the performance of
OFDM, SC-FDMA and MC-CDMA.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
10
-5
10
-4
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0

X: 2
Y: 0.001719
Eb/No, dB
B
i
t

E
r
r
o
r

R
a
t
e
X: 2
Y: 0.06609
X: 2
Y: 0.07695
X: 4
Y: 0.0008073
X: 4
Y: 0.03677
X: 6
Y: 0.0004948
X: 6
Y: 0.008672
X: 6
Y: 0.01237
X: 8
Y: 0.002552
X: 4
Y: 0.02773
X: 8
Y: 0.0002604
X: 8
Y: 0.003724
BER QPSK MC-CDMA,SC-FDMA,OFDM with 6-tap Rayleigh
MC-CDMA
SC-FDMA
OFDM
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
10
-5
10
-4
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0

X: 6
Y: 0.006862
Eb/No, dB
B
i
t

E
r
r
o
r

R
a
t
e
BER 16PSK MC-CDMA,SC-FDMA,OFDM with 6-tap Rayleigh
X: 8
Y: 0.09801
X: 8
Y: 0.08353
X: 6
Y: 0.1485
X: 4
Y: 0.1955
X: 4
Y: 0.187
X: 2
Y: 0.2439
X: 2
Y: 0.2395
X: 8
Y: 0.002617
X: 4
Y: 0.01637
X: 6
Y: 0.1359
X: 2
Y: 0.03973
MC-CDMA
SC-FDMA
OFDM
Parameter Value
`FFT size. 64
FFT Sampling frequency 20MHz
Data Subcarrier 52
Cyclic prefix duration, Tcp 0.8us
Data symbol duration, Td 3.2us
Number of Cyclic Prefix 16
Total subcarriers 80
Figure 4: MC-CDMA block diagram
User
MPSK
MPSKDemod
Rxdata
AWGN
Rayleigh
Serialto
parallel
converter
OFDM
(IFFT)
Combiner
Inverse
OFDM
(FFT)
Spreader
Despreader
Equalizer
Table 1: Parameters used in simulation
V. CONCLUSIONS
Figure 5 and 6 show BER values for
stated multiple access techniques with
QPSK and 16PSK modulation schemes
respectively. However, MC-CDMA
provides lower BER than OFDM and SC-
FDMA. Reason is that, in MC-CDMA
combiner is used at the receiver. We know
that in MC-CDMA MPSK users modulated
data spread over wider bandwidth with
respect to SF (Spreading Factors) as shown
in figure 4. Therefore, at the receiver,
repeated data bits are combined to increase
the SNR that results in lower BER. Also, it
is noted that OFDM provides lower BER
than SC-FDMA. So OFDM performance is
better than SC-FDMA. But MC-CDMA
performance is better than both OFDM and
SC-FDMA. The authors intend to extend
this research by working on PAPR
evaluation and reduction of stated multiple
access techniques.
REFERENCES
[1] K. Fazel and S. Kaiser, Multi-Carrier
and Spread Spectrum Systems. John
Wiley and Sons, 2003.
[2] Alard M. and Lassalle R., Principles of
modulation and channel coding for
digital broadcasting for mobile
receivers, European Broadcast Union
Review, no. 224, pp. 4769, Aug. 1987.
[3] Bingham J. A. C., Multicarrier
modulation for data transmission: an
idea whose time has come, IEEE
Communications Magazine, vol. 28, pp.
514, May 1990.
[4] Cimini L. J., Analysis and simulation
of a digital mobile channel using
orthogonal frequency division
multiplexing, IEEE Transactions on
Communications, vol. 33, pp. 665675,
July 1985.

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26th IEEEP Students Seminar 2011

Pakistan Navy Engineering College

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