Wireless and CELLULAR COMMUNICATION (18EC81) Module-4
Wireless and CELLULAR COMMUNICATION (18EC81) Module-4
Multi-Carrier Modulation – Multicarrier concepts, OFDM Basics, OFDM in LTE, Timing and
Frequency Synchronization, Peak to Average Ratio, SC-Frequency Domain Equalization,
Computational Complexity Advantage of OFDM and SC-FDE.
(Text 1, Sec 3.1 – 3.7) L1, L2, L3
LTE – 4G
Key Enabling Technologies and Features of LTE
To meet its service and performance requirements, LTE design incorporates important
enabling radio and core network technologies.
Here, we provide a brief introduction to some of the key enabling technologies used in the
LTE design.
Exam Question: List the advantages of OFDM leading to its selection for
LTE and explain. (8M) Dec.2019/Jan.2020
One of the key differences between existing 3G systems and LTE is the use of Orthogonal
Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) as the underlying modulation technology.
3G systems such as UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication Systems) and CDMA2000
(Code Division Multiple Access 2000) are based on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)
technology.
CDMA works by spreading a narrow band signal over a wider bandwidth to achieve
interference resistance, and performs remarkably well for low data LTE communications such
as voice, where a large filmier of users can be multiplexed to achieve high system capacity.
OFDM has emerged as a technology of choice for achieving high data rates.
It is the core technology used by a variety of systems including Wi-Fi and Wi-MAX. The
following advantages of OFDM led to its selection for LTE:
a) Elegant solution to multipath interference
b) Exploitation of frequency diversity
c) Enables efficient multi-access scheme:
d) Efficient support of broadcast services:
e) Reduced computational complexity:
f) Robust Against narrowband interference:
g) Graceful degradation of performance under excess delay
h) Suitable for coherent demodulation:
OFDM facilitates coding and interleaving across subcarriers in the frequency domain, which
can provide robustness against burst errors caused by portions of the transmitted spectrum
undergoing deep fades.
OFDM also allows for the channel bandwidth to be scalable without impacting the hardware
design of the base station and the mobile station.
This allows LTE to be deployed in a variety of spectrum allocations and different channel
bandwidths.
Enables efficient multi-access scheme:
OFDM can be used as a multi-access scheme by partitioning different subcarriers among
multiple users. This scheme is referred to as OFDMA and is exploited in LTE.
OFDMA offers the ability to provide fine granularity in channel allocation, which can be
exploited to achieve significant capacity improvements, particularly in slow time-varying
channels
By synchronizing base stations to timing errors well within the OFDM guard interval, it
is possible to operate an OFDM network a s a single frequency network (SFN).
This allows broadcast signals from different cells to combine over the air to significantly
enhance the received signal power, thereby enabling higher data rate broadcast transmissions
for a given transmit power.
LTE design leverages this OFDM capability to improve efficient broadcast services
OFDM is relatively robust against narrowband interference, since such interference affects
only a fraction of the subcarriers.
Reduced computational complexity:
OFDM can be easily implemented using Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT/IFFT), and the
computational requirements grow only slightly faster than linearly with data rate or
bandwidth.
The computational complexity of OFDM can be shown to be O ( Blog B ) where B is the
bandwidth and is the delay spread.
The performance of an OFDM system degrades gracefully as the delay spread exceeds the
value designed for.
Greater coding and low constellation sizes can be used to provide fallback rates that are
significantly more robust against delay spread.
In other words, OFDM is well suited for adaptive modulation and coding, which allows the
system to make the best of the available channel conditions.
This contrasts with the abrupt degradation owing to error propagation that single-carrier
system experience as the delay spread exceeds the value for which the equalizer is designed.
MIMO stands for multiple input multiple output and refers to a collection of signal
processing techniques that use multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver to
improve system performance.
For MIMO techniques to be effective, it is required that the channel conditions are such that
the multipath delays do not cause inter symbol interference in other words, the channel has to
be a flat finding channel and not a frequency selective one.
At very high data rates, this is not the case and therefore MIMO techniques do not work well
in traditional broadband channels. OFDM, however, converts frequency selective board
band channel into several narrowband flat fading channels where the MIMO models and
techniques work well.
MIMO and OFDM are effectively used in Wi-Fi and WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability
for Microwave Access) systems.
OFDMA allows for allocation in both time and frequency and it is possible to design algorithms to
allocate resources in flexible and dynamic manner to meet arbitrary throughput, delay.
The standard supports dynamic, channel-dependent scheduling to enhance overall system capacity.
Given that each user will be experiencing uncorrelated fading channels, it is possible to allocate
subcarriers among users in such a way that the overall is capacity is increased. This technique, called
frequency selective multiuser scheduling, calls for focusing transmission power in each user's best
channel portion, thereby increasing the overall capacity.
Frequency selective scheduling requires good channel tracking and is generally only viable in slow
varying channels.
For fast varying channels, the overhead involved in doing this negates the potential capacity gains.
In OFDMA, frequency selective scheduling can be combined with multi-user time domain
scheduling, which calls for scheduling users during the crests of their individual fading channels.
Capacity gains are also obtained by adapting the modulation and coding to the instantaneous signal-
to-noise ratio conditions for each user subcarrier.
Transmit diversity:
(Note: Diversity is a powerful communication technique that provides wireless link improvements at
relatively low cost. Time Diversity: using time slots separated in time and time more than the
channel coherence time)
This is a technique to combat multipath fading (Multipath fading occurs when signals reach a
receiver via many paths and relative strength and phases change) in the wireless channel.
The idea here is to send copies of the same signal, coded differently, over multiple transmit
antennas.
LTE transmit diversity is based on space-frequency block coding (SFBC) techniques
complemented with frequency shift time diversity (FSTD) when four transmit antenna are used.
Transmit diversity is primarily intended for common downlink channels that cannot make use of
channel-dependent scheduling.
It can also be applied to user transmissions such as low data rate VoIP, where the additional
overhead of channel-dependent scheduling may not be justified.
Transmit diversity increases system capacity and cell range.
Transmit diversity, receive diversity and multiplexing concept is explained in Figure 4.2. SISO stands
Dr. Asha K & Prof. Prabha K, ECE Dept., SVIT Page 5
Wireless and Cellular Communication 18EC81
Beamforming:
Multiple antennas in LTE may also be used to transmit the same signal appropriately weighted for
each antenna element such that the effect is to focus the transmitted beam in the direction of the
receiver and away from interference, thereby improving the received signal-to-interference ratio.
Beamforming can provide significant improvements in coverage range, capacity, reliability, and
battery life. It can also be useful in providing angular information for user tracking. LTE supports
beamforming in the downlink. Fig.4.3. shows the beamforming array Beamforming.
Fig.4.3 Beamforming
Spatial multiplexing:
The idea behind spatial multiplexing is that multiple in dependent streams can be transmitted in
parallel over multiple antennas and can be separated at the receiver using multiple receive chains
through appropriate signal processing.
This can be done as long as the multipath channels as seen by the different antennas are sufficiently
decorrelated as would be the case in a scattering rich environment.
Spatial multiplexing provides data rate and capacity gains proportional to the number of antennas
used.
LTE supports spatial multiplexing with four transmitting and four receiving antennas. Figure 4.4
shows the spatial multiplexing concept.
Exam Question: Discuss with block diagram of LTE Network architecture (MQP)
Figure 4 . 6 . shows how the 3GPP network architecture evolved over a few releases. 3GPP
Release 6 architecture, which is conceptually very similar to its predecessor, has four
network elements in the data path: the base station or Node-B, radio network controller (RNC),
serving GPRS service node (SGSN), and gateway GRPS service node (GGSN).
Release 7 introduced a direct tunnel option from the RNC to GGSN, which eliminated SGSN from
the data path.
LTE on the other hand, will have only two network elements in the data path: the enhanced Node-
B or e Node-B, and a System Architecture Evolution Gateway (SAE-GW).
Unlike all previous cellular systems, LTE merges the base station and radio network controller
functionality into a single unit.
The control path includes a functional entity called the Mobility Management Entity (MME), which
provides control plane functions related to subscriber, mobility, and session management.
The MME and SAE-GW could be collocated ina single entity called the access gateway (a-GW).
Exam Question: Write the block diagram of end to end architecture of EPC supporting
current and legacy Radio access networks and discuss the elements of EPC. Dec.2019/Jan.2020
Core (EPC).
EPC is designed to provide a high capacity, all IP, reduced latency, flat architecture that dramatically
reduces cost and supports advanced real-time and media-rich services with quality of experience.
It is designed not only to support new radio access networks such as LTE, but also provide
interworking with legacy 2G GERAN (GSM (Global system for Mobile communication) EDGE
(Enhanced data for Global Evolution) Radio Access Network) and 3G UTRAN (Universal
Mobile Telephone service (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access Network) networks connected via
SGSN.
Functions provided by the EPC include access control, packet routing and transfer, mobility
management, security, resource in management, and network management.
Fig. 4.7 shows the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) architecture and the EPC includes four new
elements
(1) Serving Gateway (SGW), which terminates the interface toward the 3GPP (3rd generation
Partnership Project) radio access networks
(2) Packet Data Network Gateway (PGW), which controls IP data services, does routing, allocates
IP addresses, enforces policy, and provides access for non-3GPP access networks:
(3) Mobility Management Entity (MME), which supports user equipment context and identity as
well as authenticates and authorizes users; and
(4) Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF). This manages QoS aspects. It is a concatenation
of Policy Decision Function (PDF) and Charging Rules Function (CRF).
****************************************************
Multicarrier Modulation
Multicarrier Modulation includes many modern wireless data systems, including Digital Subscriber
Lines (DSL), Wireless LAN’s (802.11a/g/n), digital Video broadcasting, and also 3G cellular
technologies such as WiMAX and LTE.
2. Understanding the OFDM system design, covering key concept such as cyclic prefix,
frequency equalization and synchronization.
4. Overview of SC-FDE, and how it avoids the Peak-to-average ratio problem by utilizing the
In order to have a channel that does not have ISI, the symbol time has to be larger than the channel
delay spread .
Digital communication system cannot function if ISI is present---an error floor quickly develops and
approaches or falls below , the bit error rate becomes intolerable.
As we have noted previously, for wideband channels that provide the high data rates needed by today's
application, the desired symbol time is smaller than the delay spread, so inter symbol interference is
severe.
In order to overcome this, multicarrier modulation divides the high data rate transmit bit stream to
L lower rate substreams, where L is chosen so that each of the subcarriers has effective symbol time
, and hence effectively ISI free.
These individual substreams can then be sent over L parallel subcarriers maintaining the total desired
data rate.
The subcarriers are orthogonal under ideal propagation conditions in which case multicarrier modulation
is often referred to as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM).
The data rate on each of the subcarrier is much less than the total data rate, and so the corresponding
subcarrier bandwidth is much less than the total system bandwidth.
The number of substreams is chosen to ensure that each subcarrier has a bandwidth less than the
coherence bandwidth of the channel, so the subscribers experience relatively flat fading. Thus, the ISI
on each subscriber is small.
In the digital implementation of OFDM, the ISI can be completely eliminated through the use of cyclic
prefix.
Example 1:
A certain wideband wireless channel has a delay spead of 1 microseconds. In order to overcome
ISI, assume a requirement that .
1. What is the maximum bandwidth allowable in this system if the ISI constraint is to be
met without using multicarrier modulation?
2. If multicarrier modulation is used, and we desire a 10MHz bandwidth, what is the
required number of subcarriers?
Solution:
1). If it assumed that in order to satisfy the ISI free condition, the maximum
bandwidth would be 1/ =1/ =100KHz,
A multicarrier transmitter and receiver are shown in figure 4.8a. and 4.8b respectively. Here, a high
rate data signal of rate R bps and with a passband bandwidth B is broken into L parallel substreams
each with rate R/L and passband bandwidth B/L. After passing through a channel H(f), the received
signal is shown in figure 4.9.
The transmitted multicarrier signal experiences approximately flat fading on each subcarrier since
B/L<<BC,(frequency domain Bandwidth) even though the overall channel experiences frequency
selective fading, that is B> BC.
In time domain, the symbol duration in each subcarrier has increased to T=LTs, if L increases then the
symbol duration exceeds the channel delay spread, that is T>> , which is the requirement for ISI free
communication.
The drawbacks of this method are 1). In a realistic implementation, a large BW penalty will be
inflicted since the subcarriers can’t have perfectly rectangular pulse shapes and still be time limited.
2). Very high quality (expensive), LPF will be required to maintain the orthogonality of the subcarrier
at receiver. It requires L independent RF units and demodulation paths.
We begin by grouping “L” data symbols into a block known as an OFDM symbol. An OFDM
symbol lasts for a duration of T seconds, where T = LTS.
In order to keep each OFDM symbol independent of the others after going through a wireless
channel, it is necessary to introduce a guard time in between each OFDM symbol, as shown here:
This Way, after receiving a series of OFDM symbols, as long as the guard time Tg. is larger than the
delay spread of the channel , each OFDM symbol will only interfere with itself.
Delay Speed
OFDM transmissions allow ISI within an OFDM symbol, but by including as sufficiently large
guard band, it is possible to guarantee that there is no interference between subsequent OFDM
symbols.
Now that subsequent OFDM symbols have been rendered orthogonal with a guard interval, the next
task is to attempt to remove the ISI within each OFDM symbol.
When the input data stream x[n] is sent through a linear time invariant FIR channel h[n], the output
is the linear convolution of the input and the channel, that is, y [n] = x[n]* h[n].
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However, let's imagine for moment that it was possible to compute y[n] in terms of a circular
convolution, that is
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] ……………………………….(4.1)
Where
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] ∑ [ ] [ ] …………………(4.2)
and the circular function x[n]L=x[nmodL] is a periodic version of x[n] with period L.
In other words, each value of y[n]= [ ] [ ] is the sum of the product of L terms.
In this case of Circular Convolution, it would be possible to take the DFT of the channel output
y[n] to get
DFT{y[n]}=DFT{ [ ] [ ]} ………………………(4.3)
Note that the duality between circular convolution in the time domain and simplemultiplication in the
frequency domain is a property unique to the DFT. The L point DFT is defined as
[ ] [ ] ∑ [ ] ………………………(4.5)
while its inverse, the IDFT is defined as
[ ] [ ] ∑ [ ] ………………………(4.6)
Referring to (4.6) , this formula actually describes an ISI-free channel in the frequency domain, where
each input symbol X[m ]is simply scaled by a complex-value H[m].
So, given knowledge of the channel frequency response H[m] at the receiver, it is trivial to recover the
input symbol by simply computing
[ ]
̂[ ] , ………………………(4.7)
[ ]
The IFFT algorithm based operation at the transmitter allows all the subcarriers to be created in
the digital domain, and thus requires only a single radio to be used rather than L radios as in
figure 4.8.
The circular convolution is used to provide a ISI free channels. Here a cyclic prefix is added to
the transmitted signal as shown in figure 4.20. Then it creates a signal that appears to be [ ] ,
and y[n]= [ ] [ ].
[ ]
after applying a cyclic prefix of length “v” the actual transmitted signal is
The output of the channel is by definition where h is the length v+1 vector
describing the impulse response of the channel during the OFDM symbol.
The output has samples.
The first samples of contains interference from the preceding OFDM symbol and so are
discarded.
The last samples disperse into the subsequent OFDM symbol, and so also are discarded.
This leaves exactly L samples for the desired output y, which is the required to recover the L data
symbols embedded in x.
The L samples of y will be equivalent to . The possible proof of inductive argument methods is
shown in figure 4. 11.
Fig. 4.11. The OFDM cyclic prefix creates a circular convolution at the receiver (Signal y) even though
the actual channel causes a liner convolution.
Cyclic prefix comes with both a bandwidth and power loss penalty. Since v redundant symbol are sent,
the required bandwidth for OFDM increases from B to B.
̂= ……..(4.9)
Where is the complex response of the channel at the frequency𝑓𝑐 + (𝑙 − 1) ∆𝑓, and
Therefore it both corrects the phase and equalizes the amplitude before the decision device.
2. In order to use a single wideband radio instead of L independent narrow band radios, the subcarriers
are created digitally using an IFFT operation.
3. In order for the IFFT/FFT to decompose the ISI channel into orthogonal subcarriers, a cyclic prefix of
length v must be appended after the IFFT operation. The resulting L + v symbols are then sent in serial
through the wideband channel.
4. At the receiver, the cyclic prefix is discarded, and the L received symbols are demodulated using an
FFT operation, which results in L data symbols, each of the form for subcarrier𝑙.
5. Each subscriber can then be equalized via an FEQ by simply dividing by the complex channel gain
H[i] for that subcarrier. This results in ̂ .
During this operation assumption made is transmitter and receivers are perfectly synchronized.
Fig.4.12: An OFDM system in vector notation. In OFDM, the encoding and decoding is done in the
frequency domain, where X,Y and ̂ contain the L transmitted, received and estimated data symbols.
To gain an appreciation for the time and frequency domain interpretations of OFDM, LTE systems can be
used as an example.
Although simple in concept, the subtleties of OFDM can be confusing if each signal processing step is not
understood. To ground the discussion, we will consider a passband OFDM system, and then give specific
values for the important system parameters.
Figure 4.13 below shows the up close view of a passband OFDM modulation engine.
The inputs to this figure are L independent QAM symbols (the vector X), and these L symbols are treated
as separate subcarriers. These L data-bearing symbols can be created from a bit stream by a symbol
mapper and serial-to-parallel convertor (S/P). The L-point IFFT then creates a time domain L-vector x
that is cyclic extended to have length (1+G), where G is the fractional overhead.
Table 4.1: summary of Key OFDM parameters in LTE and example values for 10MHz
Symbol Description Relation Example LTE value
B Nominal bandwidth B= ⁄ 𝑓 7.68MHz
Transmission Channel spacing 10MHz
bandwidth
L No. of subcarriers Size of IFFT/FFT 1024
G Guard fraction % of L of CP 0.07
Data subcarriers L-pilot/null 600
subcarriers
𝑓 Subcarrier spacing Independent of L 15KHz
Sample time 1/15KHz.2048
𝑓
=32.55 nsec
Guard symbols
Guard time 𝑐
T OFDM symbol time 142.7 𝑐
In LTE G = 0.07 for the normal cyclic prefix and grows to G=0.25 for the extended cyclic prefix.
This longer vector is then parallel-to serial (P/S) converted into a wideband digital signal that can be
amplitude modulated with a single radio at a carrier frequency of fc= wc/2 .
The key OFDM parameters are summarized in table4.1 along with some potential numerical values for
these parameters. As an example, if 16-QAM modulation was used (M = 16) with the normal cyclic
prefix, the aw (neglecting coding) data rate of this LTE system
𝑙
R=
𝑙
R=
In other words, there are Ld = 600 data-carrying subcarriers of bandwidth B/L, each carrying log (M) bits of
data. An additional overhead penalty of (1+G) must be paid for the cyclic prefix, since it consists of
redundant information and sacrifices the transmission of actual data symbols.
First, the timing offset of the symbol and the optimal timing instants need to be determined. This is
referred to as timing synchronization.
Second, the receiver must align its carrier frequency as closely is possible with the transmitted carrier
frequency: This is referred to as frequency synchronization. Compared to single-currier systems, the
timing synchronization requirements for OFDM are in fact somewhat relaxed, since the OFDM symbol
structure naturally ac accommodates a reasonable degree of synchronization error. On the other hand,
frequency synchronization requirements are significantly more stringent, since the orthogonality of the
data symbols is reliant on their being individually discernible in the frequency domain.
A representation of an OFDM symbol in time (top) und frequency (bottom). In the time domain, the IFFT
effectively modulates each data symbol onto a unique carrier frequency: only two of the carriers are
shown—the actual transmitted signal is the superposition of all the individual curriers. Since the time
window is T = 1sec and a rectangular window is used, the frequency response of each subcarrier
becomes a "Sine" function with zero Crossings every 1/T = 1MHz. This can be confirmed using the
Fourier Transform F{.} since
{ 𝑓 𝑐 ( )} 𝑓 { 𝑐 ( )}
𝑓 𝑓
This frequency response is shown for L=8 subcarriers in the bottom part of figure 4.14.
The challenge of timing and frequency synchronization can be appreciated by inspecting these two
figures. If the timing window is slid to the left or right, a unique phase change will be introduced to each
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of the subcarriers.
In the frequency domain, if the carrier frequency synchronization is perfect, the receiver samples at the
peak of each subcarrier, where the desired subcarrier amplitude is maximized and the inter-carrier
interference (ICI) is zero.
4.10.1. Timing Synchronization:
The effect of timing errors in symbol synchronization is somewhat relaxed in OFDM due to the
presence of a cyclic prefix.
We assumed that only the L time domain samples after the cyclic prefix were utilized by the
receiver.
Indeed, this corresponds to "perfect timing synchronization, and in this case even if the cyclic prefix
length Ng. is equivalent to the length of the channel impulse response , successive OFDM symbols can
be decoded ISI free.
In the case that perfect synchronization is not maintained, it is still possible to tolerate a timing offset of
secondswithout any degradation in performance as long as where as usual is the
guard time (cyclic prefix duration) and is the maximum channel delay spread.
Here, corresponds to sampling earlier than at the ideal instant, whereas is later than the ideal
instant.
As long as the timing offset simply results in a phase shift per subcarrier of exp(-
j 𝑓 , which is fixed for all subcarriers.
As long as remains constant, the channel estimator simply includes it as part of a fixed phase offset and
it can be corrected by the FEQ without any loss in performance.
This acceptable range of is referred to as timing synchronization margin, and is shown in figure 4.15.
( )
Longer OFDM symbols are increasingly immune from timing offset, that is, more subcarriers
helps.
Since in general timing synchronization errors not that critical as long as the
induced phase change is corrected.
Figure 4.14: OFDM synchronization in time (top) and frequency (bottom) domain. Here, two
subcarriers in the time domain and eight subcarriers in the frequency domain are shown,
where fc = 10MHz and the subcarrier spacing Δ𝑓 = 1Hz.
Fig.4.15: Timing synchronization margin OFDM is actually less sensitive to timing synchronization error that
single carrier modulation, assuming a bit of margin is allowed in the cyclic prefix.
OFDM achieves a high degree of bandwidth efficiency compared to other wideband systems.
The subcarrier packing is extremely tight compared to conventional modulation techniques, which require
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Wireless and Cellular Communication 18EC81
a guard band on the order of 50% or more, in addition to special transmitter architectures such as the
weaver architecture or single-sideband modulation that suppress the redundant negative-frequency
portion of the passband signal.
The price to be paid for this bandwidth efficiency is that the multicarrier signal shown in Figure 4.14 is
very sensitive to frequency offsets due to the fact that the subcarriers overlap, rather than having each
subcarrier truly spectrally isolated.
We'll now analyze this inter-carrier interference (ICI) in order to better understand its effect on OFDM
performance.
The matched filter receiver corresponding to subcarrier “l” can be simply expressed for the case of
rectangular windows (neglecting the carrier frequency):
………………………(4.17)
Where 1/ = 𝑓 and is the duration of the data portion of the OFDM symbol, that is . An
interfering subcarrier m can be written as
………………………(4.18)
̂ ………………………(4.19)
ICI between subscriber’s l and l+m using a matched filter (i.e., the FFT) is simply the inner product
between them:
∫ ̂ ………………….(4.20)
It can be seen that in the above expression, as expected.
The total average ICI energy per symbol on subcarrier listhen
[∑ | | ]
Where
is a constant that depends on various assumptions.
is the average symbol energy
• By observing the equation (4.22) and (4.23) the important points are
• SNR decreases quadratically with the frequency offset.
• SNR decreases quadratically with the number of subcarriers.
• The loss in SNR is also proportional to the SNR itself.
Fig.4.16: SNR loss a function of frequency offset , relative to the subcarrier spacing.
The solid lines are for a fading channel and dotted lines are for an AWGN channel.
OFDM signals have a higher peak-to-average ratio (PAR) often called a peak-to-average power ratio
(PAPR) than do single-carrier signals.
The reason for this is that in the time domain, a multicarrier signal is the sum of many narrowband
signals.
At some times, this sum is large at other times it is small, which means that the peak value of the signal is
substantially larger than the average value.
Where is the saturation power (above which is the nonlinear region) and
̅ is the average input power.
the amount of backoff is usually greater that or equal to the PAR of the signal.
Operation in the linear region is required in order to avoid distortion, so the peak value must be
constrained to be in this region, which means that on average, the power amplifier is under-utilized by a
“backoff” amounts.
The power efficiency of an HPA can be increased by reducing the PAR of the transmitted signal.
For example, the efficiency of class A amplifier is halved when the input PAR is doubled or the
operating point (average power).
In addition to the large burden placed on the HPA, a high PAR requires high resolution for both the
transmitter's digital-to-analog convertor (DAC) and the receiver's
| [ ]| √ [ ] [ ]
In order to avoid operating the Power Amplifier in the nonlinear region, the input power can be reduced
up to an amount about equal to the PAR.
This, of course, is very inefficient and will reduce the range and/or SNR of the system by the same
amount.
First, since the highest PAR values are uncommon, it might be possible to simply "clip" off the highest
peaks, at the cost of some hopefully minimal distortion of the signal.
Second and conversely, it can be seen that even for a conservative choice of IBO, say 10 dB, there is still a
distinct possibility that given OFDM symbol will have a PAR that exceeds the IBO and causes clipping.
Clipping, sometimes called "soft limiting," truncates the amplitude of signals that exceed the clipping
level as
[ ]
𝑓 | [ ]|
̃[ ] {
[ ] 𝑓 | [ ]|
Where [ ]is the original signal, ̃[ ], is the output after clipping, A is the clipping level.
The clipping ratio can be used as a metric and is defined as
√ | | √
Obviously, clipping reduces the PAR at the expense of distorting the desired signal.
The two primary drawbacks from clipping are (1) spectral regrowth (frequency domain leakage),
which causes unacceptable interference to users in neighboring RF channels, and (2) distortion of the
desired signal.
The spectral Regrowth: The clipping noise can be expresses in frequency domain.
Fig. 4.18: Power spectral density (PSD) of the unclipped (original) and clipped (nonlinearity distorted)
OFDM signal with 2048 block size and 64 QAM when clipping ratio ( is 3,5 and 7 dB in soft timer.
In Figure 4.18, the power spectral density of the original (X), clipped ( ̃ ), und clipped-off (C) signals
are plotted for different clipping ratios of 3, 5, and 7 dB. The following deleterious effects are
observed.
Attenuation of the desired signal,
̅[ ] [ ] [ ], for n=0, 1, ……. L-1
Now, d[n] is uncorrelated with the signal [n] and the attenuation factor is obtained by
𝑓𝑐
The attenuation factor a is plotted in Figure is a function of the clipping ratio. The attenuation factor a is
negligible when the clipping ratio a is greater than 8 dB, so for high clipping ratios,
Gaussian input x[n] as
The bit-error probability (BEP) can be evaluated for different modulation types using the SNDR [12]. In
the case of M-QAM and average power & the BEP can then be approximated as
( ) √ ⁄
)
4.11.4. LTE's Approach to PAR in the Uplink
LTE has taken a pioneering new approach to PAR. In the downlink, PAR is less importantbecause
the base stations are fewer in number and generally higher in cost, and so we
Typically, the high PAR is basically tolerated and sufficient input power back off is undertaken in order
to keep the in-band distortion and spectral regrowth at an acceptable level.
Frequency domain equalization is used in both OFDM and SC-FDE systems primarily in order to reduce
the complexity inherent to time-domain equalization.
The block diagrams for OFDM and SC-FDE are compared in below figure in which we can see that the
only apparent difference between the two systems is that the IFFT is moved to the end of the receive
chain rather than operating at the transmitter, to create a multicarrier waveform as in OFDM.
An SC-FDE system still utilizes al cyclic prefix at least as long as the channel delay spread, but now the
transmitted signal is simply a sequence of QAM symbols, which have low PAR, on the order of 4-5 dB
depending on the constellation size.
Considering that an unmodulated sine wave has a PAR of 3 dB, it is clear that the PAR cannot be
lowered much below that of an SC-FDE system.
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
just as in OFDM, with the important distinction being that now the frequency domain version X [m] is
not precisely the data symbols, but rather the FFT of the data symbols x[n]. Analogously, recall that in
OFDM system the transmitted time-domain signal x[n] was not the actual data symbols, but rather the
IFFT of the actual data symbols.
After FFT, a sample 1-tap FEQ can be applied that inverts each virtual subscriber, so that
[ ]
̂[ ]
[ ]
The resulting signal can then be converted back into the time domain using an IFFT operation to give in
x[n], which are estimates of the desired data symbols.
Naturally, in practice H[m]must be estimated at the receiver using pilot signals or other standard
methods
4.12.2. SC-FDE Performance vs. OFDM
The primary difference in terms of performance between SC-FDE and OFDM comes from the way they
treat noise.
In both OFDM and SC-FDE receivers, the FEQ typically inverts each frequency bin, that is, the FEQ
consists of L complex taps each of value 1/Hl.
As noted earlier for OFDM does not result in damaging noise enhancement since the SNR of each data
symbol is unchanged by multiplying by factor.
High SNR symbols remain at high SNR, and low SNR symbols remain at low SNR.
The discrepancies between the SNR on each carrier can be handled by either per-subcarrier adaptive
modulation or coding and interleaving.
In LTE, short scale variations in SNR would generally be addressed by coding and interleaving, which
would allow considerable number of degraded (low-SNR) symbols to be corrected.
In SC-FDE, however, the FEQ does not operate of data symbols themselves but rather on the
frequency domain dual of the data symbols.
Therefore, just is in OFDM's FEQ, low SNR parts of the spectrum have their power increased by a
factor of | 1/Hl|2 while the noisepower is increased by a factor of | 1/H2l|
Unlike in OFDM, however, in SC-FDE when the ensuing IFFT is applied to move the signal back into
the time domain for detection, the amplified noise is spread by the IFFT operation over all the data
symbols.
Therefore, although the total noise amplification is the same in OFDM und SC-FDE, the noise
amplification is not isolated to a single symbol in SC-FDE, but instead affects all the symbols prior to
decoding and detection.
Since the receiver was already considerably more complex than the transmitter in a typical OFDM
system due to channel estimation, synchronization, and the error correction decoder, this further skews
the symmetry:
In a cellular system like LTE, this asymmetry can in fact be a favorable feature, since the uplink could
utilize SC-FDE and the downlink could utilize OFDM.
In such a situation, the base station would therefore perform 3 IFFT/FFT operations and the mobile,
which is more power- and cost-sensitive, would perform only a single FFT operation (to receive its
OFDM waveform from the base station).
Adding in SC-FDE's benefits of reduced PAR and the commensurate cost and power savings, it appears
that the case for using SC-FDE in the uplink of a wideband data system is favorable indeed.
Channel estimation and synchronization are a bit different in practice for an SC FDE System vs. an
OFDM system.
In a typical wireless OFDM System—including LTE, WiMAX, und 802.11a/g/n channel estimation and
synchronization are accomplished via a preamble of known data symbols, and then pilot tones, which
are inserted at known positions in all subsequent OFDM symbols.
Although SC-FDE systems would typically also include a preamble, this preamble is in the time domain
so it is not as straightforward to estimate the frequency domain values Hl.
Similarly, it is not possible to insert pilot tones on a per-frame basis. As we will see, however, in next
module we see that SC-FDMA overcomes these potential problems for LTE by using both a DFT and
an IFFT at the transmitter.
Advantage of frequency domain equalization relative to time domain equalization is that FDE whether in
OFDM or SC-FDE systems- requires much lower computational complexity, especially for high data
rates.
A time domain equalizer consists of series of multiplications with several delayed versions of signal.
The number of delay taps in an equalizer depends on the symbol rate of the system and the delay spread
in the channel.
To be more precise, the number of the equalizer taps is proportional to the bandwidth-delay spread
product ⁄ We have been calling this quantity or the number of ISI channel taps.
An equaliser with taps perform complex multiply and accumulate (CMAC) operations per received
symbols.
Therefore the complexity of an equalizer is of the order of
In an OFDM or SC-FDE system, the IFFT and FFT are the principal computational operation.
It will be known that the IFFT and FFT each have a complexity of , Where L is the FFT of
block size.
In case of OFDM, L is the number of subcarriers. For a fixed cyclic prefix overhead, the number of
subcarriers L must grow linearly with the bandwidth delay spread product Therefore the
computational complexity for each OFDM symbol (or SC- FDE block) is of the order of
.
There are ⁄ OFDM symbols sent each second. Since L this means there are order ⁄
OFDM symbol per second, so the computational complexity in terms of CM ACs for OFDM is
The complexity of a time domain equalizer grows as a square of the data rate since both the symbol rate
and the number of taps increases linearly with the data rate.
For an OFDM or a SC-FDE system, the increase in complexity grows with the data rate only slightly
faster than linearly.
This difference is automatic for very large data rates as shown in figure.
It is noted here that LTE uses SC-FDMA, which is not same as SC-FDE.
Dr. Asha K & Prof. Prabha K, ECE Dept., SVIT Page 34
Wireless and Cellular Communication 18EC81
The complexity of SC—FDMA still scales as , but there are twice as many FFT/IFFT
operations as there are in SC-FDE.
Fig.4.22. OFDM and SC-FDE have an enormous complexity advantages over equalization for
broadband data rates.
The delay spread is 𝑐, the OFDM symbol period is T 𝑐, 16 QAM (4 bps/Hz) is used,
and the considered time-domain equalizer is a DFE.
SL No. OFDM SC-FDE
1. OFDM provides high performance Relatively less performance
The high Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) The low Peak-to-Average Power Ratio
2.
associated with OFDM (PAPR) associated with SC-FDE
SNR ratio of each data symbol is
SNR ratio of each data symbol is changeby
3. doesn’t change by multiplyingconstant
multiplying constant factor receiver.
factor at receiver.
OFDM has a nominally less dispersive SC-FDE has a nominally more dispersive
4.
spectrum. spectrum.
Text Books:
1. “Fundamentals of LTE” Arunabha Ghosh, Jan Zhang, Jefferey Andrews, Riaz Mohammed,
Pearson education (Formerly Prentice Hall, Communications Engg and Emerging