Proposed Techniques for combined PAPR

reduction and Sidelobe Suppression in

OFDM based Cognitive Radio
by

Shivani Darji

Abstract

Cognitive Radio emerges as a design paradigm which can potentially alleviate the problem of spectrum shortage. Spectrum sensing is the main requirements for the establishment of cognitive radio. Orthogonal Frequency
Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a recognized transmission technique for
Cognitive Radio (CR) networks. In this work, OFDM technique is investigated as a candidate for CR systems. However, the major drawbacks of
OFDM systems is that they exhibit high Out OF Band Radiation (OOBR)
due to high spectral sidelobe. The high spectral sidelobe which are caused in
OFDM systems based Cognitive Radio can cause interference with Primary
Users (PU) that indirectly affects the performance. Moreover, another major
drawback of using OFDM systems is that they exhibit large Peak to Average
Power Ratio (PAPR) values. For zero distortion of the OFDM signal, the
RF High Power Amplifier (HPA) must not only operate in its linear region
but also with sufficient back-off. Thus, HPA with a large dynamic range are
required for OFDM systems. These amplifiers are very expensive and are
major cost components. Thus, if we reduce the PAPR it not only means
that we are reducing the cost of OFDM system and reducing the complexity
of A/D and D/A converters, but also increasing the transmit power, thus, for
same range improving received SNR, or for the same SNR improving range.

Introduction

Cognitive radio (CR) is an emerging communication design paradigm [1],[2]

in which the radios devices equipped with transceivers can sense the underlying radio environment and adapt their transmission/reception parameters
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like operating frequency, power, modulation rate, etc. The specific instance
in which the operating frequency is adjusted is known as Dynamic Spectrum
Access(DSA). DSA has the potential to alleviate the problem of spectrum
shortage [3][4]. The problem of spectrum shortage can create problems in
allocating spectrum for the numerous wireless applications that are being
conceived. On the other hand a recent survey by Federal Communications
Commission(FCC), USA, suggests that vast portions of allocated spectrum
is vastly underutilized. A radio enabled with DSA can indeed access the
spectrum opportunistically whenever the licensed users are inactive, thereby
leading to efficient spectrum utilization. Henceforth, we refer to networks
that use DSA as CR networks. Since CR networks allow unlicensed users
to access opportunistically therefore it contains two types of users namely
primary (licensed) users(PU) and secondary (unlicensed) users(SU).

OFDM based CR networks

OFDMs underlying sensing and spectrum shaping capabilities together with

its flexibility and adaptivity make it probably the best transmission technology for CR systems. There are many requirements of CR which can full fill
by OFDM such as spectrum sensing, spectrum shaping, adaptive to environment, interoperability etc. As we are considering OFDM based Cognitive
Radio application related to OFDM using Cognitive Radio is being discussed.

3.1

Spectrum Sensing

The spectrum sensing is one of the most important part of Cognitive Radio.
In OFDM systems, conversion from time domain to frequency domain is
achieved by using FFT. The underlying FFT operation in OFDM system
here makes it more better to sense a spectrum in frequency domain. Thus
there is no requirement of using any extra hardware for scanning all the
poings in time-frequency grid of OFDM system operating band because of
the hardware reuse of FFT cores. Using the time-frequency grid, the selection
of bins that are available for exploitation (spectrum holes) can be carried out
using simple hypothesis testing. In [5] FFT is applied to the received signal.
By using the output of the FFT, the receiver tries to detect the existence of
a primary user in the band [5].

3.2

Spectrum Shaping

With efficient spectrum sensing by CR, then comes the next step of spectrum
shaping. Ideally, it is desired to allow cognitive users to freely use available
bands in the spectrum. It is desired to have a flexible spectrum mask and
control over waveform parameters such as signal bandwidth, power level, and
center frequency. OFDM systems can provide such flexibility, by disabling a
set of subcarriers so that the spectrum of OFDM signals can be adaptively
shaped to fit into the required spectrum mask [6].
The spectrum mask is define as the allowable maximum in-band and outof-band signal power spectrum which is already known to the CR system.
An example of spectrum shaping procedures in OFDM-based CR systems is
illustrated in Figure. 1 when the two PUs are detected using the output of
the FFT block, and subcarriers that can cause interference to these PUs are
turned off. The transmitter then uses the unoccupied part of the spectrum
for the signal transmission.

Figure 1: Spectrum sensing and shaping using OFDM.

Major Drawbacks of OFDM based CR

As there are advantages of using OFDM based CR there are also few disadvantages. The two major drawbacks that can degrade the performance
is Out-Of-Band-Radiation (OOBR) and very high Peak to Average Power
Ratio (PAPR).

4.1

Out of Band Radiation (OOBR)

The out-of-band radiation in OFDM transmission is caused to due to spectral sidelobe which further causes interferes with wireless communications
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in adjacent channels and endangers the co-existence of the incumbent radio

systems of the spectrum. The reason for high power of sidelobe is the use of
the IFFT block in the OFDM transmitter [7]. OFDM uses sinc-type pulses
in representing symbols transmitted over all the subcarriers per time constant. Large sidelobes resulting from this sinc-type pulses are a source of
interference to the PU or other rental systems that might be present in the
vicinity of the spectrum used by the unlicensed system. There are several
methods for sidelobe suppression of the OFDM systems given as follows,
In [7], OOBR of SUs can be reduced by inserting the guard band. But,
it will consequently reduce the spectrum efficiency. Various schemes
have been proposed in both time domain and frequency domain to
improve performance of the primary users by reducing OOBR. In [7],
the time domain signal is multiplied with a raised cosine windowing
function to lower the sidelobes, but at a cost of expanding the symbol
duration which results in lower throughput.
To improve the spectral efficiency various advanced techniques have
been proposed but the technique which have achieve more suppression
of OOBR with better spectral efficiency are Active interference cancellation (AIC) [8] and and the introduction of cancellation carrier [9].
Both of these techniques results in enough suppression of OOBR but
suffer from Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) degradation and also extra
power is wasted in cancellation subcarrier.
In [10], adaptive symbol transition technique is used in which the
OFDM symbols extended adaptively at the cost of decrease in the useful symbol energy.
Methods in frequency domain rely on spectrum shaping techniques and
can be classified as cancellation and precoding techniques. In [11], we
discuss spectral precoding scheme. In these approaches, the information symbols are mapped to a new set of precoded symbols under some
constraints. In this method large suppression of OOBR is achieved
without losing BER performance but the notched frequencies selection
algorithm is computationally more complex and expensive.
In [12], a scheme based on optimization process is proposed. However,
the method in [12] does not have any closed form solution and hence
computationally expensive. Also, the OOBR rejection is achieved at a
cost of significant BER performance loss.

4.2

Peak to Average Power Ratio

One of the main drawbacks Multi-Carrier (MC) systems is the high variation
of the amplitude of the time-domain samples that can occur in the signal
after the IFFT, resulting in a high value of the Peak-to-Average Power Ratio
(PAPR). Mathematically it can be defined as the,
P AP R =

max |x(t)|2
E|x(t)|2

(1)

The signal that contains samples with high amplitude, equivalent to high
PAPR value, and the presence of nonlinear elements in the transmission
chain, e.q. high power amplifiers (HPA), result in in-band distortions, increased out-of-band emissions, and as a consequence result in Bit-Error Rate
(BER) degradation at the receiver. Let us stress that the gain in OOB reduction obtained due to the application of one of the abovementioned algorithms
can be reduced if the time-domain signal of high PAPR is processed in the
nonlinear element. Thus efficient methods to minimize the PAPR value are
required. Techniques for PAPR reduction has rich literature. Among them
schemes like
Among them, schemes like clipping and filtering [13], Partial Transmit
Sequence (PTS) [14], precoding based techniques [15] and Precoding
based Selected Mapping (SLM) [16] are popular. Clipping method
causes distortion to the signal and BER degradation. The later both
PTS techniques and SLM need additional complexity.

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5.1

Different Techniques for sidelobe suppression

Mask compliant precoder for OFDM spectrum shaping

Mask compliant precoder for shaping the spectrum of OFDM is presented

in [12]. Unlike existing methods which can focus on minimizing or forcing
the sidelobes to zero, the Mask Compliant precoder is designed for controlling the out-of-band emissions to a particular power level without impacting
the bit error rate (BER) performance. A small distortion is added to the
information symbols forcing the emitted spectrum under a prescribed radio
frequency mask. The spectrum mask is define as the allowable maximum inband and out-of-band signal power spectrum. The block diagram of OFDM
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Figure 2: Mask compliant precoder block diagram of OFDM transmitter/receiver pair with sidelobe suppression.
transmitter and receiver for mask complaint precoder is shown in figure. 2. A
precoder that forces the power spectrum of OFDM signals under a given RF
mask is proposed in the given work. Using the proposed precoder significant
BER performance is improved compared to other precoder. Moreover, with
the use of adaptive modulation, the BER performance under strict masks
can be further improved.

5.2

Multiuser spectral precoding for OFDM based CR

systems

A spectral precoding approach for multiple OFDM-based CR users to reduce OOBR leakage and enhance spectrum compactness in shown [11]. We
Can construct individual precoders to render selected spectrum nulls, our approach suppresses the overall OOB radiation without sacri?cing bit error rate
performance of CR users. It also ensures user independence thus with low
encoding and decoding complexities. This approach can improve bandwidth
efficiency by carefully selecting notched frequencies. The block diagram of
multiple spectrum precoding for OFDM based CR systems is shown in figure.
3.
While OOB leakage cannot be completely eliminated so that guard bands
are usually require. As a result, the relative throughput loss brought by guard
bands can be significant if CR users operate over narrow subbands. To reduce
the guard bands and enhance bandwidth efficiency spectrum shaping can be
included which suppresses the OOBR leakage to the adjacent frequency bands
.Here for the shaping of the spectrum Existing approaches are performed in
time or frequency domain.
Spectral precoding approach can be used in frequency domain which can
reduce the OOBR signi?cantly and are applicable to multiple users. The pre-

Figure 3: The block diagram of multiple spectrum precoding for OFDM

based CR systems
coding matrix for these approaches is constructed from delicately designed
basis sets or determined to render time continuity of adjacent OFDM symbols or spectrum nulls at notched frequencies. With a block diagonal precoding matrix, it is possible to ensure user independence. Here the correlative
precoder , the projection precoder , and the 1-continuous OFDM precoder
are non-orthogonal and will cause signi?cant BER performance degradation
when only a few subcarriers are available and utilized by CR users. Spectral
precoding dealing with this challenges.

5.3

Adaptive Symbol transmission (AST)

Another method that can be investigated for Suppression of the OFDM sidelobes is referred to as adaptive symbol transition (AST) [10]. Similar to the
windowing technique, the OFDM symbols are extended in time to reduce
the effect of symbol transition. However, instead of using a predefined filter shape, the transition signal is optimized adaptively based on transmitted
data and detected PU bands for reducing the interference to PU. The block
diagram of AST for OFDM based CR systems is shown in figure. 4. The

Figure 4: The block diagram of AST for OFDM based CR systems

proposed AST technique can studied which extends OFDM symbols and uses
the extension to reduce ACI to other users operating in the same band. The
AST can achieve a significant gain of 28 dB over conventional sidelobe suppression techniques (RC windowing and conventional). Moreover, AST does
not increase the signal PAPR and keeps a low SNR.

Proposed Method
Many solutions were proposed for solving either of these problems while
in this paper, an efficient technique for reducing both PAPR and sidelobe power is proposed. We proposed a technique in which we involve
combined suppression of spectral sidelobes and reduction of PAPR.
A novel PAPR reduction techniques, namely, Zadoff-Chu matrix Transform (ZCT) precoding based PAPR reduction technique and ZCT postcoding based PAPR reduction technique for OFDM-WLAN systems.
In the proposed schemes, the reshaping of the ZCT is carried out one
way for precoding and another way for postcoding. For precoding we
reshape the ZCT row wise and precode the constellation symbols before
the IFFT with ZCT and for postcoding, we reshape the ZCT column
wise and implement ZCT after the IFFT.
For sidelobe suppression we will use a method of Cancelation Carriers (CC) technique that depends on adding additive carriers, which
reduce the sidelobe power and do not cause intersymbol interference,
but increases PAPR. Hence we will use ZCT precoding and postcoding
to reduce PAPR. Therefore, we use combined suppression of sidelobes
with reducing PAPR, because spectral sidelobes can regrow after the
high peak power signal passes through power amplifier. A technique
that can deal with both problem together will give better performance.

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