A Novel Peak-to-Average Power Ratio Reduction
Method for Coded OFDM Systems
Dong Wang
Philips Research North America University of Delaware
345 Scarborough Rd., Briarcliff Manor, NY, 10510 Newark, DE, 19711
dong.wang@philips.com xxia@ee.udel.edu
Abstract— Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing
(OFDM) is an attractive technique for wideband wireless
communication applications. However, the inherent high peak-
to-average power ratio (PAPR) of OFDM signal can result in low
power efficiency and nonlinear distortion at the transmit power
amplifier. In this paper, we propose a PAPR reduction scheme
for coded OFDM systems, in which a convolutional channel
code is deployed. The proposed PAPR reduction method is
based on the selective mapping (SLM) technique and no explicit
side information is needed at the receiver side. The decoding
complexity is almost the same as the one without the PAPR
reduction scheme. There is no error propagation compared
with conventional SLM methods. It can be directly extended to
space-time coded OFDM systems, in which a convolutional code
is used to achieve frequency diversity. Simulation results show
that with a modest complexity increase of the transmitter, the
PAPR of OFDM signals can be reduced greatly.
I. I NTRODUCTION
OFDM is an effective transmission method for high data
rate wireless communication applications due to its robustness
against the frequency-selective fading, high bandwidth effi-
ciency and easy implementation [1]. However, one of the ma-
jor disadvantages of OFDM is the high PAPR of OFDM signal,
which may overload the power amplifier and cause in-band
distortion and out-of-band radiation. The in-band distortion
increases the bit error ratio (BER) and the out-band radiation
results in the unacceptable adjacent channel interference. In
order to mitigate this problem, numerous solutions have been
proposed for conventional OFDM systems, such as [2], [3],
[4], [5], [6], to name a few. Basically, they can be grouped into
two categories. The schemes belonging to the first category
deliberately modify the transmitted OFDM signals so that the
peaks are suppressed. However, the deliberate modification
operations themselves can introduce in-band noise, which may
decrease the BER performance. The simplest solution in this
category is the deliberately clipping method [4]. The schemes
in the second category are distortion free and the essential idea
is that for one information symbol sequence, the transmitter
generates multiple modulated OFDM signals and choose the
one with the lowest PAPR to transmit. These schemes do not
cause any distortion at the price of the complexity increase of
the transmitter. Selective mapping (SLM) [2], [5] and partial
transmit sequences (PTS)[3], [6] are two examples of this
Authorized licensed use limited to: VELLORE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. Downloaded on August 2, 2009 at 06:53 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Xiang-Gen Xia Jinyun Zhang
Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories
201 Broadway, Cambridge, MA, 02139
jzhang@merl.com
category. However, the explicit side information needs to be
transmitted in these schemes and the detection error of this
side information may cause error propagation.
Recently, several approaches for reducing the PAPR of
the transmitted OFDM signals in space-time coded OFDM
systems have been proposed. A PAPR reduction scheme based
on trellis shaping was proposed in [8]. It can efficiently
reduce the PAPR of the OFDM signals. However, the spectral
efficiency is decreased due to trellis shaping. Furthermore, the
BER performance is worse than non-trellis shaping scheme
due to error propagation. In [9], the authors proposed a SLM-
based PAPR reduction scheme for MIMO-OFDM systems. It
selects the transmitted sequence with the lowest average PAPR
over all transmitted antennas. This concurrent SLM method
may decrease the PAPR reduction performance. Moreover, this
scheme needs to transmit the side information explicitly to
assist the decoding and the error detected side information
may cause error propagation. In both schemes, no channel
coding is taken into consideration, while in most real OFDM
systems, a channel coding is used before OFDM modulator to
achieve frequency diversity and decrease BER.
In this paper, we propose a SLM-based PAPR reduction
scheme for coded OFDM systems. In this system, a channel
code is used to exploit frequency diversity and improve the
BER performance. The channel code we use is a recursive
convolutional code and its feedback part can be thought as a
scrambler. With n dummy bits, the transmitter can generate
2n sufficiently different candidate OFDM signals for each
information bit sequence and the one with the lowest PAPR
is selected to transmit. The PAPR reduction is achieved at
the price of the complexity increase of the transmitter. At
the receiver side, the decoding is almost the same as the
conventional coded OFDM schemes without PAPR reduction.
More importantly, there is no error propagation due to side
information detection error. This scheme is suitable for the
downlink of coded OFDM systems since base stations always
have more powerful digital signal processors. Furthermore, it
can be easily incorporated into space-time coded OFDM sys-
tems, such as the one proposed in [7] in which an orthogonal
space-time block code is deployed to achieve space diversity
and a convolutional code is used to achieve frequency diversity
and improve BER performance.
Here, we want to mention that our scheme can be naturally
 extended to systems with other channel codes and space-time where E{} denotes the expectation operation. It is shown in
coded schemes, such as turbo codes and space-time trellis [10] that when the oversampling rate L is large, PAPR defined
codes. in (2) can be accurately approximated as
The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we in-
troduce the system model used. In Section 3, the proposed max |xm |2
06m<LN
scheme is described. In Section 4, we analyze the PAPR P AP R = , (3)
E{|xm |2 }
reduction performance of the proposed scheme. In Section 5,
we present some simulation results. At last, the conclusions where xm are the time domain signal samples and defined as
are drawn in Section 6. N −1
mT 1 X j2πkm
xm = x( )= √ Xk e LN , 0 6 m < LN. (4)
L N k=0

II. S YSTEM M ODEL The essential idea of SLM technique is to generate U suf-
ficiently different candidate OFDM signals for one input
Consider a wireless communication system with OFDM
information bit sequence and choose the one with the lowest
modulation, as shown in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. The guard interval
PAPR to transmit. There are several ways to generate U pseudo
(cyclic prefix) insertion/removal is not shown there since it
random candidate OFDM signals. In [9], U randomized phase
does not affect the PAPR of the OFDM signals. Firstly, the
rotation vectors are used to randomize the frequency domain
information bits are input to a convolutional encoder. Then, the
OFDM symbols Xk and then generate U candidate OFDM
encoded bits are passed through a bit interleaver and mapped
signals. However, the index of the phase rotation vector
to symbols Xk , k = 1, . . . , N , which are from constellation
corresponding to the transmitted OFDM signal needs to be
Ω. N is the number of subcarriers. The resulting symbols
transmitted explicitly to the receiver. The detection error of
are grouped together and delivered to the inverse fast fourier
this side information may cause lots of errors in information
transform (IFFT) block. A complex baseband OFDM signal
bits detection due to incorrect phase de-rotator used.
can be expressed as
Our proposed PAPR method is based on the SLM scheme.
1 X
N −1 Instead of using a separate scrambler, we use a recursive
x(t) = √ Xk ej2πfk t , 0 6 t < N T, (1) convolutional code there. This channel code can exploit the
N k=0 frequency diversity and improve the BER performance. Fur-
thermore, the feedback part of this convolutional code can be
where fk = k∆f , ∆f = N1T and N T is the OFDM symbol
thought as a scrambler. By using several dummy bits, we can
interval length. In space-time coded OFDM systems, a space-
set the convolutional encoder to different initial states and then
time encoder may be implemented after the OFDM modulator.
different candidate OFDM signals can be generated. Also, the
For example, in the space-time coded system proposed in [7],
interleaver and the nonlinear mapper can increase the pseudo-
the transmitted signals are generated based on two consecutive
randomness of these candidate OFDM signals, which plays
OFDM signals x1 (t) and x2 (t) using Alamouti scheme. In
a key role in SLM scheme. At the receiver, no descrambler
the first OFDM symbol interval, x1 (t) is transmitted through
is needed and only Viterbi decoder for the recursive con-
Antenna 1 and x2 (t) is transmitted through Antenna 2. In the
volutional code is used. Compared with the scheme without
second OFDM symbol interval, [−x∗2 (N T −t)] are transmitted
PAPR, the complexity of this Viterbi decoder does not change
through Antenna 1 and [x∗1 (N T − t)] are transmitted through
provided the feedback polynomial of the convolutional code
Antenna 2, where (.)∗ denotes complex conjugate.
does not increase the memory length. Moreover, there is no
At the receiver, the received signals are first passed through
BER performance loss due to PAPR reduction since no error
fast fourier transform (FFT) block. If space-time coding is
propagation exists.
used in MIMO-OFDM systems, space-time code decoding is
There are two ways to insert the dummy bits. In the first
executed after the FFT demodulator. The hard/soft decoded
scheme, the n dummy bits are directly inserted before the
symbols are converted to hard/soft bit information by the
input information bits. With U = 2n different values of
symbol-to-bit converter block. After bit deinterleaving and
these dummy bits, the convolutional encoder can be set to
convolutional code decoding, the information bits are recov-
U different initial states. For the dummy bit inserter Di , 1 ≤
ered.
i ≤ 2n − 1 in Fig.1, the dummy bits, which are the binary
representation of i, are inserted. Then the information bits are
input to the encoder to generate U different candidate OFDM
III. A SLM-BASED PAPR R EDUCTION M ETHOD signals. However, in this case, there is a constraint that the
memory length of the convolutional code should be larger
The PAPR of the OFDM signal in (1) can be defined as than the number of dummy bits n. Otherwise, there must exist
two different values of n dummy bits that set the encoder to
max |x(t)|2
06t<N T the same initial state, which means there are two candidate
P AP R = , (2)
E{|x(t)|2 } OFDM signals which are the same to each other. Thus, the

Authorized licensed use limited to: VELLORE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. Downloaded on August 2, 2009 at 06:53 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 PAPR reduction performance is decreased. In the following
simulations, we denote it as Type-1.
Instead, we can add n dummy bits in the following way,
which is shown in Fig.3. Denote the information bits trans-
mitted in a OFDM symbol as bi , 0 ≤ i ≤ F − n. The first
2n − n − 1 information bits bi , 1 ≤ i ≤ 2n − n − 1, are input
to a (2n − 1, 2n − n − 1) Hamming encoder. The output bits
are denoted as ci , 1 ≤ i ≤ 2n − 1 and fed into the bit-flipping
block. In this block, we deliberately introduce one bit error by
flipping one of the input bits. Specifically, for the dummy bit
inserter D0 in Fig.1, the output bits
di = ci , 1 ≤ i ≤ 2n − 1.
For other dummy bit inserters Dj , 1 ≤ j ≤ U − 1, U = 2n in
Fig.1, the output bits
di = ci , 1 ≤ i ≤ 2n − 1, i 6= j
dj = c¯j ,
where ā is the bit inverse operation. These Hamming coded
bits di , 1 6 i 6 2n − 1 and other input information bits
di = bi−n , 2n 6 i 6 F are fed into the convolutional
encoder to do the channel coding. Since Hamming codes can
correct one bit error, the deliberately introduced one bit error
can be corrected by the Hamming decoder at the receiver
side provided all the Hamming encoded bits are correctly
detected. The recursive convolutional code, the bit interleaver
and the nonlinear mapper can guarantee that 2n candidate
OFDM signals are sufficiently different so that a good PAPR
reduction performance can be achieved. In this case, there is
no constraint on the memory length of the convolutional code.
In the following simulations, we denote it as Type-2.
In the above two cases, since the dummy bit insertion
operation, the convolutional encoding and the bit interleaving
are linear operations, only a single interleaved convolutional
codeword which corresponds to the dummy bit inserter U0
needs to be generated. The interleaved convolutional code-
words corresponding to other dummy bit inserters can be
calculated by add a precalculated constant bit sequence to the
interleaved convolutional codeword of U0 . This can simplify
the transmitter design. Since U IFFT operations need to
be performed at the transmitter side, the complexity of the
transmitter increase. However, the complexity of the receiver
keeps almost unchanged. Thus it is suitable for the downlink
of coded OFDM systems.
IV. PAPR R EDUCTION P ERFORMANCE A NALYSIS
According to the central limit theorem, the time domain
samples xm become complex Gaussian distributed with a
mean of zero when the number of subcarriers N is large
enough. Following [11], we assume that the complementary
cumulative distribution function (CCDF) of the PAPR defined
in (3) for N subcarriers and oversampling can be approximated
by the distribution for αN subcarriers without oversampling,
where α is a constant and larger than one. For example, if
Authorized licensed use limited to: VELLORE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. Downloaded on August 2, 2009 at 06:53 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
the oversampling rate L is 4, α can be chosen as 2.4. Then
the CCDF of the PAPR for a given PAPR threshold,z, can be
expressed as [11]:
P (P AP R 6 z) = (1 − e−z )αN . (8)
Suppose all the U randomly generated candidate OFDM
signals are uncorrelated, then the probability that the PAPR of
the selected transmission OFDM signal exceeds the threshold
z is
P (P AP R > z) = (1 − (1 − e−z )αN )U . (9)
(5)
V. S IMULATION R ESULTS
In this section, we provide some simulation results of the
(6) proposed scheme. The number of subcarriers N is 128 and
(7) the constellation Ω is 16QAM. The industry-standard 1/2 rate
convolutional code [133 171] is used and the memory length
of this code is 6. Here we change this code into a recursive
form with the feedback polynomial of 133.
Fig.4 shows the PAPR reduction performance of the pro-
posed scheme. Theoretic PAPR performance curves calculated
as (9) with α = 2.4 are also plotted as references. These
theoretic results match the simulated results of Type-2 quite
well. Type-2 always has a better PAPR performance than
Type-1, but the performance gap between these two schemes
decrease as n increases. With 2 dummy bits, Type-1 can
achieve about 2.1dB PAPR reduction and Type-2 can achieve
about 2.7 PAPR reduction at the probability of 10−4 . With 3
dummy bits, about 3.4dB PAPR reduction can be achieved at
the probability of 10−4 . When 4 dummy bits are used, about
4dB PAPR reduction can be achieved. However, 16 128-IFFT
need to be performed at the transmitter.
In Fig.5, the out-of-band power after a nonlinear power
amplifier is evaluated by measuring the power spectral density
(PSD) of the distorted transmit signal. To simulate a nonlinear
power amplifier, the following AM/AM conversion model is
used[11]:
xm
g(xm ) = 1 ,
|xm | 2p 2p
(10)
(1 + ( A ) )
where A is the maximum output signal amplitude. In our
simulations, we choose p = 3. With the input back-off (IBO)
of 6dB, the proposed Type-2 scheme with n = 3 can decrease
the out-of-band radiation with about 5dB. For comparison, we
also give the simulation result for clipping scheme with the
clipping ratio (CR) of 2. One can see clipping without post-
filtering increases the out-of-band radiation greatly. For the
same adjacent channel interference requirement, our scheme
puts less requirement on the IBO of the power amplifier, which
means a higher power efficiency is achieved.
In Fig.6, the BER performance of the proposed scheme used
in a space-time coded OFDM system is shown. The simulated
system has two transmit antennas and one receive antenna.
The Alamouti scheme is used to achieve space diversity. In
this simulation, the channel model is quasi-static flat fading
 channel. A nonlinear power amplifier with IBO = 6dB is
used after the OFDM modulator. At the receiver side, the hard
decision demodulation is performed. The BER performance
of the clipping scheme with CR = 1.9 is also given for
comparison. As we can see, type-2 with [7,4] Hamming code
has about 1dB performance gain over the clipping scheme Dummy Bit Convolutional Bit
Mapper IFFT
since the clipping scheme introduces in-band noise. Inserter D0 Encoder Interleaver Select
One
Dummy Bit Convolutional Bit
Mapper IFFT OFDM
Inserter D1 Encoder Interleaver OSTBC
Signal Encoder
With

…
the
Lowest
VI. C ONCLUSIONS Dummy Bit Convolutional Bit
Mapper IFFT
PAPR
Inserter DU-1 Encoder Interleaver
In this paper, we proposed a PAPR reduction method for
coded OFDM system. This scheme is based on the SLM
technique. A recursive convolutional code, which is often
used in OFDM systems as a channel code, functions as a
scrambler and by inserting several dummy bits, it can generate
sufficiently different candidate OFDM signals. Two types of
dummy bit inserting schemes are studied. It is suitable for Fig. 1. Coded OFDM system - Transmitter
space-time coded OFDM systems with a convolutional code.
Simulation results prove that our scheme can reduce the PAPR
of the transmitted OFDM signals effectively.
FFT
OSTBC Symbol-to- Bit Convolutional Dummy Bit
Decoder Bit Converter Deinterleaver Decoder Dumper
FFT

R EFERENCES
[1] L.J. Cimini, Jr. , “Analysis and Simulatio of a Digital Mobile Channel
Fig. 2. Coded OFDM system - Receiver
Using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing,” IEEE Trans. Com-
munications, vol. 33, pp. 665-675, July 1985.
[2] P.V. Eetvelt, G. Wade, and M. Tomlinson “Peak to Average Power Re-
duction for OFDM Schemes by Selective Scrambling,” Electronic Letters
, vol. 32, pp. 1963-1964, Oct. 1996. b1~ b2n-n-1 (2n-1, 2n-n-1) c1~ c2n -1 d1~ d2n -1
Bit Flipping
[3] L.J. Cimini, Jr, and N.R. Sollenberge, “Peak-to-Average Power Ratio Hamming Code
b1~ bF-n d 1~ d F
Reduction of an OFDM Signal Using Partial Transmit Sequences,” IEEE
Communications Letters , vol. 4, pp. 86-88, Mar., 2000.
b2n-n~ bF-n d2n ~ dF
[4] X. Li, and L.J. Cimini, “Effects of Clipping and Filtering on the
Performance of OFDM,” IEEE Communications Letters, vol. 2, No.5 ,
pp 131-133 May. 1998.
[5] S. Müller, R. Bäuml, R. Fischer, and J. Huber, “OFDM with Reduced Fig. 3. Dummy bit inserter - Type-2
Peak-to-Average Power Ratio by Multiple Signal Representation,” Annals
of Telecommunications , vol. 52, No.1-2, pp.58-67, 1997.
[6] C. Tellambura, “Phase Optimization criterion for reducing peak-to- 0
10
average power ratio in OFDM,” Electronic Letters vol.43, No.2, pp. 169-
170, 1998.
[7] O. Oteri, A. Paulraj, W.J. Chimitt, and K. Holt, “Space-Time-Frequency −1
10
Coding for OFDM-Based WLANS,” IEEE Globecom 2004, Vol.5 , pp.
2925 - 2930 , 29 Nov.- 3 Dec., 2004. −2
[8] H. Reddy, and T. M. Duman, “Space-Time Coded OFDM with Low 10

PAPR,”IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference, vol. 2, pp 799-803,

Dec. 2003.
Pr(PAPR>z)

−3
10
[9] Y.-L. Lee, Y.-H. You, W.-G. Jeon, J.-H. Paik, and H.-K. Song, “Peak-
to-Average Power Ratio in MIMO-OFDM Systems Using Selective Map-
ping,” IEEE Communications Letters, vol. 7, No. 12, pp. 575-577, Dec. −4
10
2003. Type−2 with [7,4] Hamming code, n=3
[10] C. Tellambura,“Computation of the Continuous-Time PAR of an OFDM Type−2 with [3,1] Hamming code, n=2
Type−2 with [15 11] Hamming Code, n=4
Signal with BPSK subcarriers,” IEEE Communications Letters, vol. 5, pp. −5
10 Theorectic PAPR with n=4
185-187, May 2001. Theoretic PAPR with PAPR reduction, n=3
Theoretic PAPR with PAPR reduction, n=2
[11] R. V. Nee, and R. Prasad, “OFDM for Wireless Multimedia Communi- −6
Theoretic PAPR of the OFDM signal without PAPR reduction
cations,” Artech House Publishers, 2000. 10 Type−1, n=3
Type−2, n=4
Simulated PAPR of the OFDM signal without PAPR reduction
Type−1, n=2
−7
10
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
PAPR Threshold z (dB)

Fig. 4. PAPR reduction performance of the proposed scheme with N=128,

L=4 and 16QAM modulation

Authorized licensed use limited to: VELLORE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. Downloaded on August 2, 2009 at 06:53 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 0

−10
Power Spectral Density (dB/Hz)

−20

−30 Clipping without filtering CR=2

OFDM signal without PAPR reduction

−40
Clipping with filtering CR=2 Type−2 with [7,4] Hamming code, n=3

−50

−1.5 −1 −0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5

Normalized Frequency fT

Fig. 5. PSD of the distorted signals after a nonlinear power amplifier with
p=3 and IBO=6dB

−2
10
Clipping with CR=1.9
Type−2 with [7,4] HAMMING code, n=3
Bit Error Rate

−3
10

−4
10
14 14.5 15 15.5 16 16.5 17 17.5 18
SNR at the receiver (dB)

Fig. 6. BER performance of space-time coded OFDM systems with PAPR

reduction

Authorized licensed use limited to: VELLORE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. Downloaded on August 2, 2009 at 06:53 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.