CHAPTER 4

QUADRILATERAL COMPANDING TRANSFORM FOR

PAPR REDUCTION IN OFDM SYSTEMS

As discussed in chapter 3, the time domain OFDM signal has large envelope fluctuation;
therefore, PAPR of OFDM signal is very high. Thus HPAs with large linear range and high
resolution ADCs/DACs are required to amplify the OFDM signal, and for its conversion
between analog and digital domains respectively. Many companding schemes [27]-[33] have
been proposed in the literature to reduce the PAPR of OFDM signal. The conventional -
law and A-law companding schemes can be used for PAPR reduction, by choosing the
suitable value of the parameters or A , controlling the nonlinearity of the -law [27] or
A -law companding function respectively. But the error performance of both the schemes
degrades as both of them introduce high companding distortion in OFDM signal at higher
values of or A . A nonlinear companding transform [28] has been proposed by Jiang et al.
to effectively reduce the PAPR of the OFDM signal. In this scheme [28], the Gaussian
distributed in-phase (I) and quadrature-phase (Q) components of discrete time complex
OFDM signal are transformed into a quasi-uniform distribution. In this scheme, the
companding function is separately applied to I and Q components of the OFDM signal. The
large values of I or Q components of the OFDM signal are compressed, whereas those with
small I and Q components are enlarged. The PAPR reduction capability and BER
performance of this scheme [28], can be optimized by properly choosing the parameters of
the companding function. Jiang et al. proposed Exponential Companding (EC) scheme [29]
to transform Rayleigh distributed OFDM signal magnitude into uniform distribution. EC can
effectively reduce the PAPR of the OFDM signal but its companding function has no design
flexibility and therefore, a good trade-off between BER and PAPR performances cannot be
achieved. Hunag et al. proposed four companding transformation functions [30] to reduce the
PAPR of the OFDM signal. These include: linear symmetrical transform (LST), linear non
symmetrical transform (LNST), non-linear symmetrical transform (NLST) and non-linear
non-symmetrical transform (NLNST). It has been shown in [30] that LNST performs the best
among four companding functions [30]. In LNST an inflexion point has been introduced to

59

treat large and small signals on different scales to achieve better BER and PAPR
performances. Linear companding transform (LCT) [31], proposed by Aburakhia et al., also
treats large and small signals on different scales, but has two inflexion points to achieve more
flexibility in designing the companding function. The transformed signal changes abruptly at
the inflexion points and hence degrades the power spectral density (PSD) of OFDM signal.

Trapezoidal companding (TC) [32] proposed by Hou et al., is an efficient PAPR reduction
method with low BER. This scheme [32] transforms the Rayleigh distributed OFDM signal
magnitude into trapezoidal distribution and is called Trapezoidal Companding. Trapezoidal
companding uses a piecewise function defined in three intervals of OFDM signal magnitude.
Jeng et al. proposed [33] trapezium distribution based companding (TDBC), to transform the
Rayleigh distributed OFDM signal magnitude into a biased linear distribution called
Trapezium Distribution.

In this chapter, we propose a novel non-linear generalized companding scheme called

Quadrilateral Companding Transform (QCT) to reduce the PAPR of OFDM signal. The
proposed method provides additional degrees of freedom in comparison to existing
trapezoidal companding, exponential companding and trapezium distribution based
companding schemes. This allows more flexibility in designing the companding function,
which is useful for the overall OFDM system to achieve low BER with good PAPR reduction
capability.

The remainder of this chapter is organized as follows: In section 4.1 we discuss the
motivation to quadrilateral companding transform. Section 4.2 deals with OFDM system
model with quadrilateral companding. The proposed quadrilateral companding and
decompanding functions are derived in section 4.3. Mathematical analysis of the PAPR
performance of proposed scheme is presented in section 4.4. Some special cases of the
proposed scheme are discussed in section 4.5. The simulation results for PAPR and BER
performances of the proposed scheme are presented and discussed in section 4.6. Finally this
chapter is concluded in section 4.7.

4.1 MOTIVATION TO QUADRILATERAL COMPANDING

TRANSFORM

As discussed earlier, the magnitude of OFDM signal has Rayleigh distribution. Rayleigh
distribution has a long tail, therefore, the peak value of the OFDM signal is very high as

60

compared to its average value; hence it has very high PAPR . But in Rayleigh distribution,
the probability of having large magnitude is very less than the probability of signal having
small magnitude. In TC, the magnitude of the transformed OFDM signal follows trapezoidal
distribution, in which the probability of having large magnitude is also very less than the
probability of the signal having small magnitude. Whereas, in EC, the magnitude of
companded signal follows uniform distribution, in which the probability of all OFDM signal
magnitude in the defined interval is equal, which makes it more lossy. In EC, the companding
function used for transformation has no flexibility to design the companding function i.e. the
parameters of the companding function controlling the nonlinearity are fixed due to the
constraints on the average power and PDF of transformed OFDM signal. Therefore, EC [29]
has no degree of freedom. On the other hand, in TC we can control the nonlinearity of the
companding function by properly choosing the values of normalized projection of two
hypotenuses (a, b) on down hemline. Therefore, its [32] degree of freedom is two. Also, with
appropriate choice of these parameters, the scheme can be made less lossy to provide better
BER performance for a given PAPR.

Motivated by this observation, we propose to transform the Rayleigh distributed OFDM

signal magnitude into Quadrilateral distribution function shown in Fig. 4.1, to achieve an
additional degree of freedom over TC. The parameters of quadrilateral distribution are chosen
in such a way that it produces least possible companding distortion to achieve low BER for a
given PAPR.

Figure 4.1: Quadrilateral distribution for proposed QCT

61

4.2 SYSTEM MODEL

The block diagram of an OFDM system using companding scheme for PAPR reduction is
shown in Fig. 4.2. Here, we have considered an OFDM system with N subcarriers, in which
each of the subcarrier is modulated by M-PSK or M-QAM. As shown in Fig. 4.2 the input
binary data sequence is first converted into N parallel data substreams and then these are
mapped to the constellation points of M-PSK or M-QAM to achieve desired modulation on
each of the subcarriers. After this, subcarrier modulation is performed using IFFT block to

obtain the discrete time domain OFDM signal. Let {X k }kN=01 be the N complex modulated

data symbols to be transmitted over N subcarriers. The discrete time domain OFDM signal
generated after taking IFFT of a block of N modulated data symbols, is given by (2.9).

Figure 4.2: Block diagram of OFDM system with companding transform

Discrete time domain OFDM signal is passed through the parallel to serial (S/P) converter
and then applied to the compander for reducing the dynamic range or PAPR of the OFDM
signal. The companded OFDM signal is applied to digital to analog (D/A) converter to get
analog signal and then finally amplified using HPA. At the receiver, the received signal is
first converted into digital signal using A/D converter. The digital signal is then expanded by
inverse companding function known as decomapnding function. After that subcarrier
demodulation is performed by taking the FFT of OFDM signal obtained from expander.
Finally, M-PSK or M-QAM decoder is used to decode the received data signal.

62

The symbols notation used throughout this chapter are listed in Table 4.1 for convenience.

Table 4.1: List of symbols used in QCT

k th modulated data symbol Xk

nth sample of discrete time domain OFDM signal x[n]

o
PDF of original OFDM signal (without companding) f (.)
| x[ n ]|

CDF of original OFDM signal (without companding) F o | x[ n ]| (. )

c
PDF of OFDM signal after companding f (.)
| x[ n ]|

CDF of OFDM signal after companding F c (.)

Upper-bound of the peak value of OFDM signal l

Quadrilateral Companding function h (.)

Quadrilateral Decompanding function h 1 (.)

nth sample of discrete time OFDM signal after companding h( x[n])

4.3 QUADRILATERAL COMPANDING AND DECOMPANDING

FUNCTIONS

The quadrilateral companding function h (x ) is a nonlinear companding function. It

transforms the original probability distribution function of OFDM signal magnitude into a
quadrilateral distribution as shown in Fig. 4.1, and hence the name Quadrilateral
Companding Transform.

The pdf f c ( x) of quadrilateral distribution can be read from Fig. 4.1 as

| x[ n ]|

h1 x
, x al
al
h2 h1
h 1 + (x al ), al < x (1 b )l (4.1)
f c
( x) = (l al bl )
| x[ n ] |
h (x l)
2 , (1 b )l < x l
bl
0 otherwise

63

where h1 , h2 , l , a and b are the parameters of quadrilateral distribution shown in Fig. 4.1.

These parameters ( h1 , h2 , l , a and b ) control the nonlinearity of the companding functions.

The cumulative distribution function (CDF) of quadrilateral distribution function given by
(4.1) can be calculated using the following relationship

l
F c ( x) = f c ( x) dx (4.2)
| x[ n ]|
0

Using (4.1) and (4.2) we have

h1 x 2
, x al
2 al
al h2 h1
h1 x + (x al )2 , al < x (1 b ) l (4.3)
F ( x) =
c
2 2(l al bl )
2
( h1a + h2 b)l + ( h1 + h2 )(l al bl ) h2 (l x ) , (1 b) l < x l
2 2 2bl
1 x>l

Quadrilateral distribution function is bounded in the interval [ 0, l ] . Like EC, TC and TDBC,
in this scheme also average power of the OFDM signal before and after companding is kept
same, therefore, we have

l
2 = z 2 f|xc[n]| ( z )dz (4.4)
0

l bl
2 1
al l
2
h2 h1
(z al )dz + z 2 h2 ( x l ) dz
h x
= z dz + z h 1 +
0 al al (l al bl ) l bl
bl

h1a3l 3 h1l 3 (1b)3 h2 l 3 (1b)3 al3 (h2 h1){a 2 + (1b)2 + a(1b)} h2 l 3 (8b2 6b 3b3 )
= + +
12 12 4 12 12

which can be further simplified to

2 =
1
12
[
h1l 3[(1 b){(1 b) 2 + a(1 b) + a 2 }] + h2l 3[3 + (1 a){b 2 2b (1 + a)} a(a 2 + a + 1)]] (4.5)

64

As shown in Fig. 4.1, the PDF of quadrilateral companded OFDM signal lies in the interval
[0, l ] , therefore, we have,

f c ( z )dz = 1
|x[n]| (4.6)
0

al (1b)l l
h1 z h2 h1 ( z al ) h2 ( z l )
al dz + h1 +
l al bl
dz +
bl
dz = 1
0 al 0

h 1 a l (h 1 + h 2 ) ( l a l b l ) h 2 a l
+ + =1
2 2 2

h 1 (l bl) + h 2 (l a l ) = 2 (4.7)

For given values of l , a and b , the parameters ( h1 , h 2 ) of the companding function h(x) can

be easily calculated using (4.5) and (4.7). Therefore, three parameters (l , a and b ) can be
chosen independently to control the nonlinearity of companding function h(x) . Hence the
proposed QCT has three degree of freedoms. The values of l , a and b should be chosen
independently to provide low PAPR and BER.

As we can see from Fig. 4.3, TC [32] for the companding function parameters (a=0.4, b=0.1),
yields h1=h2=h=0.8165 and l=1.633, i.e. a single value of l, whereas in QCT for the same
values of a and b, a complete range ([1.29, 2.12]) of l can be utilized to design the
companding function. It is therefore confirmed from Fig. 4.3 that QCT provides more design
flexibility in comparison to TC. Hence, QCT can achieve a better trade-off between PAPR
and BER performances. The same design flexibility can also be achieved for other possible
combinations of a and b. Another example depicting the same is shown in Fig. 4.4.

It can also be seen from Fig. 4.4, EC [29] for the comapnding function parameters a = 0 and
b = 0 , yields h1 = h 2 = h = 0 .5773 and l=1.732, i.e. a single value of l, whereas in QCT for
the same values of a and b, a complete range ([1.414, 2.42]) of l can be utilized to design the
companding function. Hence, a better trade-off between PAPR and BER performances can be
achieved by QCT.

65

 a=0.4 and b=0.1

2

1.5

0.5 h2

-0.5

-1 h1

-1.5

-2
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
l

Figure 4.3: h1 and h2 vs. l graphs for a = 0.4 and b = 0.1

1.5

1
h2

0.5

-0.5
h1
-1

-1.5

-2
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
l

Figure 4.4: h1 and h2 vs. l graphs for a = 0 and b = 0

66

Let us derive the quadrilateral companding function h(x ) , which converts the Rayleigh
distributed OFDM signal magnitude into the required quadrilateral distribution. Assuming
h(x) to be monotonically increasing function, the expression of QCT function h(x) can be
derived after equating the CDF of original and companded OFDM signal. Therefore, we have

F o ( x) = Prob{| x[n] | x} = Prob{h(|x[n]| h(x)} = F c (h( x)) (4.8)

|x[n]|

where F o ( x) is the CDF of original OFDM signal given by following

|x[n]|

x2
F o ( x) = 1 exp 2 , x 0 (4.9)
|x[n]|

Using (4.8), we have

1
h( x) = F c ( F|xo [ n]| ( x)). sgn( x) (4.10)

where sgn(.) is the sign function. Using (4.3) and (4.9), the quadrilateral companding
function h(x) of (4.10) can be expressed as

2
sgn(x) 2al 1 exp | x | ,
h1 2

2
| x | ln
2 h1al

2
sgn(x) al + (l al bl ) h12 (h2 h1 ) h1al 2 + 2 exp | x | ,
h2 h1 (l al bl ) 2

h( x ) = (4.11)
2 2
ln <| x | ln
2 h1al 2 h1al (h1 + h2 )(l al bl )

| x | 2
2bl 2 ,
sgn( )
h 1 ( + ) + ( + )( ) + exp
2
x l h a h2 b l h1 h 2 l al bl
2

2
| x |> ln
2 h1al (h1 + h2 )(l al bl )

67

The QCT function given by (4.11) with suitable values of companding function parameters
(l , a and b ) can be utilized to perform the companding operation.

In order to eliminate the effect of quadrilateral companding transform, at the receiving end an
inverse transformation of QCT has to be used, which is known as quadrilateral decompanding

function and is denoted by h 1 ( x ) . The quadrilateral decompanding function h 1 ( x ) can be

derived after calculating the inverse of companding function h (x) , which, from (4.11),
becomes

2al
sgn(x) ln ,
2
| x | al
2 al h1 | x |

2(l al bl )
h 1 ( x) = sgn(x) ln , al <| x | (1 b)l (4.12)
2
(2 + h1 al 2h1 | x |)(l al bl ) (h2 h1 )(| x | al )

2bl

sgn(x) ln (2bl {h a + h b (h + h )(1 a b)}bl 2 + h (l | x |) 2 ,| x |> (1 b)l
1 2 1 2 2

4.4 PAPR PERFORMANCE OF QUADRILATERAL COMPANDING

TRANSFORM

In order to find PAPR reduction capability of the proposed scheme over original OFDM
signal, a parameter known as transformation gain (G) is used, which is defined as the ratio of
PAPR of the original OFDM signal to that of the companded OFDM signal.

PAPR( x [n])
G= (4.13)
PAPR(h( x [n]))

Let A1 and A2 are the peak values of companded and original OFDM signal respectively and

we denote the peak and the average power of companded OFDM signal as A12 and M12
respectively. Similarly, we denote the peak and the average power of original OFDM signal
by A22 and M 22 . As discussed earlier, the average power of the OFDM signal before and after

applying QCT remains same i.e. M 22 = M 12 = 2 . Therefore, the transformation gain (G) will

simply be the ratio of peak powers of the original and companded OFDM signals. Hence,

68

 A 22 / M 22
G=
A12 / M 12

2
A
= 2

A1

max(| x[n] | 2 )
G= (4.14)
max(h | x[n] | 2 )

The CCDF of PAPR of original OFDM signal is defined in (3.20), similarly we can write the
mathematical expression for CCDF of PAPR of companded OFDM signal as

CCDF c ( 0 ) = Pr( PAPR(h( x)) > 0 ) (4.15)

A2
= Pr 12 > 0
M1

After simplifying (4.15), we get

A22 A22
CCDF ( 0 ) = Pr 2 > 2 0
c
(4.16)
M2 A1

The peak value of the companded OFDM signal ( A1 ) can be found by substituting | x | = A2

in (4.11) and the peak power of companded OFDM signal ( A1 2 ) can be calculated as

69

 | A |2
2 al 1 exp 2 ,
h1 2

2
A 22 2 ln
2 h1 al
2
| A 2 |2
(l al bl ) ( h 2 h1 )
al + h h h12 h1 al 2 + 2 exp 2
,
( l al bl )
2 1

A12 = ( 4 .17 )
2 2
2 ln < A 22 2 ln
2 h1 al 2 h1 al ( h1 + h 2 )( l al bl )
2
| A 2 |2
2bl

l h ( h1 a + h 2 b )l + ( h1 + h 2 )( l al bl ) + exp 2 2 ,
2


2
A 22 > 2 ln
2 h1 al ( h1 + h 2 )( l al bl )

Substituting A12 into (4.18) yields

A2 2
A2 h1 2
CCDF c ( 0 ) = Pr 22 > 0 Pr A22 2 ln +

M2 | A |2 2 h1
al
2
2al1 exp 2

A22 2
A2 (h2 h1 ) 2
Pr >
M 22 2 0
| A | 2
(h h ) 2
al(h2 h1 ) + (l al bl) h12 2 1
h1al 2 + 2 exp
(l al bl) 2



2 2
Pr 2 ln < A22 2 ln +

2 h1
al 2 h1 al (h1 + h2 )(l al bl )

70




2
A2 A22
Pr 2 > (4.18)
2 0
M
2 2bl | A2 | 2
( + ) + ( + )( ) + exp 2
l h 1 h a h2 b l h 1 h2 l al bl
2
2

2
Pr A22 > 2 ln

2 h 1al (h 1 + h2 )( l al bl )

The expression for CCDF of companded OFDM signal can be further simplified to the
following form

2 2
A2 h1
CCDF c ( 0 ) = CCDF 0 1 CCDF ln +

| A2 | 2 2 h1 al
2al1 exp
2

A22 (h2 h1 ) 2
CCDF 0
2
(h2 h1 ) | A2 | 2
al ( h h ) + (l al bl ) h 2
h al 2 + 2 exp
2 1 1
( )
1 2
l al bl

2 2
CCDF ln CCDF ln

+


2 h1al 2 h1al (h1 + h2 )(l al bl )

A22
CCDF 0 (4.19)
2
2bl | A |2
l (h1a + h2 b)l + (h1 + h2 )(l al bl ) + exp 2

2

h2 2

2
CCDF ln

2 h1 al ( h1 + h 2 )(l al bl )

where CCDF(.) is the complementary cumulative distribution function defined in (3.20)

71

Upper Bound on transformation gain (G) for proposed scheme:

It can be observed from Fig. 4.1 that the peak value of the OFDM signal after companding is
l . If an OFDM signal with unity average power is applied as an input to the compander, the

PAPR of companded OFDM signal cannot exceed l 2 . Hence the transformation gain (G) of
(4.14), is bounded by

max(| x[n] | 2 )
G max (4.20)
l2

Therefore, PAPR reduction capability of the proposed companding scheme is governed by

the choice of l , i.e., lower the value of l , better is the PAPR reduction.

Minimizing PAPR of companded OFDM signal:

Average power of OFDM signal before and after companding remains same, therefore PAPR
of the companded OFDM signal can only be controlled by its peak value l. Hence, the
minimum value of PAPR can be achieved by minimizing l. The minimum value of l can be
calculated using (4.5) and (4.7) subject to the constraints 0 a 1, 0 b 1, a+b1, h1 0
and h2 0. By solving (4.5) and (4.7) under given constraints, we have found out lmin1,
when a1 and b0.

It can be seen from Figs. 4.5 and 4.6 that for a = 0.9999 and b = 0.0001 the minimum
possible value of l for which h1 0 and h2 0 is 1.01. Therefore, its PAPR performance is
very close to 0dB. We have evaluated the PAPR performance for this case to verify the same
(see Fig. 4.7).

1.5

0.5

h1
h1

-0.5

-1

-1.5

-2
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
l

Figure 4.5: h1 vs. l plot for a = 0.9999 and b = 0.0001

72

 4
x 10
3.5

2.5

1.5
h2

0.5

-0.5

-1
1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3
l

Figure 4.6: h2 vs. l plot for a = 0.9999 and b = 0.0001

0
10
CCDF (Pr[PAPR>PAPR0])

-1
10

-2
10
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
PAPR0 [dB]

Figure 4.7:PAPR of QCT for a = 0.9999 and b = 0.0001

73

4.5 SPECIAL CASES OF QCT

Many distribution functions like uniform distribution, trapezium distribution, trapezoidal

distribution etc. can be easily obtained from quadrilateral distribution by properly setting its
parameters ( a, b, h1 , h2 and l ).

Trapezoidal distribution of TC can be obtained by taking h1 = h2 = h in quadrilateral

distribution. The obtained PDF of trapezoidal companding [32] is shown in Fig. 4.8 (a).

Similarly, if we set the parameters of quadrilateral distribution as

a = 0, b = 0 and h1 = h2 = h , then companded OFDM signal has uniform distribution,
which is the basis function of exponential companding [29]. The obtained uniform
distribution function is depicted in Fig. 4.8(b).

Finally, if we set a = 0, b = 0 and h1 h2 then QCT becomes the equivalent of trapezium

companding [33]. The obtained trapezium distribution is depicted in Fig 4.8(c).

Hence exponential companding [29], trapezoidal companding [32], and trapezium

distribution based companding [33] are special cases of the proposed QCT and can be
obtained by properly setting the parameters of QCT. Therefore, we can say that quadrilateral
companding transform (QCT) is the generalized non-linear companding transform.

In the proposed quadrilateral companding transform for defining the companding function,
we require three parameters ( a, b and l ), the remaining two parameters h1 and h2 are

function of ( a, b and l ) and can be calculated using (4.5) and (4.7) for specified value of 2 .
But in case of TC the value of l is a function of a and b and cannot be chosen independently
for given values of a and b . Hence, the degree of freedom in TC is two. Therefore, QCT
provides extra design flexibility over TC.

74

(a)

h1
h
h2

l l

(
(b) (c)

Figurre 4.8: Distribbution functionn for special cases

c of propo
osed compandding transform
m (a) Trapezoid
dal (b)
Unifform (c) Trapeezium

4.6 RE
ESULTS AND
A DIS
SCUSSIO
ON

The ovverall perforrmance of the OFDM

M system with
w and without
w usinng the com
mpanding
transforrm is evaluuated by performing Monte
M Carlo
o simulationns in MAT
TLAB envirronment.
w use the OFDM system modeel presented
Here, we d in sectionn 4.2, with QPSK modulation
schemee wherein, thhe randomlyy generatedd data bits arre mapped onto
o equi-prrobable unitt-energy
( )
symbols 1 / 2 ( 1 j ) on eacch subcarrier. We have taken N=2556 subcarrieers and 8 ad
dditional
subcarriers are alloocated for CP.
C In orderr to evaluatee the BER performance
p e, complex additive
white Gaussian
G nooise is assuumed in thhe simulatio
on. To ensuure the valiidity of sim
mulation
results, transmissioon of 10,000 OFDM syymbols is taaken into acccount. Thee BER perfo
ormance
of propposed comppanding traansform is evaluated over
o AWGN
N and 3-taap Rayleigh
h fading
channell.

75

All non-linear companding schemes [28]-[32] result in spectral spreading but its effect can be
eliminated by iterative oversampling and filtering operations as suggested by Armstrong et al.
for clipping in [25] and also proposed by Jiang for companding schemes in [28]. Therefore,
its effect is not taken into consideration.

In [32], the PAPR and BER performance of TC has been evaluated for
( a = 0.4, b = 0.1 and l = 1.633) , ( a = 0.2, b = 0.7 and l = 2.164 ) , ( a = 0, b = 0 and l = 1.732 ) ,
( a = 0.9, b = 0.1 and l = 1.488) and ( a = 0, b = 1 and l = 2.449 ) , here we refer to them as TC-
1, TC-2, EC, TC-3 and TC-4 respectively. In [32], it has been shown that TC-3
provides the best PAPR reduction capability among all the cases under consideration, but its
BER performance is very poor, on the other extreme TC-4 provides very less PAPR
reduction. Therefore, we ignore these two cases (TC-3 and TC-4) and the remaining three
cases i.e. (TC-1, TC-2 and EC), which offer reasonable PAPR and BER results are
considered in our simulations for comparison with the proposed scheme.

To show the outperformance of the proposed scheme (QCT), we have used the same values
of a and b as used in TC-1 and TC-2 but increased the value of l by 0.01 to keep PAPR
performance almost same and to see its effect in BER performance. Therefore, we have
evaluated the performance of QCT for two sets of companding function parameters i.e.
( a = 0.2, b = 0.7, l = 2.174 , h1 = 0.8596 and h2 = 0.8275 ) and (a = 0.4, b = 0.1, l = 1.643, h1 =

0.8276 and h2 = 0.7874) . Here, we call them as QCT-1 and QCT-2. The reason for
selection of these two sets of parameters is given in Appendix A.

To show the outperformance of the proposed scheme (QCT), the PAPR and BER
performances are evaluated for two sets of companding function parameters i.e.
( a = 0.2, b = 0.7, l = 2.174 , h1 = 0.8596 and h2 = 0.8275 ) and (a = 0.4, b = 0.1, l = 1.643, h1 =

0.8276 and h2 = 0.7874) . Here, we call them as QCT-1 and QCT-2. The reason for
selection of these two sets of parameters is given in Appendix A.

The values of h1 and h2 of quadrilateral companding function with parameters

( a = 0.2, b = 0.7 and l = 2.174 ) and ( a = 0.4, b = 0.1 and l = 1.643) can be calculated using
(4.5) and (4.7) and these are given in Table 4.2.

76

 Table 4.2: Parameters of Quadrilateral Companding Function

Parameters Controlling Nonlinearity

Proposed
of h ( x ) h1 h2
Scheme
a and b l

QCT-1 0.2,0.7 2.174 0.8596 0.8275

QCT-2 0.4,0.1 1.643 0.8276 0.7874

The QCT functions for the parameters depicted in Table 4.2 are plotted in Fig. 4.9. It is found
that the nonlinearity of companding function for parameters ( a = 0.4, b = 0.1 and l = 1.643)
is more and the OFDM signals with a magnitude greater than 1.2 are more compressed in
comparison to QCT-1. Therefore, the peak value of the companded OFDM signal will be less
in case of QCT-2 and hence QCT-2 has more PAPR reduction capability in comparison to
QCT-1.

2.5

1.5
Output |h(x)|

QCT-2
QCT-1

0.5

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Input |x|

Figure 4.9: Plots of proposed companding functions QCT-1 and QCT-2 vs. input signal magnitude

77

The histograms of the magnitude of original OFDM signal and the signal magnitude after
applying QCT-2 and QCT-1 are shown in Figs. 4.10 (a), (b) and (c) respectively. Histograms
shown in Figs. 4.10 (b) and (c) resemble the shape of the PDF of QCT shown in Fig. 4.1.

4 4
x 10 Histogram of Normal OFDM Signal x 10 Histogram of Companded OFDM Signal
12 12

10 10

8 8

Number of Samples
Number of Samples

6 6

4 4

2 2

0 0
-1 0 1 2 3 4 5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Magnitude of OFDM Signal Magnitude of Compnaded OFDM Signal

4
x 10 Histogram of Companded OFDM Signal
12

10

8
Number of Samples

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Magnitude of Companded OFDM Signal

Figure 4.10: Histogram of signal magnitude (a) Original OFDM signal (b) OFDM signal with QCT 2 (c)
OFDM signal with QCT 1

78

It can be seen from Fig. 4.10 (a) that the peak value of the OFDM signal before companding
is very high in comparison to the peak value of the signal after companding operation.
Initially, the peak value of the OFDM signal is more than 3.8, whereas its value for QCT-1
and QCT-2 are 2.174 and 1.643 respectively. In case of QCT-2, the peak value of the
companded OFDM signal is lesser in comparison to QCT-1 and hence its PAPR reduction
capability is superior than QCT-1.

CCDF of PAPR defined in section 4.4 and BER of the OFDM signal are used as metrics for
performance comparison of different methods. The BER performance of the proposed QCT is
evaluated over both AWGN and fading channels. The PAPR and BER performances of
TDBC [33] are also evaluated for companding function parameters (a = 0, b = 0, l = 1.897,
h1 = 0.7025 and h2 = 0.3518 ) . All these combinations of a, b and l , which offers reasonable
PAPR and BER results have been considered in our simulations. The BER and PAPR
performances of TC-1, TC-2, EC, TDBC, QCT-1 and QCT-2 are shown in Table 4.3.

Table 4.3: BER and PAPR performance comparison of various companding schemes

Required
Parameters of companding function
Eb / N 0 (dB)

PAPR
Schemes BER BER
a, b and l h 1 and h 2
(dB)
(10-4) (10-5)

Original
_ _ 8.40 9.55 10.75
OFDM

QCT-1 0.2, 0.7 and 2.174 0.8596 and 0.8275 8.50 9.70 6.80

QCT-2 0.4, 0.1 and 1.643 0.82766 and 0.7874 10.40 11.70 4.40

TC-2 0.2, 0.7 and 2.164 0.8443 and 0.8443 8.90 10.05 6.75

TC-1 0.4, 0.1 and 1.633 0.8165 and 0.8165 11.50 13.00 4.30

EC 0, 0 and 1.732 0.5773 and 0.5773 12.95 14.20 5.05

TDBC 0, 0 and 1.897 0.7025 and 0.7025 11.20 12.70 5.50

79

Figs. 4.11 and 4.112 show the complem

mentary cum
mulative disstribution fuunction (CC
CDF) of
PAPR and
a BER peerformance respectivelyy of OFDM
M signal witthout compaanding, trap
pezoidal
compannding (TC) [32], expoonential coompanding (EC) [28] , trapezium
m distributio
on based
compannding (TDBC) [33] and propposed Quadrilateral companding
c g transform
m(QCT)
respectiively for vaarious combbinations off design paraameters preesented in T
Table 4.3. It
I can be
easily seen
s from Fig.
F 4.12 thhat QCT-1 outperforms
o s in comparison to alll other com
mpanding
techniquues in terms of BER performancee, which liess very closee to the origginal OFDM
M system
(withouut compandiing).

Figure 4.111: PAPR perrformance com

mparison of orriginal and com
mpanded OFD
DM signals

From thhe results prresented in Table 4.3 and

a Fig. 4.1
12, it is obseerved that Q
QCT-1 prov
vides the
least BE
ER degradaation in com
mparison to all
a compand
ding schemees under connsideration. QCT-1
achievees a PAPR reduction capability of
o 3.85dB over originnal OFDM signal and
d merely

requiress 0.10dB annd 0.15dB more

m Eb / N o to achiev o 10 4 andd 10 5 respeectively,
ve a BER of

here Eb / N o reprresents per bit signal to noise raatio. Hencee, QCT-1 aachieves sig
gnificant

80

PAPR reduction over original OFDM signal with insignificant degradation in BER
performance.

-1
10
Performance Bound
QCT-1
TC-2
QCT-2
-2
10 TDBC
TC-1
EC

-3
10
BER

-4
10

-5
10

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Eb/No(dB)

Figure 4.12: BER performance comparison of various companding schemes

As seen from Fig. 4.11 that PAPR reduction capabilities of QCT-1 and TC-2 are almost
coinciding but QCT-1 has better BER performance in comparison to TC-2 because if we
compare the companding function of QCT-1 with TC-2 (as shown in Fig. 4.13) then we find
that the peak value of the companded OFDM signals are only differ by 0.01, which cause an
almost negligible change in PAPR performance. But it can be clearly observed from Fig.
4.133 that QCT-1 results in lesser amplitude compression of the OFDM signal as compared
to TC-2, thereby introducing less non-linear distortion in comparison to TC-2. Hence, QCT-1
results in better BER performance in comparison to TC-2.

81

 2.2

2.1
QCT-1
TC-2
2
Output |h(x)|

1.9

1.8

1.7

1.6

1.5
1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
input |x|

Figure 4.13: Companding function plots for QCT-1 and TC-2

The PAPR reduction capability of the proposed QCT can be further improved if we choose
( a = 0.4, b = 0.1, l = 1.643, h1 = 0.8276 and h2 = 0.7874) as parameters of the proposed
companding function. This case is referred to as QCT-2.

The QCT-2 provides PAPR reduction capability of 6.2dB over original OFDM signal, the
price paid for this PAPR reduction capability is the small BER performance degradation. The

QCT-2 requires E b / N o = 10.4dB to achieve a BER of 10 4 , which is about 2dB more in

comparison to original OFDM.

It is worth mentioning that QCT-2 outperforms in terms of both PAPR reduction and BER
performance over the best case of trapezoidal companding (TC-1), EC and TDBC.

The PAPR reduction capability of the proposed scheme (QCT-2) is 0.65 dB and 1.1 dB better
in comparison to EC and TDBC respectively, for a CCDF =10-3, and at the same time its
BER performance is also superior in comparison to EC and TDBC. For QCT-2, the required

E b / N o to achieve a BER of 10 4 and 10 5 respectively is about 1dB lesser than EC and

TDBC.

82

The PAPR reduction capabilities of proposed scheme (QCT-2) and trapezoidal companding

(TC-1) are almost same, but required Eb / N o to achieve a BER of 10 4 and 10 5

respectively are 1.1dB and 1.3 dB less than TC-1. QCT-2 has almost same PAPR reduction
capability as QCT-1 but provides better BER performance in comparison to TC-1 because it
can be seen from the graphs of companding functions (as shown in Fig. 4.14) for QCT-2 and
TC-1 that the difference between the peak values of two companded signals is same(0.01) as
kept between QCT-1 and TC-2. But the difference between their non-linearity has now
increased. Therefore, QCT-2 provides higher BER gain over TC-1 in comparison to the gain
achieved by QCT-1 over TC-2.

1.65

TC-1
1.6
QCT-2

1.55
Output |h(x)|

1.5

1.45

1.4

1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

input |x|

Figure 4.14: Companding function plots for QCT-2 and TC-1

The maximum value of the transformation gain Gmax given by (4.22) for QCT-1 and QCT-2
are 4.85dB and 7.28dB. As seen from Fig. 4.11 the values of the transformation gain of 0.1%
of OFDM signal are 3.95dB and 6.35dB respectively.

Fig. 4.15 depicts the BER performance of original OFDM signal, proposed scheme i.e. QCT-
1 and QCT-2 over fading channel. In this simulation, we have considered Stanford
University Interim-5 (SUI-5) channel as a 3 tap multipath fading channel with average path

83

gains [0dB,-5dB, -10dB] , with path delays [0 s 4 s 10 s]. Besides N=256 subcarriers, 8
subcarriers are utilized for CP to mitigate the effect of ISI.

-1
10
QCT-1
OFDM(without companding)
QCT-2

-2
10
BER

-3
10

-4
10

4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Eb/No(dB)

Figure 4.15: BER performance comparison of QCT over fading channel

In Fig. 4.15, the BER performance of original OFDM signal without companding scheme,
QCT-1 and QCT-2 are denoted by OFDM (without companding), QCT-1 and QCT-2.
OFDM signal without companding require a Eb / N o =13.5dB to achieve a BER of 10-4. As
seen from Fig. 4.15, the BER performance of QCT-1 over multipath fading channel is very
close to the original OFDM signal without companding , whereas the QCT-2 requires merely
1.9 dB more Eb / N o =13.5dB to achieve a BER of 10-4 in comparison to QCT-1.

4.7 CONCLUSION

In this chapter, we have proposed a novel non-linear companding transform (QCT) that can
effectively reduce PAPR and provide good BER performance. The proposed scheme is
applicable for all modulations schemes and can work for any number of subcarriers. The
existing companding schemes, like exponential companding, trapezoidal companding and

84

trapezium distribution based companding techniques are special cases of the proposed
method. The QCT provides extra degrees of freedom to design the companding function and
hence by choosing the suitable values of design parameters of the proposed companding
function, a good trade-off between the PAPR reduction and the BER can be achieved. The
proposed QCT provides better PAPR reduction and BER performance in comparison to TC,
EC and TDBC. QCT can achieve a minimum PAPR of 0dB, whereas TC and EC can achieve
a minimum PAPR of 3dB and 4.771dB respectively. QCT-2 has superior PAPR performance
in comparison to QCT-1 but its BER performance is inferior in comparison to QCT-1.

85