OFDM and Multicarrier Communications

an overview, issues and knowledge gaps

POZNAN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

Hanna Bogucka

WPR1 Kick-off meeting, Paris, June 25, 2004
2
Outline
OFDM and multicarrier modulation concept
Applications
OFDM advantages
OFDM drawbacks
Interesting directions of research
Knowledge gaps
Discussion


3
OFDM and multicarrier modulation concept
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), is a form of
multicarrier transmission, in which a high-rate data stream is
transmitted in a parallel manner over a number of low-rate orthogonal
subcarriers
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4
P/S
OFDM Transceiver


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QAM
mapper
Pilot
insertion
S/P
IFFT
FFT
P/S
CP and
windowing
D/A RF TX
Decoder
De-
interleaver
QAM
demapper
Equalizer
S/P
CP
removal
A/D RF RX
Timing and
frequency
synchronization
Binary
input
Binary
output
5
OFDM spectrum, cyclic prefix and postfix

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postfix
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Normalized frequency
6
Applications
High-speed digital subscriber lines (HDSL, ADSL, VDSL)
Digital broadcasting systems (DAB, DVB-T)
Wireless LANs (HIPERLAN/2, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.16,
MMAC)
Fixed broadband wireless access (IEEE 802.11g)
Considered for wireless ATM network (Magic-WAND),
Considered for future broadband radio area networks and
multimedia communications (European and American
projects).

7
OFDM Advantages
Robustness against multipath fading and intersymbol interference
and narrow-band interference (MC-CDMA)
High spectral efficiency, no side bandwidth required for system
operation,
Simple frequency domain equalization
Single-frequency network configuration possibility
Inherent flexibility, especially with the application of
adaptive bit and power loading,
adaptive modulation and coding,
adaptive subcarrier allocation,
space-time processing, MIMO, smart antennas,
multicarrier CDMA, MC-DS-CDMA, and so on
8
OFDM Drawbacks
High Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) of the transmitted
signal resulting in:
clipping noise (limited quantization levels, rounding and truncation,
during IFFT and FFT computation)
nonlinear distortions of power amplifiers
BER performance degradation,
energy spilling into adjacent channels,
intermodulation effects on the subcarriers, warping of the signal
constellation in each subchannel.
Sensitivity to frequency offset and phase noise, which are
sources of intercarrier interference,
Whitening of impulse noise

9
Interesting directions of research
PAPR reduction
Clipping and windowing, recursive clipping
Reference signal subtraction






10
PAPR reduction, cont.
Coding
Golay complementary codes
generalized Reed-Muller codes
Parallel combinatory OFDM signaling





Multiple signal representation
Pre-distortion
11
PAPR reduction - Multiple signal representation
Selected Mapping







12
Partial Transmit Sequences

PAPR reduction - Multiple signal representation, cont.
13
Interesting directions of research, cont.
Conflating adaptive modulation and coding for OFDM
Adaptive bit and power loading
Adaptive resource management (subcarrier and spreading code
allocation)
Throughput-oriented, power-oriented and delay-oriented adaptation
strategies
Frequency-domain processing for single-carrier modulation
The use of IOTA (Isotropic Orthogonal Transfer Algorithm) function
Fast OFDM (FOFDM) with intercarrier frequency spacing equal to
half of the inverse of the signalling interval
Filtered multitone FDMA
14
Impulse noise rejection for OFDM
Non-linear clipping
Median filtering and spectrum analysis
Application of guard frequencies
Application of pilots and DSP algorithms
MSE monitoring and R-S coding
Adaptation of decision areas for data symbols
Rejection of OFDM block in case of a number of non-
reliable blocks exceeding a certain threshold
Rejection of R-S symbols containing bits transmitted on
non-reliable subcarriers

Interesting directions of research, cont.
15
MC-CDMA and MC-DS-CDMA
Frequency hoping OFDMA
MC-CDMA for the down-link in 4G cellular system
MC-CDMA for the up-link with parallel interference cancellation or
joint detection
MC-DS-CDMA for the up-link (power efficiency of a terminal)
Adaptive MC-CDMA with capacity optimization
Impulse noise rejection
OFDM MIMO, space - time diversity, e.g. cyclic delay diversity
Smart algorithms for phase-noise and frequency-offset
compensation, channel (turbo) estimation and equalization, pre-
equalization, joint detection for multiuser OFDM, and so on.



Interesting directions of research, cont.
16
Knowledge gaps
PAPR reduction methods without or minimized transmission
overhead
For OFDM
For MC-CDMA
Fast link adaptation techniques for mobile users
Fast channel prediction
Minimization of feedback information delay
Simple optimisation algorithm
Cross-layer optimization (set up the basis in the physical layer)
Multi-criteria optimization for high capacity energy-aware networks
and systems
Safe impulse noise rejection
?