OFDM(A) Competence Development Part I

Per Hjalmar Lehne, Frode Bhagen, Telenor R&I

R&I seminar, 23 January 2008, Fornebu, Norway

Per-hjalmar.lehne@telenor.com
Frode.bohagen@telenor.com

23 Jan 2008
OFDM Competence Development
2
Outline

Part I: What is OFDM?

Part II: Introducing multiple access: OFDMA, SC-FDMA

Part III: Wireless standards based on OFDMA

Part IV: Radio planning of OFDMA

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OFDM Competence Development
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OFDM Basic Concept
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a
multi-carrier modulation scheme
First break the data into small portions
Then use a number of parallel orthogonal sub-carriers to transmit
the data
Conventional transmission uses a single carrier, which is
modulated with all the data to be sent

Single Carrier Company
Multi Carrier Company
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OFDM Competence Development
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OFDM Basic Concept
OFDM is a special case of
Frequency Division Multiplexing
(FDM)
For FDM
No special relationship between
the carrier frequencies
Guard bands have to be inserted
to avoid Adjacent Channel
Interference (ACI)
For OFDM
Strict relation between carriers:
f
k
= kAf where Af = 1/T
U
(T
U
- symbol period)

Carriers are orthogonal to each
other and can be packed tight
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OFDM Competence Development
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OFDM Transmission model
Channel, h(t)
Modulator
and transmitter
Wireless channel
Receiver and demodulator
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Orthogonality the essential property
Example: Receiver branch k
Ideal channel: No noise and no multipath



T
u
= 1/Af gives subcarrier orthogonality over one T
u
=> possible to separate subcarriers in receiver
( )

=
=
= =
|
|
.
|

\
|

} }


=
t
A t

=
A t
q k , 0
q k , a
dt e
T
a
dt e e a
T
1
k
1 N
0 q
T
0
t
T
1
k q 2 j
U
q
T
0
ft k 2 j
1 N
0 q
ft q 2 j
q
U
c
U
U
U
c
Received signal, r(t)
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OFDM Competence Development
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OFDM Signal properties
Time domain
Frequency domain
Power Spectrum for OFDM symbol
frequency
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OFDM Signal properties


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Multipath channel
] , [
0 0
t o
] , [
1 1
t o
Diffracted and Scattered Paths
Reflected Path
LOS Path
] , [
k k
t o
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Multipath channel (cyclic prefix)
Time
[t]
Amplitude
[o]
Example multipath profile
t
0
t
1
t
2
The prefix is made cyclic to avoid inter-carrier-interference(ICI)
(maintain orthogonality)
Multipath introduces inter-symbol-interference(ISI)

T
U
Prefix is added to avoid ISI
T
U
T
CP
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Multipath channel (cyclic prefix)
T
cp
should cover the maximum length of the time
dispersion
Increasing T
cp
implies increased overhead in power and
bandwidth (T
cp
/ T
S
)
For large transmission distances there is a trade-off
between power loss and time dispersion
CP Useful symbol CP Useful symbol CP Useful symbol
T
U
T
cp
T
S
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Multipath channel (frequency diversity)
=
The OFDM symbol can be exposed to a frequency selective
channel
The attenuation for each subcarrier can be viewed as flat
Due to the cyclic prefix there is no need for a complex equalizer
Possible transmission techniques
Forward error correction (FEC) over the frequency band
Adaptive coding and modulation per carrier
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OFDM Competence Development
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Multipath channel (frequency diversity)

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Frequency/subcarrier
Pilot carriers /reference signals
Data carriers
Multipath channel (pilot symbols)
The channel parameters can be estimated based on known
symbols (pilot symbols)
The pilot symbols should have sufficient density to provide
estimates with good quality (tradeoff with efficiency)
Different estimation methods exist
Averaging combined with interpolation
Minimum-mean square error (MMSE)
Pilot symbol
Time
Frequency
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The Peak to Average Power Problem
A OFDM signal consists of a number of independently modulated
symbols
The sum of independently modulated subcarriers can have large
amplitude variations


Results in a large peak-to-average-power ratio (PAPR)

=
A t
=
1 N
0 k
t f k 2 j
k
c
e a ) t ( x
PA
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The Peak to Average Power Problem
Example with 8 carriers and
BPSK modulation
x(t) plotted
It can be shown that the PAPR
becomes equal to N
c
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The Peak to Average Power Problem
High efficiency power amplifiers
are desirable
For the handset, long battery life
For the base station, reduced
operating costs
A large PAPR is negative for the
power amplifier efficiency
Non-linearity results in inter-
modulation
Degrades BER performance
Out-of-band radiation
PA
P
IN
P
OUT
IBO
AM/AM characteristic
OBO
Average Peak
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The Peak to Average Power Problem
Different tools to deal with large PAPR
Signal distortion techniques
Clipping and windowing introduces distortion and out-of-band
radiation, tradeoff with respect to reduced backoff
Coding techniques
FEC codes excludes OFDM symbols with a large PAPR
(decreasing the PAPR decreases code space). Tone reservation,
and pre-coding are other examples of coding techniques.
Scrambling techniques
Different scrambling sequences are applied, and the one
resulting in the smallest PAPR is chosen
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OFDM Synchronization
Timing recovery
No problem if offset is within At





Frequency synchronization
A carrier synchronization error will introduce phase
rotation, amplitude reduction and ICI
Frequency offsets of up to 2 % of Af is negligible
Even offsets of 5 10 % can be tolerated in many
situations
t
max At

CP Useful symbol
Integration period, T
U
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Choosing the OFDM parameters
Symbol time (T
U
) and subcarrier
spacing (Af) are inverse
T
U
= 1/Af
Consequences of increasing the
subcarrier spacing
Increase cyclic prefix overhead
Consequences of decreasing the
subcarrier spacing
Increase sensitivity to frequency
inaccuracy
Increasing number of subcarriers
increases Tx and Rx complexity
Increasing
subcarrier spacing
Decreasing
subcarrier spacing
Increase sensitivity to
frequency accuracy
T
U
Increase CP
overhead
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Summary
Advantages
Splitting the channel into narrowband channels enables significant
simplification of equalizer design
Effective implementation possible by applying FFT
Flexible bandwidths enabled through scalable number of sub-
channels
Possible to exploit both time and frequency domain variations (time
domain adaptation/coding + freq. domain adaptation/coding)
Challenges
Large peak to average power ratio
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Summary
Channel, h(t)
PA
CP
Frequency/subcarrier
Pilot carriers /reference signals
Data carriers