10/17/2019 A Beginner's Guide to OFDM - Qasim Chaudhari

Blogs 

Home
Blogs
Forums
TV
Jobs
Tutorials
Books
Free Books
Free PDFs
Vendors
Code
Login / Register

Home Blogs Forums TV Jobs Tutorials Books Free Books Free PDFs Vendors Code   
promoted
Free Webinar: How to choose between analog hardware Sign in
and digital signal processing software
In this webinar, we will explore how developers can use DSP techniques to
Username Password Sign i
replace analog components to decrease BOM, reduce the design cycle time
and increase engineering exibility by providing demonstrations and real- Remember me
world examples on how developers can achieve this.
Forgot username or password?  |  Create account
Watch Webinar 

You might also like...

hide

    Blogs    Qasim Chaudhari  

A Beginner's Guide to OFDM

Qasim Chaudhari ● May 1, 2017 ● 6 comments Tweet

Basics Wireless Communication

Expert C Programming
Techniques for Embedded
In the recent past, high data rate wireless communications is often considered synonymous Developers
to an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) system. OFDM is a special case of
multi-carrier communication as opposed to a conventional single-carrier system.  Subscribe to this Blog

The concepts on which OFDM is based are so simple that almost everyone in the wireless Receive a noti cation when Qasim Chaudha
community is a technical expert in this subject. However, I have always felt an absence of a publishes a new article:
really simple guide on how OFDM works which can prove useful for technical persons not
Your Email Subscribe
wanting to deal with too much technicalities, such as DSP experts outside communications,
computer programmers, ham radio enthusiasts and the likes. So here it is.

https://www.dsprelated.com/showarticle/1046.php 1/12
10/17/2019 A Beginner's Guide to OFDM - Qasim Chaudhari

OFDM is the technology behind many high speed systems such as WiFi (IEEE 802.11a, g, n, About Qasim Chaudhari
ac), WiMAX (IEEE 802.16) and 4G mobile communications (LTE). A close cousin, Discrete
Multi-tone (DMT), is used in ADSL and powerline communication systems. Therefore, it My main area of interest is signal
processing for wireless
seems imperative to have a signal level understanding of how OFDM works. We start with a communication systems. I write
short introduction to a wireless channel. about it at https://wirelesspi.com

A Wireless Channel
Popular Posts by Qasim Chaudha
A transmitted signal undergoes two major kinds of fading in a wireless channel:
Minimum Shift Keying (MSK) - A
1. Large scale fading, that arises from regular power decay with distance as well as Tutorial
shadowing caused by buildings and other obstacles affecting the wave propagation. Some Thoughts on Sampling
2. Small scale fading, that arises from constructive and destructive interference of multi- There and Back Again: Time of Fligh
path components and results in fast amplitude variations at the receiver. An example of Ranging between Two Wireless Nod
these multi-path components is shown in Figure 1 below where many multi-path
components arrive at the Rx of a hiker after being re ected from the nearby surfaces
such as the aeroplane, houses, trees and the mountains. Blogs - Hall of Fame

A FIXED-POINT
INTRODUCTION BY
EXAMPLE
Chrisopher Felton

HANDLING SPECTRAL
INVERSION IN
BASEBAND
PROCESSING
Eric Jacobsen

UNDERSTANDING TH
PHASING METHOD OF
SINGLE SIDEBAND
MODULATION
Rick Lyons

AN INTERESTING
Figure 1: Multi-path components arrivig at the Rx FOURIER TRANSFORM
1/F NOISE
In Figure 1, the direct path to the hiker is shown by the bold line. Assume that the second path Steve Smith

arrives after a delay of 1μs of the direct path (say, from the aeroplane) and the third path
arrives after another 1μs, i.e., a total of 2μs after the direct path. We will use these numbers Free PDF Downloads
in our examples below.
 A Quadrature Signals Tutoria
Complex, But Not Complicated
In the discussion that follows, we avoid technical terms such as delay spread, frequency-
selective fading, frequency at fading and so on. Also, we ignore the RF carrier in the
subsequent discussion to highlight the important concepts relevant to the current
discussion.Finally, we will consider binary modulation to avoid using the term symbols and  A Review of Physical and
Perceptual Feature Extraction
stick to bits instead. Techniques for Speech, Music a
Environmental Sounds

Digital Modulation
 Python For Audio Signal
Digital modulation is concerned with mapping of the bits (1s and 0s) to a property of the Processing

signal suitable for transmission. For example, consider a rectangular pulse shape. Amplitude
modulation maps 0s and 1s to ±1 as

0 → −1
All FREE PDF Downloads 
1 → +1

FFT Spectral Analysis Software

that correspondingly alters the amplitude of the rectangular pulse shape, as shown in Figure
2 below.

https://www.dsprelated.com/showarticle/1046.php 2/12
10/17/2019 A Beginner's Guide to OFDM - Qasim Chaudhari

Figure 2: Amplitude modulation

Here, a bit stream 01001010 is mapped to the sequence -1,+1,-1,-1,+1,-1,+1,-1. In this simple
system, all the Rx has to do is compare the amplitude of the received signal level (within each
bit time) to a threshold (say, 0) and decide in favor of +1 or -1 (and consequently, 1 or 0).

A Low Data Rate Signal

Suppose that the year is early 2000s and our hiker in Figure 1 only wants to check his email
and/or messages (probably driven by what is available) and requires a data rate of only 100
kbps. That translates to a bit time (also known as bit duration) of 

1/100, 000 = 10μs

as drawn in Figure 3.

Figure 3: A low rate 100 kbps signal with a bit duration equal to 10μs

As described above, the rst and second multi-path components arrive 1μs and 2μs after
the direct path, respectively (ignoring the carrier). This is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: First and second multipath components arriving after 1 and 2 μs after the direct path,
respectively (carrier wave not shown)

Since nature adds the signals at the antenna, the Rx will have a summation of these three
paths, effectively the same signal delayed by different amounts but with different attenuation
and phase shifts of the carrier waves (not drawn in the gure). Those phase shifts depend on
the path delay and the carrier frequency. Observe that 2μs is 20% of the bit duration 10μs,
an implication of which is that multi-path components will distort the Rx signal but there will
not be much interference among the bits themselves. That is to say that bit 1 through its last
path will interfere slightly with bit 2 to a little extent but not with any other bit farther than
that.

This is a situation that can be handled without much effort in terms of computational
resources. We claim that the wireless channel does not pose a signi cant problem to Rx
processing time in this low data rate scenario. It is not necessary to understand this in the
context of this article but the disadvantage here is that in case of destructive interference,
there is no other way to recover except providing diversity to the Tx signal. Diversity is a
signal replica in some form whether in time, frequency, space, etc.

Moving towards High Data Rate

Fast forward to a decade, say early 2010s. Escaping the fast pace of life, our hiker wants to
sit on top of that peaceful mountain .... to watch YouTube videos. In fact, he considers having
access to it anywhere as a basic necessity of life like water and electricity. Assume that a

https://www.dsprelated.com/showarticle/1046.php 3/12
10/17/2019 A Beginner's Guide to OFDM - Qasim Chaudhari

data rate of 10 Mbps is needed for this purpose, which translates to a bit duration of 0.1μs
as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5: A high rate 10 Mbps signal with a bit duration equal to 0.1μs

The main point is that the environment is still the same and does not care about our data
rates! Multi-path components previously arriving 1 and 2μs after the direct path will still
arrive 1 and 2μs after the direct path. This is illustrated in Figure 6 (again ignoring the
carrier). The different path lengths will translate into different attenuations and phase shifts
resulting in constructive and destructive interference throughout the signal span.

Figure 6: First and second multipath components still arrive after 1 and 2 μs after the direct
path, respectively (carrier wave not shown)

What does this imply for the high rate transmission? Notice that in this case, the initial bits of
the transmission are interfering with many tens of bits in the future through the late arriving
paths, a phenomenon known as Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI). In most cases of interest, this
ISI could have been observed even extending to hundreds or even thousands of bits. We can
conclude that the same harmless channel for low rate communication has become harsh for
high rate communication!

A solution must be devised for this problem.

Solution - Equalizer
It turns out that a solution for this kind of problem was devised by Robert Lucky at Bell Labs
in 1964: an adaptive equalizer. An equalizer is a lter that mitigates the effects of channel
fading on the Rx signal and removes the Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI). Its input is the
distorted waveform (sum of the original signal and its multi-path components) and the output
is the clean desired bit stream as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7: Equalizer input is a distorted waveform and its output is a clean bit stream

Don't think of it as a physical device. Just like everything physical got transformed into digital
logic in the history of communications (leading to software de ned radios), an equalizer sits
as mere lines of code in a microprocessor.

An equalizer has its advantages and disadvantages. Needless to say, it considerably

improves the bit error rate and consequently fundamental to making the system functional.

https://www.dsprelated.com/showarticle/1046.php 4/12
10/17/2019 A Beginner's Guide to OFDM - Qasim Chaudhari

Technically, it exploits the frequency diversity available in a broad spectrum. On the other
hand, for a high rate system, it is the most demanding and resource intensive component of a
conventional wireless Rx. While the exact numbers depend on the requirements and
implementation, it can consume even 75% of the processing resources! In high speed
communication, it is impractical to be busy processing a bit in a certain window of time while
many future bits are arriving at the Rx. That will result in lling the buffer faster than being
emptied.

We can conclude that a low data rate communication requires a relatively simple Rx
processor while high rate communication requires a heavy duty Rx processor. That kind of
processing demands high power consumption and hence not feasible for battery operated
devices like our smart phones.

Can there be a technique to achieve fast communication with a simpler equalizer? The
answer is yes and the technique is OFDM.

OFDM in Time Domain

In time domain, OFDM breaks one serial fast bit stream into many parallel slow bit streams.
Then, these parallel slow bit streams are multiplied with orthogonal sinusoids, where
orthogonality between two sinusoids is de ned with a summation over a certain time interval
as

N −1

′
∑ cos 2πkf0 n ⋅ cos 2πk f0 n = 0

n=0

when k ≠ k
′
.

This process is illustrated in detail in Figure 8 with the help of an example:

https://www.dsprelated.com/showarticle/1046.php 5/12
10/17/2019 A Beginner's Guide to OFDM - Qasim Chaudhari

Figure 8: An OFDM example in time domain. See below for details

For a bit stream b[k], the example in Figure 8 traces the following steps:

I. Assume that the bit duration is T and there are 9 bits to be sent. In a high speed
communication system, it will take 9T seconds to transmit all the bits. So we break them
down to 9 parallel bit streams each with a duration of 9T seconds.

II. Assume a fundamental frequency of f0 = 1/9T with 9 samples within this duration (that
will be one complete period). Then, this sinusoid will be orthogonal to 8 other sinusoids with
frequencies 0f0 , 2f0 , 3f0 , ⋯, 8f0 . This set of 9 sinusoids is shown in Figure 8. We will call
them subcarriers.

III. Next, we multiply each such sinusoid with +1 or −1 (depending on the bit) to scale their
amplitude accordingly.

k
b[k] ⋅ cos 2π n
9

IV. Finally, all these amplitude scaled sinusoids are added together to generate the desired
signal. Notice that this composite signal has a duration of 9T seconds (same duration as

https://www.dsprelated.com/showarticle/1046.php 6/12
10/17/2019 A Beginner's Guide to OFDM - Qasim Chaudhari

the original bit stream) but contains the information from all 9 bits.

For a bit stream b[k] mapped to a non-binary modulation scheme X[k] (having I and Q
components) and N sinusoids (instead of 9), this sequence of steps can be carried out using
the inverse Discrete Fourier Transform (iDFT) de ned as

N −1
1 k
j2π n
s[n] = ∑ X[k]e N

N
k=0

The question is what we have achieved so far. For each such individual signal, the multi-path
components arrive in not too distant future (just like a low rate stream above). The multi-path
components for individually modulated subcarriers as well as for the composite signal are
shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9: Multi-path components for individually modulated subcarriers as well as the

composite signal. First and second path respectively shown up and down for clarity

Hence, the equalizer design is easy having less spread paths and consequently less
interference with future symbols, provided that we nd a way to separate the subcarriers at
the Rx. Separating these bits at the Rx is easy: we can correlate (multiply sample by sample
and sum) the composite signal with just one subcarrier, say with frequency 6f0 . Utilizing their
orthogonality property, contribution from all other 8 subcarriers will cancel out to zero, while
the contribution from the subcarrier with that frequency 6f0 will pop out, scaled in amplitude
by our modulation signal. The same procedure can be repeated for all other subcarriers.

Essentially, this is an operation of Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) as

https://www.dsprelated.com/showarticle/1046.php 7/12
10/17/2019 A Beginner's Guide to OFDM - Qasim Chaudhari
N −1
k
−j2π n
X[k] = ∑ s[n]e N

n=0

which, for each k, will generate our modulate data.

OFDM in Frequency Domain

The wireless channel shown in Figure 1 has an impulse response derived from the
contribution of each multi-path component. It also has a frequency response, assume that it
has a shape as in Figure 10.

Figure 10: Frequency response of the wireless channel

With respect to frequency domain, the signal at the Rx is a product of the spectra of the Tx
signal and the wireless channel. Thus, the channel will allow some frequencies to pass
through unharmed while suppressing some others. We will come to this point later.

Now remember that time and frequency have inverse relationship. A signal wide in time
domain has a narrow frequency span and vice versa. Although this relationship can be
derived, we can just look into the Fourier transform of a rectangular signal: a sinc signal. The
wider the rectangle, the earlier the sinc's rst zero-crossing is. Therefore, a low rate signal
being wide in time domain has a narrow spectral representation. On the other hand, a fast
rate signal exhibiting rapid changes in time has a wide spectrum. While random data
generates a random signal that in turn is de ned in terms of power spectral density, the
underlying concept is still true and is drawn in Figure 11.

Figure 11: Spectral contents of a signal depend on its variations in time

As mentioned earlier, their interaction with the channel is through multiplication of spectral
responses. The low data rate signal needs less manipulation by the Rx to get the original data
back. Essentially for this kind of signal, as seen in Figure 12, the channel acts just as a single
multiplier that can be equalized through estimating that number (known as channel
estimation) and dividing the Rx signal by that number. So the equalization reduces to a single
division operation.

There can be a question of how to recover when the narrowband signal appears within a deep
channel fade. In that case, nothing but diversity (a signal replica in some form whether in
time, frequency, space, etc.) can recover the signal which is out of scope of this article.

https://www.dsprelated.com/showarticle/1046.php 8/12
10/17/2019 A Beginner's Guide to OFDM - Qasim Chaudhari

Figure 12: Signal bandwidth plays a central role in determining how it is treated by the channel

On the other hand, a high data rate signal needs a lot of Rx processing to equalize the
channel. Figure 12 illustrates how different portions of the signal spectrum are treated
differently by the channel and a complex algorithm needs to be implemented for signal
recovery. There is an advantage in this situation in the form of available 'frequency diversity'
which prevents the whole signal spectrum to go down in a deep fade (as opposed to low data
rate case above). Equalizer inherently exploits that same frequency diversity which is outside
the scope of this article. However, remember that we cannot afford a computationally
expensive equalizer and instead need a simpler one.

To solve this problem, what OFDM does in frequency domain is fairly simple. It just segments
the available bandwidth into many parallel almost at channels through utilizing those
sinusoidal subcarriers. Hence, equalization for each narrow slice requires just a single
division operation, rendering the computational load of the equalizer to a total of N
divisions. This is illustrated in Figure 13.

Figure 13: In frequency domain, OFDM slices the spectrum through using the subcarriers; now
each spectral segment can be processed individually

The situation is very similar to processing a bread. Each time a person wanted to eat bread,
they had to take a knife and cut a piece of bread for themselves. Then came sliced bread in
1928 that changed everything. Processing each individual slice got much easier; you could
put jam, butter or cheese on different slices. See Figure 14 below.

https://www.dsprelated.com/showarticle/1046.php 9/12
10/17/2019 A Beginner's Guide to OFDM - Qasim Chaudhari
Figure 14: Just like a whole bread needs to be sliced for eating convenience, OFDM slices the
spectrum for communication convenience

It was di cult to process a whole bread before that invention. Similarly, it is di cult to
process the collective spectrum for communication purposes. By slicing the spectrum, OFDM
not only made it easier to equalize the wireless channel but also made it possible to send
different modulation signals on different subcarriers (e.g., subcarriers experiencing 'good'
channel can be used to transmit a higher-order modulation signal that translates into more
bits within the same time). On a lighter note, now we have a formal proof that OFDM is the
best thing since sliced bread.

Summary
In time domain, OFDM converts one serial fast bit stream into many parallel slow bit
streams.
In frequency domain, OFDM segments one wide spectrum into many narrow spectra.

Remarks
There are two remarks for readers who might have the following questions in their minds,
which can be skipped by everyone else.

1. A question that can be asked at this stage is that why OFDM gure in articles and
textbooks looks different than Figure 13. The reason is that a sinusoidal subcarrier has a
spectral shape that is a single impulse. However, when that sinusoid is limited in time, it is
equivalent to multiplying it with a rectangular signal. Since Fourier transform of a rectangle is
a sinc signal, and multiplication in time domain is convolution in frequency domain, we get a
sinc signal for each subcarrier - shifted in frequency according to the frequency of that
subcarrier. The actual OFDM spectrum, though still sliced, is drawn in Figure below.

2. How does OFDM eliminate the ISI arising from the neighboring symbols (like the multi-path
in above gures)? For this purpose, a gap can be left between two subsequent symbols so
that multi-path components of the rst do not interfere with the second. However, for
numerous reasons, something known as a cyclic pre x is actually used.

Previous post by Qasim Chaudhari:

   Minimum Shift Keying (MSK) - A Tutorial
Next post by Qasim Chaudhari:
   There and Back Again: Time of Flight Ranging between Two Wireless Nodes

You might also like... (promoted content)

Expert C Programming Techniques for Embedded Developers

https://www.dsprelated.com/showarticle/1046.php 10/12
10/17/2019 A Beginner's Guide to OFDM - Qasim Chaudhari
Free
Webinar:
How to
choose
between
analog
Expert C Programming Free Webinar: How to
hardware
Techniques for choose between analog
and digital
Embedded Developers hardware and digital
signal
signal processing
processing
software
software

Comments

Comments  Write a Comment  Select to add a comment

[-] Comment by fpgaplayer ● June 26, 2017

I add some comments here some beginners like me may

confused. The implementation IFFT equal to 3 parts: carry multipliers,
rectangle low pass filters, and one adder which add all the carries. So
3 the parallel input

[X(0), X(1), . . . , X(n)]

and the serial output

T
[x(0), x(1), . . . , x(n)]

is frequency domain to time domain.

Reply  Reply 

[-] Comment by suneel_kumar ● August 18, 2019

Comment deleted by author

0

[-] Comment by suneel_kumar ● August 18, 2019

Thank you for clear explanation

0

Reply  Reply 

[-] Comment by neirober ● May 5, 2017

Thanks. I like the graphics.

2

Reply  Reply 

https://www.dsprelated.com/showarticle/1046.php 11/12
10/17/2019 A Beginner's Guide to OFDM - Qasim Chaudhari

[-] Comment by qasim_chaudhari ● May 5, 2017

I am glad for that, Neil.

1

Reply  Reply 

[-] Comment by suneel_kumar ● August 18, 2019

Well informative website

0

Reply  Reply 

To post reply to a comment, click on the 'reply' button attached to each comment. To post a new
comment (not a reply to a comment) check out the 'Write a Comment' tab at the top of the
comments.

Quick Links About DSPRelated.com Social Networks The Related Media Group

Home Advertise  

Blogs Contact
Forums Privacy Policy
TV Terms of Service
Jobs Cookies Policy
Tutorials
Books
Free Books
Free PDFs
Vendors
Code
comp.dsp

https://www.dsprelated.com/showarticle/1046.php 12/12