Hindawi

Journal of Computer Networks and Communications

Volume 2018, Article ID 9319204, 8 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/9319204

Research Article
Pilot-Based Time Domain SNR Estimation for Broadcasting
OFDM Systems

Abid Muhammad Khan ,1 Varun Jeiti,1 Muhammad Zaka Ur Rehman,1

Muhammad Taha Jilani,2 Omer Chugtai ,3 and Mubashir Hussain Rehmani 3

1
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar, Malaysia
2
Graduate School of Science and Engineering, PAF-Karachi Institute of Economics and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan
3
Department of Electrical Engineering, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Wah Cantt, Pakistan

Correspondence should be addressed to Abid Muhammad Khan; [email protected]

Received 18 December 2017; Accepted 18 March 2018; Published 2 May 2018

Academic Editor: Ting Wang

Copyright © 2018 Abid Muhammad Khan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited.

The estimation of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is a major issue in wireless orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)
system. In OFDM system, each frame starts with a preamble symbol that facilitates the SNR estimation. However, the performance
of preamble-based SNR estimation schemes worsens in the fast-changing environment where channel changes symbol to symbol.
Accordingly, in this paper, we propose a novel pilot-based SNR estimation scheme that optimally exploits the pilot subcarriers that
are inserted in each data symbol of the OFDM frame. The proposed scheme computes the circular correlation between the
received signal and the comb-type pilot sequence to obtain the SNR. The simulation results are compared with the conventional
preamble-based Zadoff-Chu sequence SNR estimator. The results indicate that the proposed scheme generates near-ideal ac-
curacy; especially in low SNR regimes, in terms of the normalized mean square error (NMSE). Moreover, this scheme offers
a significant saving of computation over a conventional time domain SNR estimator.

1. Introduction In DA estimators, a considerable amount of literature has

been published on the utilization of preamble-based esti-
Noise variance and signal-to-noise ratio are the two impor- mation for equalization, carrier offset synchronization, and
tant measures of channel quality in a wireless OFDM system, channel estimation [2–4]. Similarly, there is also abundant
and their estimation helps in adaptive power control and literature on SNR estimation based on the preamble [5]. For
adaptive modulation, thus optimizing the performance of the a packed OFDM system, preamble-based strategies are useful
wireless communication system. Similarly, turbo coding, as owing to the slow nature of the time-varying channel. In
well as hands-off algorithms, depends on the variation of the broadcasting OFDM systems, one uses the pilot-based strat-
SNR in the time-varying channel. Therefore, the performance egies where channel variations are tracked symbol-by-symbol.
and capacity of OFDM systems are directly influenced by the However, for noise power estimation, the existing OFDM system
precision and complexity of noise and SNR estimation. utilizes the improved preamble-based noise estimation schemes
In general, SNR estimation algorithms can be divided rather than pilot-based schemes for frequency-selective fading
into two classes. In the first one, data-aided (DA) class, channels [6, 7].
a known training sequence or pilot is transmitted to estimate In OFDM receivers, two distinct domains are used for SNR
the SNR at the receiver [1], and in the second, nondata-aided estimation, namely post-FFT (frequency domain) and pre-FFT
(NDA) class, the SNR is estimated blindly (without knowing (time domain). Literature reveals that several studies have been
anything a priori about the transmitted information). Both conducted on the use of pilot-based channel estimation in the
classes have their advantages and disadvantages with respect frequency domain. These studies show the performance of
to their estimation accuracy and computational complexity. the channel estimation is directly affected by the placement
2 Journal of Computer Networks and Communications

of the pilot tones in each OFDM symbol. Therefore, previous Pilot

studies [8–13] utilized the optimized pilot placement by using subcarriers
the artificial techniques, such as Particle Swarm Optimization, |Cλ(mQ)| = 1 |Cλ(mQ)| = 1
Artificial Bee Colony, Firefly Algorithm, Grey Wolf Optimizer,
and Differential Evolution.
On the other hand, the estimation in the time domain is not
affected by the loss of orthogonality that can occur due to carrier
offset [14]. Moreover, the number of channel taps required for
S[k]
estimation in the time domain is significantly fewer than the
number of FFT points where the channel frequency response Q Q
needs to be estimated [15]. These features provide a robust basis
for focusing on the time domain estimation schemes. Thus,
a considerable amount of literature has been published on time
domain estimation schemes that include the work of [16–19]. In
k
[16, 17], Manzoor and Kim presented a correlation-based time
domain SNR estimation scheme using preamble for AWGN Figure 1: Conventional preamble symbol with comb-type ar-
channel. Similarly, Gafer et al. [18] introduced an SNR esti- rangement for SNR estimation.
mation scheme for flat fading channel in the time domain.
Another SNR estimation algorithm for slow flat fading channel
the time domain SNR estimators utilize the pilot subcarriers
is proposed in [19], where maximum likelihood (ML) and data
inserted in data symbol for SNR estimation. Moreover, the peak-
statistics approaches are utilized. In the frequency selective
to-average power ratio (PAPR) of OFDM symbol remains same
scenario, aforementioned schemes [17–19] are prone to per-
as no extra preamble is utilized for estimation.
formance degradation caused by variation of noise on each
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: In
subcarrier. Thus, an SNR estimation per subcarrier is needed
the next section, the conventional preamble-based estimator
[20, 21]. These techniques can be extended to average SNR
utilizing Zadoff-Chu sequence is presented. In Section 3, the
estimation schemes. Another way to overcome the limitation,
system model used for pilot-based SNR estimation is de-
due to frequency-selective channel, is to improve the structure
scribed. In Section 4, a detailed description of the proposed
and design of the preamble symbol, as shown in [22–25]. In [22],
pilot-based time domain SNR estimator is presented. Section
the whole band (total number of subcarriers) is divided into
5 explains the complexity analysis. Simulation parameters
subbands (set of subcarriers). Then, time and frequency domain
are explained in Section 6. Results and analysis are given in
averaging is applied to estimate the variation of noise within the
Section 7. Section 8 concludes the paper.
transmission bandwidth. In [23], it has been shown that by
exploiting comb-type preamble, a low-complexity frequency
domain SNR estimation method is achieved for the frequency- 2. Conventional Preamble-Based Time Domain
selective fading channels. In this method, the loaded preambles Zadoff-Chu Sequence SNR Estimator
are arranged with a certain number of null subcarriers, which are
used to estimate the noise power. However, the loaded pre- In a conventional preamble-based ZC sequence SNR estimator,
ambles are utilized to obtain the total signal plus noise power. comb-type pilot subcarriers are loaded with a ZC sequence. It
Similarly, Ijaz et al. [24] presented the time domain SNR es- utilizes Q identical parts in each preamble symbol, which
timation for the frequency-selective fading channel. It uses the contains NP  NFFT /Q number of loaded pilot subcarriers, as
correlation of the received preambles to estimate signal power depicted in Figure 1. Starting from the 0th, each Qth, subcarrier
while noise power is estimated by subtracting the estimated is modulated with a ZC sequence symbol Cλ (mQ) with
signal power from the total received symbol power. Yet another |Cλ (mQ)|  1, for m  0, . . . , NP − 1. The remainder of NZ 
time domain preamble-based approach is presented in [25], NFFT − NP  (Q − 1)NFFT /Q subcarriers are not used (nulled).
where the comb-type pilot structure is designed by using the According to [25], the nth received time sample can be written as
Zadoff-Chu (ZC) sequence, which outperforms the conven- rP (m) q0
tional time domain SNR estimators in terms of computational r(n)  r(mQ + q)  
complexity due to perfect autocorrelation of the ZC sequence. rZ (mQ + q) q  1, . . . , Q − 1,
By reviewing these studies, it is found that the majority of the (1)
schemes utilize the preamble-based structure for the frequency-
where
selective fading channel [22–25]. In the fast-changing envi-
ronment, the variation of noise is not same in all OFDM symbols rP (m)  s(mQ)e2πεmQ/NFFT + w(mQ) (2)
of the frame. Thus, the performance of these schemes degrades,
and the noise at each symbol needs to be tracked. Furthermore, if represents the received time domain signal containing the
man-made noise is considered, these schemes can not work. phase shifted signal and additional noise component and
Consequently, it is more desirable to develop a SNR estimation rZ (mQ + q)  w(mQ + q) (3)
scheme in which the noise variation is tracked symbol-by-
symbol instead of at the beginning of frame using a preamble shows the time domain noise signal. Thus, the time domain
symbol. According to the best knowledge of the author, none of received signal that contains the signal plus noise is given by
Journal of Computer Networks and Communications 3

1 p  2
N −1 Data Pilot Data

PS+N   r (m) . (4) subcarriers subcarriers subcarriers
NP m0 P

Similarly, the received samples containing only the noise DC

subcarriers
component can be obtained as
Q Q
Np −1 Q−1
 2
N   rZ (mQ + q) .
1 S[k]
P  (5)
NP (Q − 1) m0 q0

 can be expressed as
Finally, the estimated SNR
 
  1 PS+N − PN .
N
SNR (6)
Q P k
Figure 2: Conventional OFDM data symbol that contains pilot
3. System Model for Pilot-Based Time Domain subcarriers.
SNR Estimator
In this section, the system model used for pilot-based time
Then, OFDM symbols are transmitted through a frequency-
domain SNR is discussed. Consider a baseband model for
selective channel in the presence of additive white Gaussian
a typical OFDM transceiver where binary data is first
noise, which can be expressed as
mapped by utilizing the 16-quadrature amplitude modu-
lation (16-QAM). The frequency domain data signal can be L−1

expressed as [26] h(n)   hi ej(2π/NFFT )fDi Tn δ λ − τ i , (11)

i0
NFFT −1
D[k]   d(n)e−j2πkn/NFFT , k  n  0, 1, . . . , NFFT − 1, where hi is the ith complex path gain, fDi is the ith path
n0 Doppler frequency shift, τ i is the corresponding normalized
(7) path delay, λ is delay index, T is sample period, and L is the
total number of channel taps. At the receiver, without loss of
where n is the time domain indexed and d(n) denotes the data generality, it is possible to use the low-pass system model.
sequence. Then, the modulated data symbols are inserted with Thus, after eliminating the CP from the symbol, the received
pilot subcarriers in such a way that they are zeros except at sequence r(n) can be written as
their corresponding subcarriers. Thus, the frequency domain
discrete transmitted signal S[k] is given as r(n)  s(n) ⊗ h(n) + w(n), (12)
S[k]  D[k] + P[k]. (8) where ⊗ represents the circular convolution and w(n) is ad-
ditive white Gaussian noise with zero mean and variance σ 2 .
Figure 2 depicts the conventional OFDM data symbol,
where pilot subcarriers are periodic and comb-type in
nature. 4. Proposed Pilot-Based Time Domain (PTD)
Each OFDM symbol is passed through an inverse SNR Estimation
Fourier transform (IFFT) block and converted to the time
domain, given as In the proposed PTD SNR estimation scheme, a circular
cross-correlation approach is utilized to obtain the noise
N −1
 N in the time domain. However, signal power P  S is
s(n)    S[k]ej2πkn/NFFT .
1 FFT
power P
(9)
NFFT k0 obtained from the difference of total received symbol and
noise power, as depicted in Figure 3. For noise power es-
Similarly, the corresponding time domain pilot sequence timation, the received sequence r(n) is circular correlated Ⓝ
can be expressed as with the pilot sequence p(n) as shown in Figure 3, which

 1 yields



K m0
Crp (n)  h(n) Ⓝ Cdp (n) + Cpp (n) + Cwp (n).
p(n)  pm + qNp   
Q (13)


 In general, Cxy (n) is Ⓝ between the x(n) and y(n) se-
0 m  1, . . . , Np − 1,
quences. In (13), Cdp (n)  0, as presented in Appendix A of [27].
(10) Thus, (13) reduces to
where K is the amplitude and Np represents is periodicity of Crp (n)  h(n) Ⓝ Cpp (n) + Cwp (n). (14)
the pilot sequence p(n). In order to avoid intersymbol in-
terference (ISI) in the channel, a cyclic prefix (CP) is at- Due to the periodicity of pilot sequence p(n) in (10), the
tached at the start of each OFDM symbol. CP is the replica of correlation terms Crp (n) and Cpp (n) are periodic with the
the last part of any given OFDM symbol in the time domain. period of NP . Thus,
4 Journal of Computer Networks and Communications

p(t) pilot subcarriers

s(t) = p(t) + d(t)

t
w(t)
h(t) multipath AWGN
t channel

t
d(t) data subcarriers
r(t)
received signal t

PS+N total Circular p(t) comb-type

symbol power correlator pilot sequence
PS+N – PN
SNR =
PN
ĥ(t) CIR
PN noise
power

Figure 3: Block diagram for proposed PTD SNR estimation scheme.

0.045 0.07

0.04
0.06 Np
0.035
Np 0.05
0.03
0.04
0.025
Cpp
Crp

0.02 0.03

0.015
0.02
0.01
0.01
0.005
0
0 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
Lags
Lags
Figure 5: Circular autocorrelation of comb-type pilot sequence.
Figure 4: Circular correlation between received and comb-type
pilot sequence.

Crp (n)  Crp m + qNp , (15) independent to the knowledge of channel statistics. By
utilizing (10) and (16), (14) can be rewritten as



1
KQ m0 
w(m)  r(m) − h (m) Ⓝ p(m), (18)
Cpp (n)  Cpp m + qNp   


0 m  1, . . . , Np − 1. 
where w(m) is the estimated noise. Hence, the estimated
 N becomes
noise power P
(16)
N −1
 N  1  |w(m)|
p

Figures 4 and 5 depict the periodicity as Np . Therefore, P  2

. (19)
the estimated CIR can be obtained from (14) as Np m0
Crp  mL 
h  mL    mL , mL  0, 1, . . . , L − 1 L < Np ,
Similarly, the total received symbol power is from (12) as
−w
K N −1
 S+N  1  |r(m)|2 .
p
(17) P (20)
Np m0
L )  Cwp (mL )/K. Reference [28] is exploited to
where w(m
extract the most significant channel taps form (17), which is  estimator is defined as
Finally, the proposed SNR
Journal of Computer Networks and Communications 5

Table 1: Complexity comparison of PTD and conventional time Table 2: OFDM simulation parameters [29].
domain SNR estimators (NFFT � 2048, L � 6, NP � 128, and
Q � 16). Parameter Value
FFT points (NFFT ) 2048 (2K-Mode)
Estimator FLOPs Carrier spacing 4.46 kHz
PTD 2Np (Q) + 3NP + L Cyclic prefix 1/16
Conventional ZC [25] 4NFFT + 2 Pilots spacing (Q) 16
Number of pilots (NP ) 128
Pilot constellation P[k] Unipolar BPSK
Np −1
|r(m)|2 −|w(m)|
􏽢 2 Sampling frequency (FS ) 9.14 MHz
􏽢 � 􏽐
SNR . (21) Bandwidth 8 MHz
2
m�0 􏽢
|w(m)| Pilot pattern (Dx × Dy ) (16 × 4)
Velocity 50 km/h
In (18), it is assumed that the average transmitted signal Doppler shift 28.98 Hz
is equal to one. Therefore,
Np −1 􏽢 2
􏽢 � 􏽐 |h(m)| .
SNR (22) The TU6 channel profile has been adopted because it
2
􏽢
m�0 |w(m)| reproduces the terrestrial propagation for mobile reception.
It consists of 6 paths having wide dispersion in delay and
relatively strong power, reproducing an urban environment
5. Complexity Analysis with NLOS, and consequently, following a Rayleigh model.
In the simulation, a perfect synchronization between trans-
In this section, the computational complexity of the PTD scheme mitter and receiver is assumed because the estimates in the
is evaluated and compared with the conventional Zadoff-Chu time domain are robust to carrier frequency offset [25]. The
preamble-based time domain method [25], considering the OFDM simulation parameters for DVB-Mobile transmission
floating point operations per second (FLOPs) as a complexity are shown in Table 2.
metric. In general, FLOPs means the number of complex addi-
tions and multiplications required to perform one SNR estimate.
It can be observed from (21) that the computational 7. Results and Analysis
complexity of the SNR estimator is generated from two
parts: noise power P 􏽢 N and total received symbol power P􏽢 S+N . This section presents the results and analysis for the pro-
For noise power estimation, the PTD stipulates the (13), (17), posed PTD estimator. It is observed from the description of
and (19). The circular correlation in (13) can be computed the PTD that it solely depends upon the estimated CIR. Thus,
more efficiently by using periodicity of comb-type sequence an important feature of the PTD is shown in Figure 6 where
p(n). Thus, it requires Np (Q − 1) number of complex ad- CIR is obtained from (16) for TU6 channel model at 10 dB
SNR. In the simulation, after utilization of the time reso-
ditions and Np (Q) multiplications. Similarly, (17) involves L
lution 1/FS , the number of significant channel taps that can
number of multiplications. Then, (19) requires NP − 1 and
be resolved are L � 6. The amplitude of Crp (n) at the n � 45
NP + 1 number of additions and multiplications, re-
can be seen in Figure 6. It is further seen that the amplitudes
spectively. However, the computational load due to total
of nonsignificant channel taps are much lower than the
received symbol power is same as (19). Consequently, the
overall number of FLOPs required for the PTD SNR significant ones; this is due to the zero correlation of data to
technique is 2NP (Q) + 3NP + L. pilot sequence, as discussed for (13). It shows that the es-
On the other hand, the Zadoff-Chu sequence SNR esti- timation of channel impulse response is independent of the
mator involves 4NFFT + 2 number of FLOPs, as given in Table 1 transmitted data constellation. Figure 7 depicts the MSE
of [25]. Hence, the PTD SNR estimator provides the com- comparison of the estimated CIR with the existing time
putational saving of approximately 45% (for Q � 16) compared domain channel estimator [30]. In the comparison of MSE,
the legend Chu.Seq. represents the conventional time do-
to the conventional Zadoff-Chu sequence estimator. Further-
main channel estimator, where pilot subcarriers are gen-
more, complexity depends on the number of pilot subcarriers
erated by utilizing the Chu. Sequence (magnitude � 1).
Np and channel taps L. A complexity comparison of two
However, CRB represents the Cramer-Rao Bound as shown
different SNR estimators is given in Table 1.
in Equation (24) of [30]. It can be clearly seen that in the fast
fading scenario (v � 50 m/h), the performance of the PTD
6. Performance Evaluation over Typical Urban channel estimator is similar to the existing Chu. Seq. esti-
(TU6) Channel Model mator. This is due to the utilization of similar magnitudes of
pilot subcarriers. The investigation suggests that the error
The performance of the PTD scheme is analyzed over TU6 component exists in the PTD channel estimation is only
channel model in terms of normalized mean squared error AWGN. Consequently, it reduces the MSE and presents
(NMSE), given as near-ideal estimation CRB, as shown in Figure 7. It is also
􏽢 i − SNRi 􏼑 2 investigated that the PTD scheme is independent of
1 10000 􏼐SNR
NMSE � 􏽘 . (23) time/frequency interpolation; hence, it offers accuracy even
10000 i�1 SNR2i in the low density of pilot subcarriers.
6 Journal of Computer Networks and Communications

0.04 100

0.035

0.03 10–1

0.025

Noise power
0.02
Crp

10–2

0.015 X = 45
Y = 0.011885
0.01 10–3

0.005

0 10–4
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0 5 10 15 20 25
Lags SNR (dB)
Est. channel taps
True noise power
Figure 6: Estimated channel taps at (0, 1, 4, 14, 21, and 45). ZC conv. noise power
PTD noise power
Figure 8: Comparison of the noise power estimator with true noise
10–2 power.

102

10–3
100
MSE

X = 13
Y = 0.006387
10–2
10–4
NMSE

X = 13
Y = 0.003178
10–4 X = 13
Y = 0.0001632
0 5 10 15 20 25
10–6
SNR (dB)

Chu. seq. CE est.

PTD CE est. 10–8
CRB 0 5 10 15 20 25
SNR (dB)
Figure 7: Comparison of the estimated channel impulse response
in terms of MSE. PTD SNR est.
ZC conv. SNR est.
NCRB
The performance of the PTD noise power estimator is Figure 9: Comparison of the PTD SNR estimator in terms of NMSE.
compared with preamble-based ZC noise power estimator in
Figure 8. Here, ZC SNR estimator is chosen because it out-
performs the conventional estimators without high computa- estimator Normalized Cramer-Rao Bound (NCRB) as
tional complexity [25]. The comparison shows that the estimation shown in Equation (24) of [31]. It is seen that both estimators
of noise power in the PTD scheme is far better than the ZC-based perform well in a low SNR regime. However, at a high SNR,
scheme. The estimation in the PTD scheme is also seen to be close the NMSE is larger than the NCRB. This can be explained by
to true noise power at various values of SNR. This is due to the the following observation. In the PTD SNR estimator, the
utilization of pilot subcarriers available in each data symbol that SNR is obtained primarily from noise power estimation, as
facilitates to track the noise variation symbol-by-symbol. shown in (21). It can be observed that the signal power is
Figure 9 compares the NMSE performance of the PTD obtained from the difference of total received symbol power
SNR estimator with the conventional ZC preamble-based and the noise power. Therefore, at a high SNR, when the total
time domain estimator. Moreover, the NMSE of the PTD received symbol power and noise power are nearly of the
estimator is compared with the minimum unbiased variance same order, the SNR estimation error increases.
Journal of Computer Networks and Communications 7

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