Wireless OFDM

ECE-S306: Introduction to
Modulation & Coding
11/30/2010
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Outline
Introduction
The wireless channel
What is OFDM?
Cyclic prefix
Coding
Summary and example
2
Wireless Technology
3
What Drives Wireless?
Wireless
Cellular
Indoor
WLAN
Radio TV
Satellite
Comm.
We strive for ubiquitous
connectivity:
Started with cell phones
Now, portable Internet access
4G in the near future
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Enablers for Wireless
New spectrum made available
Standardization effort
Advances in wireless technology
OFDM well-suited for wireless channel
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OFDM: A Key Wireless Technology
*Source: IEEE
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The Wireless Channel
Introduction
The wireless channel
What is OFDM?
Cyclic prefix
Coding
Summary and example
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Multipath Fading
Constructive and destructive combination of
electromagnetic waves at the receiver
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Multipath Fading
Phase Difference Equal
to a Multiple of 360
0
Waves Reinforce Each Other
Waves Arrive Out of
Phase
Weak Signal
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Multipath Reflections
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Multipath Reflections
Delay spread is the
difference in the
propagation delays
along the two paths
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What do Wireless Signals Experience?
Large fluctuations in strength (fading) due to constructive and
destructive interference of multipath echoes
Delay spreads leading to intersymbol interference (ISI)
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Naive Approaches to These Impairments
In a wireless network, fading can be overcome
by increasing transmitted power:
o Very inefficient
o Generates interferences to other users
ISI can be overcome by slowing down the rate
of transmission
o Again, inefficient
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Signal Fluctuations
Multipath fading has the effect of large fluctuations in the signal strength
over distance, time, and frequency.
E.g. Distance: A displacement of wavelength roughly corresponds to a
peak-to-valley change in the signal strength. For 2 GHz, the displacement
is 15 cm
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Frequency Response
Delay spread: Extent of the signal
spread in time due to multipath.
Frequency Selectivity: Frequency
components of the signals separated
by more than approximately 1/delay
spread will experience the wireless
channel differently. A change in
frequency of ~ 1/delay spread will
cause peaks to turn into valleys and
vice versa.
Question: How can we exploit these
variations in the channel frequency
response to design techniques to
mitigate against multipath fading?
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Diversity Concept
A communication link is
severely degraded by fading:
An exponential decrease in
the probability of error with a
given SNR over an unfaded
channel becomes 1/SNR
relation in the faded channel
Diversity is the mechanism of
transmitting the signals that
are subject to independent
fading, thereby increasing link
reliability
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How do Various Signaling Methods Address
These Issues?
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Signal for Wireless Networks
Two fundamental approaches
Narrow band signals: bandwidth < 1/delay spread
Wide band signals: bandwidth > 1/delay spread
Able to harness the inherent frequency diversity of the
channel
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Wideband Signals
CDMA and OFDM use different mechanisms to
transmit effectively over a wireless channel
OFDM, in conjunction with coding, takes advantage
of the inherent frequency selectivity of the wireless
channel to overcome fading and ISI
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What is OFDM?
Introduction
The wireless channel
What is OFDM?
Cyclic prefix
Coding
Summary and example
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Sinusoids are a Natural Choice for Signaling
They pass undistorted through a multipath
fading channel modeled as a linear filter:
o Amplitude and phase may vary with fading
o Frequency remains unchanged
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OFDM Concepts
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
(OFDM)
Modulate and transmit multiple carriers
o Referred to as OFDM subcarriers
To avoid generating multiple subcarriers,
exploit Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT)
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Multiple Carriers
Split a high-rate data stream into parallel streams
Transmit each digital symbol on a different carrier
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Some Mathematics
The transmitted signal as a sum of N carriers modulated by the symbols
x(k) (digital symbols such as PSK or QAM)
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Choose the subcarrier frequencies f
k
and the signal duration T such that
each carrier completes an integer number of cycles:
When subcarriers are sampled N times in each interval T, the samples
represent the Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform (IDFT) of the modulator
carriers.
FFT and OFDM
High-rate data stream can be de-multiplexed into parallel streams that are
processed through an IDFT, and hence efficiently implemented as an IFFT
OFDM symbol is the block of samples resulting from the IFFT operation
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Assembling OFDM Data
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Input data PSK/QAM symbols at rate N/T
OFDM symbols transmitted at rate 1/T
OFDM samples transmitted at rate N/T
Compare single carrier vs. OFDM:
Single carrier: N symbols transmitted serially, duration of each T/N
OFDM: N symbols transmitted in parallel, duration of each T
OFDM Receiver
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Signal is coherently demodulated
Sampled at rate N/T
Passed to DFT to convert back to frequency domain
Complex numbers Dk represent PSK/QAM symbols
FFT as Sampling Device
The FFT at OFDM receiver acts as a sample device in the
frequency domain.
The spacing of 1/T between carriers ensures that by sampling
at the peak of each subcarrier, the other cross zero and do not
interfere.
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OFDM vs. FDM
FDM:
o Carriers frequencies are separated such that signal
spectra do not overlap
o Guard intervals between spectra
o Low spectral efficiency
OFDM:
o Signal separation at receiver is achieved through
signal processing rather than filtering
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What is OFDM?
Introduction
The wireless channel
What is OFDM?
Cyclic prefix
Coding
Summary and example
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Handle ISI: Guard Time
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For the same throughput, OFDM symbols have N times longer duration
than single carrier symbols.
Guard time is introduced to eliminate ISI
Inter-Carrier Interference
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Subcarrier 2 does not exist during the full integration time
Orthogonality is lost , Inter-carrier interference degrades performance
Duration of cyclic prefix has to be longer than the expected delay spread
Cyclic Prefix
To maintain orthogonality
between subcarriers
Cyclic prefix: the data symbol is
extended in the front such that
the new transmitted symbol is as
shown.
By designing the OFDM symbol
such that the cyclic prefix is
approx. 20% of its duration, the
loss in SNR is only -1dB.
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What is OFDM?
Introduction
The wireless channel
What is OFDM?
Cyclic prefix
Coding
Summary and example
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Coded OFDM - Overview
Channel coding is the operation
of introducing controlled
redundancy in the data in order
to increase the reliability of
transmission.
Codes are classified according
to:
o Rate = number of coded bits /
number of information bits
o Type = convolutional codes are
widely applied in OFDM systems
A convolutional code is obtained
by passing the information
sequence through a near finite-
state shift register.
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Example: Rate for 802.11
Why Use Channel Codes?
Two mechanisms:
Coding gain
Diversity gain
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Coding gain: for the same SNR, the probability of confusing between
sequences (coded) is smaller than between single symbols (uncoded)
Diversity Gain in OFDM
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Fading events in adjacent carriers are likely to be correlated.
Interleaving is an operation in which consecutive symbols are
transmitted over non-adjacent frequency subcarriers.
What is OFDM?
Introduction
The wireless channel
What is OFDM?
Cyclic prefix
Coding
Summary and example
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Summary
Wireless OFDM:
Signals transmitted over the wireless channel experience multipath
leading to: fading and intersymbol interference.
The OFDM signal consists of multiple symbols transmitted in
parallel and implemented by FFT processing.
The guard time is designed to protect OFDM symbols from the
effects of ISI.
To maintain orthogonality between carriers and avoid intercarrier
interference, the guard time is filled with the cyclic prefix.
The cyclic prefix is obtained by taking a number of the last samples
of the OFDM symbol and inserting them in the front.
Coding and interleaving are used to extract channel diversity to
mitigate the fading problem.
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OFDM Transceiver
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Example: 802.11 a,g
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Design a system with the following
requirements:
Bit rate: 54 Mb/s
Bandwidth: 20 MHz
Tolerable delay spread: 200 ns
Example: 802.11 a,g (Part 1)
Choose the OFDM symbol duration 5 times the guard
time. Then the overhead loss due to guard time is:
10log
10
(4/5) ~ -1 dB.
We have symbol time:
T
s
= 5 * 800 ns = 4 us
FFT integration time:
T = T
s
T
guard
= 3.2 us
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802.11 a,g (Part 2)
FFT integration time:
T = T
s
T
guard
= 3.2 us
Carrier spacing = 1/T = 0.3125 MHz
For 54 Mb/s, each OFDM symbol needs to carry:
54 Mb/s * 4 us = 216 bits
Take into account coding rate :
216 * 4/3 = 288 bits
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802.11 a,g (Part 3)
Target BW is 20 MHz, the number of subcarriers is:
20 MHz / 0.3125 MHz = 64 Subcarriers
The number of subcarriers carrying signals: 48 (the
rest are pilots or carry no symbols). The number of
bits per subcarrier:
288 bits / 48 subcarriers = 6 bits / subcarrier
Use 64 QAM
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References
Haimovich, A. Wireless OFDM. IEEE E-Learning.
(http://ieee-elearning.org/)
Pandharipande, A. Principle of OFDM. IEEExplore.
(http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=0099
7971)
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