Orthogonal Frequency

Division Modulation
(OFDM)
 Basic Concept of OFDM
Wide-band channel Multiple narrow-band channels

Send a sample using Send samples concurrently using

the entire band multiple orthogonal sub-channels
 Single Carrier Systems
• Bandwidth B = 2W available for communication, where W
is the one-sided
bandwidth (or max freq),

• For a single-carrier communication system, the symbol time

T is given as
T = 1/B
• Symbol rate is given as
 Multi Carrier Systems
• Divide the total bandwidth B into N sub-bands of bandwidth
B/N
• Subcarriers are placed at

• Consider the ith subcarrier at the frequency

• Let Xi denote the data transmitted on the ith subcarrier

The signal si(t) corresponding to the ith subcarrier

• The N different data symbols Xi are modulated over the N

different subcarriers with centre frequencies fi
Composite Signal Transmitted and
Received
Composite Signal Received &
Orthogonality
Multi-carrier modulation
transmitter
Multi-carrier modulation receiver
 Symbol Rate of MCM system

N symbols using N subcarriers

Each with a rate B/N
Or time duration N/B

Net rate : N/(N/B)= B

Overall Symbol rate of MCM= Symbol rate of SCM

The single-carrier system transmits each symbol in time 1/B, while

the MCM system transmits N symbols in parallel in time N/B
 Why OFDM is better?
t t

0
1
0
f 1 0
1 f
0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 …........
Wide-­‐band Narrow-­‐band

• Multiple sub-channels (sub-carriers) carry

samples sent at a lower rate
⯈ Almost same bandwidth with wide-band channel
• Only some of the sub-channels are
affected by interferers or multi-path
effect
 Simple Example
Consider a system with a transmission bandwidth of B = 1.024
MHz, i.e., 1024 kHz
Consider the coherence bandwidth Bc which is typically around
250 kHz, i.e., Bc ≈ 250 kHz.

Therefore, since the transmission bandwidth B >> Bc, the

single-carrier system experiences frequency-selective fading and
inter-symbol interference.

However, consider an OFDM system with employs N = 256

subcarriers in the same bandwidth. The bandwidth per subcarrier
is Bs = 1024/ 256 = 4 kHz

B<<Bc, each channel experiences Flat fading

 Importance of Orthogonality
• Why not just use FDM (frequency division
multiplexing)
⯈ Not orthogonal Individual sub-­‐channel

Leakage interference from

adjacent sub-­‐channels f
guard band
Guard bands protect
leakage
interference f
• Need guard bands between adjacent frequency
bands  extra overhead and lower throughput
 Multicarrier communications

Concept:
Divide original data stream at rate R
into L lower rate (R/L) streams on
different carriers to increase symbol
time
Effects
High receiver complexity
separate receiver chain per carrier
Bandwidth due to sidebands J. Andrews, A. Ghosh, R. Muhamed, Fundamentals
of WiMAX, Prentice Hall, 2007
Each subcarrier experiences flat fading
Hf

B/L

Bc f
OFDM 13
B
 OFDM- Basic Concept

OFDM 14
Difference between FDM and OFDM
guard band

f
Frequency division multiplexing

Orthogonal sub-carriers in OFDM

Don’t need guard bands
 Spectra of OFDM signal

OFDM 16
 Modulation or Multiplexing?
OFDM can be viewed as either a modulation technique or
a multiplexing technique.
Modulation technique
Viewed by the relation between input and output
signals
Multiplex technique
Viewed by the output signal which is the linear sum
of the modulated signals

OFDM System
Input Signal Output Signal
S/P


OFDM 17
 MCM to OFDM
The employment of discrete Fourier transform to replace
the banks of sinusoidal generator and the demodulation
significantly reduces the implementation complexity of
OFDM modems.
cos(2 f1t )

cos(2 f 2t )

s (t ) s (t )
 IFFT

cos(2 f N t )

OFDM 18
 Orthogonal Frequency Division Modulation
* x[1]

IFFT * x[2] transmit

f
* x[3]
t

…
Data coded in frequency domain Transformation to time domain: Channel frequency
each frequency is a sine wave response
In time, all added up

Decode each subcarrier

separately
receive FFT

Time domain signal Frequency domain signal

OFDM Transmitter and Receiver
-Level 1
 Orthogonality of Sub-carriers
IFFT
Encode: frequency-domain samples  time-domain sample

N 21
X[k ]e j 2  kt
x(t)
 N kN 2

Time- Frequency-domain
domain
N 21
1
X[k]
 2
N tN x(t )e  j 2  kt N

FFT
Decode: time-domain samples  frequency-domain sample

e
N 21  j 2  kt N  j 2  pt
e
Orthogonality of any two bins :  0, p 
N tN 2 k
 Example
• Let’s consider N=4
• The signal has a symbol rate of 1 and the sampling
frequency is 1 sample per symbol, so each transition is a
bit
• First few bits are 1, 1, -1, -1, 1, 1, 1, -1, 1, -1, -1, -1, -1,
1, -1, -1, -1, 1,…
• Write these bits in rows of fours

• Assume C1 is 1 Hz
 t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 t6
Carrier 1 — We need to
transmit 1, 1, 1 -1, -1, -1
bin1

symbol1 1 1 -­‐1 -­‐1 bin2

symbol2 1 1 1 -­‐1
symbol3 1 -­‐1 -­‐1 -­‐1
symbol4 -­‐1 1 -­‐1 -­‐1
symbol5 -­‐1 1 1 -­‐1
symbol6 -­‐1 -­‐1 1 1 bin3

bin4
Composite Signal
 Example
Frequency-­‐domain signal Time-­‐domain signal
c1 c2 c3 c4 IFFT
symbol1 1 1 -­‐1 -­‐ 0 2 -­‐ 2i 0 2+
1 1 1 -­‐ 22i 0 -­‐2i 2 0 + 2i
symbol2 1 -­‐2 2 2
1 -­‐1 -­‐1 -­‐ -­‐2 2 0 + 2i
symbol3 1 0 -­‐ 2i -­‐
-­‐1 1 -­‐1 -­‐1 2
symbol4
• Parallel to serial conversion, and transmit time- domain
samples
0, 2 -­‐ 2i, 0, 2 + 2i, 2, 0 -­‐ 2i, 2, 0 + 2i, -­‐2, 2, 2, 2, -­‐2, 0 -­‐ 2i, -­‐2,
0 + 2i, 0, -­‐2 -­‐ 2i, 0, -­‐2 + 2i, 0, -­‐2 + 2i, 0, -­‐2 -­‐ 2i, …
 Multi-Path Effect

Faded path

1  Secondary path gain

 0  Line of sight path
1  Secondary path
gT0 ariPathdelay
ene delay

0 Reflected multipath
1 k
 k  Secondary path gain
1 
0  k  Secondary pathdelay
k

y(t)  h(0)x(t)  h(1)x(t 1)  h(2)x(t  2)

 ⟺ Y(f)H
( f )X( f )

 h()x(t  )  h(t) * x(t)
time-domain frequency-domain
Current symbol + delayed-version symbol
 Signals are deconstructive in only certain frequencies
 Frequency Selective
Fading

Frequency selective fading: Only some sub-­‐carriers get affected

 Inter Symbol Interference (ISI)
• The delayed version of a symbol overlaps
with the adjacent symbol

• One simple solution to avoid this is to

introduce a guard-band

Guard band
 Inter Symbol Interference

Intersymbol interference is eliminated almost completely

by introducing a guard interval with zero padding in every
OFDM symbol.

Guard Interval
(Zero padding)

Guard interval with zero padding

Guard Interval Guard Interval Guard Interval
(Zero padding) (Zero padding) (Zero padding)

The way to eliminate ISI 30

Inter Carrier Interference
Due to non integer number of cycles in the delayed cycle
The way to avoid ICI – cyclic extension(works only when delay
<guard time)

Part of
subcarrier #2
causing ICI on
subcarrier #1
Subcarrier #1

Delayed subcarrier #2
Guard time FFT integration time=1/carrier spacing Guard time FFT integration time=1/carrier spacing

OFDM symbol time OFDM symbol time

31
OFDM symbol with cyclic
extension
OFDM – Two –ray multipath
channel
 16-QAM constellation for 48
sub-carrier OFDM link

(a) delay< guard time (b) delay(3%)>guard time

(c) delay(10%)>guard time
 Cyclic Prefix (CP)
• However, we don’t know the delay spread
exactly
⯈ The hardware doesn’t allow blank space because
it needs to send out signals continuously
• Solution: Cyclic Prefix
⯈ Make the symbol period longer by copying the
tail and glue it in the front
Symbol 1 Symbol 2 C o p y this part at front

C o p y this part at front

In 802.11,
P o r t i o n a d d e d in CP:data = 1:4
the front

Original sy mb o l Extension Original sy mb o l

 Cyclic Prefix (CP)

• Because of the usage of FFT, the signal is periodic

FFT( ) = exp(-­‐2jπΔf)*FFT(
)
delayed version
original signal

• Delay in the time domain corresponds to

rotation in the frequency domain
 Cyclic Prefix (CP)

) Y[k] = H[k]X[k]
w/o multipath y(t)  FFT(
original signal

w multipath y(t)  FFT( ) Y[k] = α(1+exp(-­‐2jπΔk))*X[k]

= H’[k]X[k]
original signal + delayed-­‐version signal Lump the phase shift in H
 Cyclic Prefix

Adding a cyclic prefix

at transmitter leads to
circular convolution
Note that misaligned
timing still results in a
circular convolution,
just time shifted
Makes for phase shifts
in FFT bins
Correct that in a
moment

OFDM 38
J. Andrews, A. Ghosh, R. Muhamed, Fundamentals
of WiMAX, Prentice Hall, 2007
 OFDM Diagram-Level 2
Transmitte
Modulation
r
Insert
S/P IFFT P/S D/A
CP

channel

+ noise
De-mod

remove
P/S FFT S/P A/D
CP

Receiver
Impact of Cyclic Prefix on Data
Rate
 Interleaving

Forward Error Correction

OFDM 42
 Pilot Insertion
• Radio channels fade both in amplitude and frequency
• Channel estimator – Estimate time-varying amplitude and
phase of all sub-carriers
• 2-D channel estimator – estimate reference values based on
known pilot values
• By sampling theorem, Ts< Inverse of the double-sided BW of
the sampled signal
• Min. subcarrier spacing and min. symbol spacing between
pilots
• More pilots effective SNR small for data symbols
Pilots – Block of 9 OFDM symbols
with 16 sub-carriers
Complete OFDM Transceiver
 Unoccupied Subcarriers

• Edge sub-carriers are more vulnerable to

errors under discrete FFT
⯈Frequency might be shifted due to noise or
multi-path
• Leave them unused
⯈ In 802.11, only 48 of 64 bins are occupied bins
• Is it really worth to use OFDM when it costs so
many overheads (CP, unoccupied bins)?
 Synchronization

DAC (Tx)

ADC (Rx)

• DAC (at Tx) and ADC (at Rx) never

have exactly the sampling period
⯈ A slow shift of the symbol timing point, which
rotates subcarriers
⯈ Intercarrier interference (ICI), which causes loss
of the orthogonality of the subcarriers
 Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO)
ftx

DAC (Tx)

frx

ADC (Rx)

• The oscillators of Tx and Rx are not typically

tuned to identical frequencies
⯈ Up-convert baseband signal sn to passband signal
yn=sn*ej2πftxnTs

⯈ Down-convert passband signal yn back to

rn=sn*ej2πftxnTs*e-j2πfrxnTs=sn*ej2πfΔnTs
 Frequency Errors

Primary sources of
frequency errors
Doppler shift
Clock mismatches
Phase noise
Effects
Reduction in amplitude
(missampling sinc) O. Edfors, M. Sandell, J. van de Beek D. Landström, F. Sjöberg, “An Introduction to

Intercarrier interference Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing,” Sep 98, Available online:
[Link]

OFDM 49
 OFDM
Diagram
Transmitte
r
Modulation
Insert
S/P IFFT P/S D/A
CP

channel

+ noise

Correct CFO
Phase track
De-mod

remove
P/S FFT S/P A/D
CP

Receiver
OFDM IFFT-FFT perspective
 PAPR and its Reduction Methods
 Coherent addition of N signals of same phase produces a peak which is N times the
average signal.

PAPR – Peak to Average Power Ratio

max x t 
2

PAPR  0t T
T
1/ T   x t  dt
2
0

 Envelope Fluctuation – Superposition of sub-carriers

 Causes Power Amplifiers to Saturate –leads to Non-linear
Distortion, Inter-modulation and Out-of Band Radiation
 Increased Complexity of ADC and DAC
 Reduction is efficiency of RF amplifiers
 BER high
 Spectral Spreading – Adjacent Channel Interference (ACI)
occurs
Distribution of PAPR
For a complex baseband signal

an – Modulating symbol
N – No. of sub-carriers
For Large N, real/imaginary value of x(t) –
Gaussian distributed
Amplitude – Rayleigh Distribution
Power Distribution – chi-square distribution
With zero mean and two degrees of freedom
z
F ( z ) 1  e
Amplifier Characteristics
 PAPR Reduction Techniques

Distortion Techniques
Clipping
Peak Windowing
Peak Cancellation
Coding
Special FEC which exclude OFDM symbol with
large PAPR
Scrambling
Scramble OFDM to small PAPR
 SC-FDMA
SC-FDMA, which stands for Single-Carrier Frequency Division
Multiple Access, can be employed to reduce the peak-to-
average power ratio in an OFDM system
 Insertion of an N-point FFT block before the N-point IFFT block
 It can then be seen that the FFT and the IFFT cancel the effect of
each other and the net output is the exact input symbol stream, i.e.,
corresponding to a single-carrier system
 This drastically reduces the PAPR
 PAPR of a single-carrier system is 0 dB
 Instead of using an N-point FFT, one can use an M-point FFT, where
M < N, to reduce the PAPR, while still retaining the properties of the
OFDM system
 Solved Examples
Q1. Consider a WiMAX system that operates with a total
number of subcarriers N = 256, with a bandwidth of 15.625
kHz per subcarrier.
• Compute the BW of the system.
• If coherence BW is 250 KHz, what kind of fading will each
subcarrier experience?
• Compute the raw OFDM symbol time.
• If WiMAX employs a cyclic prefix that is 12.5% of the
symbol time, compute the duration of the cyclic prefix, the
number of samples in CP, and the loss in spectral
efficiency.
Q2. Consider an OFDM system with total passband bandwidth B = 5
MHz with N = 512 subcarriers. The channel has a maximum delay
spread of Td = 4 μs. Answer the questions that follow.
(a) What is the symbol time of a corresponding single-carrier system?
(b)What is the sample time of the OFDM system and the raw symbol
time without the cyclic prefix?
(c) What is the minimum number of samples required in the cyclic
prefix?
(d)If the length of the cyclic prefix is twice the required minimum
calculated above, what is the total OFDM symbol time?
(e) What is the loss in efficiency due to the overhead of the cyclic
prefix?
(f) If the modulation employed is 16-QAM, what is the effective bit
rate of the above OFDM system?
(g) At a carrier frequency of fc = 2.4 GHz, what is the maximum
possible velocity of a mobile for the system to be able to function?
IEEE 802.11ad is a WLAN standard operating at 60GHz. It has a much wider bandwidth
than previous WLAN standards in lower-frequency bands. Four PHY formats are defined in
IEEE 802.11ad, and one of them uses OFDM. The system uses a bandwidth of 1880MHz,
with 512 subcarriers and a fixed 25% cyclic prefix. Now compute the following:
1. What is the sample period duration assuming sampling at the Nyquist rate?
2. What is the subcarrier spacing?
3. What is the duration of the guard interval?
4. What is the OFDM symbol period duration?
5. In the standard among the 512 subcarriers, only 336 are used as data subcarriers.
Assuming we use code rate 1/2 and QPSK modulation, compute the maximum data
rate of the system.