1

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)

Introduction
Multi-carrier transmission techniques and OFDM
Structure of OFDM modulation.
Power spectral density of OFDM signals.
OFDM signals in AWGN channels.
OFDM signals in fading multipath channels.
Discrete representation and implementation of OFDM signals.
Performance of OFDM signals in fading multipath channels.
2
Single-Carrier Signals over Fading Multipath Channels
Fading multipath channels introduce ISI (memory) into communication signals.
The length of ISI (memory) is dependent on the transmission rate R
s
= 1/T
s
L W
s
T
m
+ 1 = R
s
T
m
+ 1
Increasing the transmission data rate makes the time equalizer at the receiver
more complex.
Computational complexity.
Delay due to processing.
Complexity and delay limit the maximum data rate that can be achieved with
single carrier transmission in fading multipath channels.
OFDM is a possible solution for achieving high data rates in fading multipath
environments without the need for complicated time equalizers.
3
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)
OFDM was discovered in the sixties but became popular only during the nineties
(implementation reasons).
OFDM is used in many applications:
Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB).
Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB).
IEEE 802.11b Wireless LAN system.
High Performance Local Area Network type 2 (HIPERLAN/2) system.
OFDM is expected to be used in
Wireless multimedia communications,
Fixed broadband Wireless Access Systems.

4
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
+
PSfrag replacements
Encoder
Decoder
input data
OFDM
OFDM
modulator modulator
Channel
Guard
interval
output data
input data
N : 1
1 : N
S/P
P/S
z(t)
Baseband
Baseband
demodulator demodulator
OFDM is a modulation applied to the data-modulated signal a second time.
Transforms the high data rate stream into several low rate streams.
Splits the total bandwidth into several narrowbands (equally spaced subcarriers).
Transmits each low rate stream on a dierent subcarrier.
5
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)
PSfrag replacements
Ws
f
f
A
m
p
l
i
t
u
d
e
No guard band between the dierent narrowbands is needed.
A very exible scheme (frequency and time dimensions).
Can be easily adapted to the multipath fading channel.
6
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)
PSfrag replacements
Data in
Tb
Baseband
modulator
Ts
Serial
to
Parallel
Converter
T = NTs e
j2f0t
e
j2f1t
e
j2fN2t
e
j2fN1t

x(t)
The equivalent lowpass of the transmitted signal is written as follows:
x(t) =
1

T
N1

k=0
s
k
(n)e
j2f
k
t
, nT t < (n + 1)T
s
k
(n) is PSK, QAM, or PAM baseband modulated symbol.
The transmission rate on each subcarrier is given by
R =
1
N
1
T
s
=
R
s
N
7
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)
An OFDM is a multi-carrier system for which each carrier is orthogonal to the
other carriers, i.e.,
1
T
_
T
0
e
j2(f
j
f
k
)t
dt =
_
1, j = k
0, j = k
In this case the carriers are minimally separated with
f = f
i+1
f
i
=
1
T
The equivalent lowpass of the OFDM signal becomes:
x(t) =
1

T
N1

k=0
s
k
(n)e
j2k
t
T
, nT t (n + 1)T
Taking the Fourier transform of x(t) we get
X(f, nT) =
1

T
_
(n+1)T
nT
x(t)e
j2ft
dt = e
jn
N1

k=0
s
k
(n)sinc (fT k)
8
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)
2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5
0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
fT
s
S
(
f
)
An OFDM Signal with 4 carriers
s0(n) s1(n) s2(n) s3(n)
Notice that the symbol s
k
(n) is obtained by just sampling X(f, nT) at f = k/T
X
_
k
T
, nT
_
= s
k
(n), k = 0, 1, , N 1
Any frequency oset creates interference between all subcarrier signals
9
Spectral Properties of OFDM Signals
The power spectral density of OFDM signals is
X
s
(f) =
N1

n=0
sinc
2
(fT n) ; W
s

N + 1
NT
s
=
1 +
T
s
0.4 0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
fT
A
m
p
l
i
t
u
d
e

S
p
e
c
t
r
u
m
N = 1024
N = 4
Figure 1: Power spectral density of OFDM Signals.
10
Spectral Properties of OFDM Signals
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
B
RF
T
s
/2
O
u
t

o
f

b
a
n
d

p
o
w
e
r
,

(
d
B
)
N = 1
N = 4
N = 64
Figure 2: Out-of-band power of OFDM signals as a function of the normalized bandwidth.
11
Detection of OFDM Signals
Detection of OFDM signals is achieved using N correlators, each centered around
a dierent subcarrier frequency.
The received sample at subcarrier k is written as
r
k
(n) =
1

T
_
(n+1)T
nT
r(t)e
j2
k
T
t
dt = s
k
(n) + z
k
(n)
PSfrag replacements
e
j2
0
T
t
1

T
()dt
1

T
()dt
1

T
()dt
e
j2
1
T
t
e
j2
N1
T
t
r(t) = x(t) + z(t)
r0(n)
r1(n)
rN1(n)
t = nT
Parallel
to
serial
converter
Detection
& decoding
data out
12
OFDM Signals in AWGN Channels
The received sample at subcarrier k can be written as
r
m
(k) = s
k
(n) + z
k
(n)
s
k
(n) is the signal corresponding to the signal point of the used modulation
z
k
(n) is complex Gaussian random variable with zero mean and variance N
0
.
The performance of OFDM over AWGN channels is the same as that of single-
carrier scheme that uses the same modulation.
If BPSK modulation is used with OFDM then
P
b
=
1
2
erfc
_
_
E
b
N
0
_
The bandwidth eciency in this case is given by
= 1 bit/s/Hz
same as single-carrier BPSK.
The spectrum of OFDM-BPSK is much more compact than that of single-
carrier BPSK.
13
OFDM Signals over Fading Multipath Channels
In a fading multipath environment with coherence bandwidth B
m
, the equivalent
lowpass of the received signal is
r(t) =
L1

i=0
h
i
(t)x[t
i
(t)] + z(t)
With a proper selection of N, we can make the OFDM block duration much larger
than the maximum delay spread of the channel, i.e.,
T = NT
s
T
m
=
1
B
m
The output sample of subcarrier k is given by
r
k
(n) =
1

T
_
(n+1)T
nT
r(t)e
j2
k
T
t
= H

k
s
k
(n) +
ISI
..
N1

m=0
G
m,k
s
m
(n 1)
N1

m=0,m=k
G
m,k
s
m
(n)
. .
ICI
+z
k
(n)
Some modications, in the OFDM scheme, are needed to eliminate this ISI
and ICI !!!
14
Solving the Problem of Fading Multipath Guard Interval
PSfrag replacements
Tm
Receiver window T = NTs
Block n Block n 1
h0(t)s [t 0(t)]
h1(t)s [t 1(t)]
h2(t)s [t 2(t)]
from block n 1
TG T
With the guard interval, the total OFDM block duration becomes
T = T + T
G
Notice that there is a power loss due the added guard interval,
10 log
10
_
1 +
T
G
T
_
15
Solving the Problem of Fading Multipath Guard Interval
To solve this problem, every OFDM block is extended by a guard interval T
G
, i.e.,
x(t) =
N1

m=0
s
m
(n)e
j2
m
T
t
, nT T
G
t < (n + 1)T, with T
G
T
m
The guard interval is ignored at the receiver, i.e.,
r(t) =
N1

m=0
H(m/T; t)s
m
(n)e
j2
m
T
t
+ z(t), nT t < (n + 1)T
H(f; t) is the transfer function of the channel ; H(f; t) =
L1

i=0
h
i
(t)e
j2f
i
(t)
The output sample of subcarrier k becomes
r
k
(n) =
1

T
_
(n+1)T
nT
r(t)e
j2
k
T
t
dt =

g
H(k/T; t)s
k
(n) + z
k
(n),
g
=
T
T + T
G
which is free from ISI and ICI.
Note that OFDM with guard interval has transformed a frequency selective fading
into N parallel at fading channels.
16
Discrete Representation and Implementation of OFDM Signals
The OFDM signal is given by
x(t) =
1

T
N1

m=0
s
m
(n)e
j2
m
T
t
, nT t (n + 1)T
Sampling the signal s(t) at time instants lT
s
, we get
x
l
= x(lT
s
) =
1

N
N1

m=0
s
m
(n)e
j2
ml
N
, l = 0, 1, , N 1
a sequence of length N
x(n) = {x
0
(n), x
1
(n), , x
N1
(n)} = IDFT{s(n)}
At the receiver, the correlator output of subcarrier k can be rewritten as
y
k
(n) =
1

T
_
T
0
x(t)e
j2
k
T
t
dt
1

N
N1

l=0
s
k
(l)e
j2
lk
N
We can also see that
y(n) = {y
0
(n), y
1
(n), , y
N1
(n)} = DFT{x(n)}
17
Discrete Representation of OFDM Signals
With guard interval, the OFDM signal is given by
x(t) =
1

T
N1

m=0
s
m
(n)e
j2
m
T
t
, nT T
G
t (n + 1)T
Sampling the signal x(t) at time instants lT
s
, we get
x
l
= x(lT
s
) =
1

N
N1

m=0
s
m
(n)e
j2
ml
N
, l = N G, , N 1, 0, 1, , N 1
a sequence of length N + G
x(n) = {x
NG
(n), x
NG+1
(n), , x
N1
(n)
. .
Cyclic Prex
, x
0
(n), x
1
(n), , x
N1
(n)}
The corresponding received sequence is denoted as follows:
v(n) = {v
G
(n), v
G+1
(n), , v
1
(n), v
0
(n), v
1
(n), , v
N1
(n)}
The last N samples are taken as input to the DFT receiver.
The other samples are ignored.
r(n) = DFT{v
0
(n), v
1
(n), , v
N1
(n)} , with r
k
(n) =

g
H(k/T; t)s
k
(n) + z
k
(n)
18
Discrete Representation of OFDM Signals
+
PSfrag replacements
Encoder
Decoder
an
OFDM
modulator
modulator
Channel
Cyclic
Cyclic
prex
prex
an
N : 1
N : 1 1 : N
1 : N
S/P
S/P P/S
P/S
z(t)
Baseband
Baseband
FFT
IFFT
A/D
D/A
demodulator
19
OFDM Signals in Frequency Selective fading Channels
The received sample at subcarrier k can be written as
r
m
(k) =

g
H(k/T, t)s
k
(n) + z
k
(n)
s
k
(n) is the signal corresponding to the signal point of the used modulation
z
k
(n) is complex Gaussian random variable with zero mean and variance N
0
.
H(k/T, t) is complex Gaussian process with average power 2
2
.
The performance of OFDM over frequency selective fading channels is the same
as that of a single-carrier scheme with the same modulation in at fading channel.
If BPSK modulation is used with OFDM then
P
b
=
1
2
_
1

2
2

g
E
b
/N
0
1 + 2
2

g
E
b
/N
0
_
,
g
=
T
T + T
G
= 1
G
N + G
OFDM solves the problem of multipath (ISI).
OFDM avoids the need for complicated time-domain equalizers.
20
Summary
OFDM is a modulation technique that splits a wideband into several orthogonal
narrow subbands.
The spectrum of OFDM signals is much more compact than that of single carrier
signals.
OFDM (with guard interval) transforms a frequency selective fading into several
parallel at fading channels.
This transformation allows high speed wireless communication without the
need for complicated time domain equalization.
OFDM alone does not solve the problem of signal fading.
Part of the subcarriers will be deeply faded.
OFDM should be used with some diversity methods.