Wireless Communication Channels

• Communications over wireless channels suffer from multi-path propagation

• Multi-path channels are usually frequency selective
• OFDM supports high data rate communications over frequency selective channels
 Multi-Path Propagation Modeling
Power

Multi-Path
Components

τ0 τ1 τ2 Time

Multi-path results from reflection, diffraction, and scattering off environment surroundings
Note: The figure above demonstrates the roles of reflection and scattering only on multi-path

2
 Multi-Path Propagation Modeling
Power

Multi-Path
Components

τ0 τ1 τ2 Time

As the mobile receiver (i.e. car) moves in the environment, the strength of each multi-path component varies

3
 Multi-Path = Frequency-Selective!
f=0 0.5 0.5
1 1
0.5

1 μs
1 μs

f=1 MHz
1 0.5 0.5 1
0.5

-0.5
-1 1 μs -1

1 μs

f=500 KHz 1
1 0.5 0.5
0.5

-0.5
-1
-1 1 μs
1 μs

4
 Multi-Path = Frequency-Selective!
h(t) |H(f)|
0.5 0.5 1

f (MHz)

0 0.5 1 1.5 2
1 μs

• A multi-path channel treats signals with different frequencies differently

• A signal composed of multiple frequencies would be distorted by passing
through such channel

5
Frequency-Selective Channels

• OFDM transmitter and receiver operate in a frequency-selective channel

• delay dispersion
• delay dispersion can lead to appreciable errors even when Sτ /Ts < 1
• delay dispersion also leads to a loss of orthogonality between the
subcarriers, and thus to Inter Carrier Interference (ICI)
• Solution
• negative effects can be eliminated by a special type of guard interval,
called the cyclic prefix (CP)
 Frequency Division & Coherence Bandwidth
Power

Frequency

• Subdivide wideband bandwidth into multiple narrowband sub-carriers

• Bandwidth of each channel is selected such that each sub-carrier approximately
displays Flat Fading characteristics
• The bandwidth over which the wireless channel is assumed to display flat fading
characteristics is called the coherence bandwidth
7
Orthogonal FDM
Binary Transmitting Correlate
Modulation with (f1) Demod.
Encoder Filter (f1)

f2=f1+1/2TS
Correlate
Binary Transmitting Demod.
Modulation with (f2)
Encoder Filter (f2)

Wireless
+ Channel

fN=f1+1/2(N-1)TS

Transmitting Correlate
Binary Demod.
Modulation with (fN)
Encoder Filter (fN)

8
 Number of Subcarriers in OFDM
• For band-limited FDM if the system bandwidth is B, number of sub-carriers is
given by:

● For OFDM if the system bandwidth is B, Number of sub-carriers is given by:

OFDM has the potential to at least double the number of sub-carriers (i.e.,
double the total transmission rate over the system bandwidth)

9
 Intersymbol Interference in OFDM
Assume OFDM over two subcarriers: f1=1/Ts, f2=2/Ts T T
s s

OFDM Symbol

Tx Signal

10
 Intersymbol Interference in OFDM
OFDM Symbol

Tx Signal

h0 h1
Suppose multi-path channel with delay Ts/8

Ts/
Inter-Symbol Interference 8
OFDM Symbol (ISI)

Rx Signal

Inter-symbol interference (ISI) occurs when one OFDM symbol affects the next one due to the multi-path
channel
11
 Inserting Guard Time
OFDM Symbol

Ts/ T T Ts/
Tx Signal s 4
8 s

Guard
Time
h0 h1
Suppose multi-path channel with delay Ts/8

Ts/
8
T Ts /
Rx Signal Ts/ s
T
4
8 s

Guard
Time No ISI

• Guard Time eliminates ISI between neighboring OFDM symbols

• However each OFDM symbol suffers from inter-carrier interference (ICI)
• Guard time corresponds to a reduction of bit rate

12
Guard Time & Inter-Carrier Interference
Tx Signal Rx Signal
OFDM Symbol OFDM Symbol

Ts/ T Ts/ T
8 s 8 s

Guard Guard
Time Time

+ +

13
 Guard Time & Inter-Carrier Interference
Rx Signal Consider the receiver for f1=1/Ts that correlates over Ts
OFDM Symbol
with
Ts/ T Ts
8 s

Guard
Time
Correlation at Rx over Ts Not Orthogonal
x

+
Intra-Carrier
Interference

14
 Guard Time & Inter-Carrier Interference
Rx Signal Consider the receiver for f1=1/Ts that correlates over Ts
OFDM Symbol
with
Ts/ T Ts
8 s

Guard
Time
Correlation at Rx over Ts Orthogonal
x

+
No Interference

15
 Cyclic Prefix

• Guard time between adjacent symbols is inserted to eliminate ISI

• No ISI will occurs, if guard time is larger than delay spread
• Guard time is a pure system overhead, contains no information
• CP is inserted in order to preserve orthogonality
• CP provides multipath immunity & synchronization tolerance
• CP increases required transmission bandwidth, hence lowers spectral
efficiency
• Transmit power associated with CP is a waste
Insertion of cyclic prefix
 Cyclic Prefix vs Guard Time
Guard Time Cyclic Prefix
Eliminates Inter-symbol Interference Eliminates Inter-symbol Interference
Suffers from Inter-carrier Interference Eliminates Inter-carrier Interference
Suffers from Intra-carrier Interference Suffers from Intra-carrier Interference
Causes a reduction in data rate as a Causes a reduction in data rate as a
result of the increased OFDM symbol result of the increased OFDM symbol
time time
Does not consume additional power Necessitates additional power
associated with OFDM symbol time associated with OFDM symbol
expansion due to the guard time expansion due to the introduction of
cyclic prefix

18
Performance in Frequency-Selective Channels

• The cyclic prefix converts a frequency-selective channel into a number of parallel

flat-fading channels.
• This eliminates ISI in TDMA and CDMA systems.
• An uncoded OFDM system has no frequency diversity.
• If a subcarrier is in a fading dip, then error probability on that subcarrier is very
high, and dominates the Bit Error Rate (BER) of the total system for high SNRs
• uncoded OFDM has the same average BER irrespective of the frequency
selectivity of the channel
Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing

• coding can be used to improve performance in fading channels

• coded bits is transmitted in an independent channel states results in a high diversity order
• designing appropriate mappers and interleavers that assign the different coded bits in the
time-frequency plane is required.
• This mapping, depends on the frequency selectivity as well as the time selectivity of the
channel.
• If the channel is highly frequency selective, then it might be sufficient to code only across
available frequencies, without any coding or interleaving along the time axis.
• This has two advantages:
• works in static channels, which occur quite often for wireless LANs and
• other high-rate data transmission scenarios;
• on the other, the absence of interleaving in the time domain results in lower latency of the
transmission and decoding process
 Channel Estimation

• In a wireless system, operation of OFDM systems requires an estimate of the channel transfer
function, or, equivalently, the channel impulse response.
• Since OFDM is operated with a number of parallel narrowband subcarriers, it is to estimate the
channel in the frequency domain.
• Ie, to obtain the N complex-valued channel gains on the subcarriers.
• denote these channel attenuations as hn,i, where n is the subchannel index and i is the time index.
• Assuming that we know the statistical properties of these channel attenuations, and structure to
the OFDM signal, we can derive good channel estimators.
• three approaches to estimate the channel:
• (i) pilot symbols- which are mainly suitable for an initial estimate of the channel;
• (ii) scattered pilot tones-which help to track changes in channels over time; and
• (iii) eigenvalue-decomposition-based methods,-which can be used to reduce the complexity of
the first two methods
 Pilot-Symbol-Based Methods

• The most straightforward channel estimation in OFDM is when we have

a dedicated pilot symbol containing only known data
• ie, the data on each of the subcarriers is known.
• This approach is appropriate for initial acquisition of the channel, at the
beginning of a transmission burst.
• The simplest channel estimate is then obtained by estimating the channel
on each subcarrier separately Denoting the known data on subcarrier n at
time i as cn.j , we can find a Least Squares (LS) channel estimate
• This estimation approach produces very good estimates, but
computational complexity is high if the number of subcarriers is large
 Scattered Pilots

After an initial estimate of the channel, necessary to

track changes in the channel as it evolves with time.
Two Steps to estimate the channel:
(i) reduce the number of known bits in an OFDM
symbol (this improves spectral efficiency); and
(ii) exploit the time correlation of the channel –
i.e., the fact that the channel changes only slowly in
time.
An attractive way of tracking the channel is to use
pilot symbols scattered in the OFDM time–
frequency grid as illustrated in Figure, where pilots
are spaced by Nf subcarriers and Nt OFDM symbols
The complexity of this estimator grows with the
number of pilot tones included in the estimation and
requires K multiplications per estimated attenuation
Scattered pilots in the orthogonal-frequency-division-
multiplexing time– frequency grid. In this case the pattern is
rectangular with pilot distances Nf subcarriers in frequency and
Nt OFDM symbols in time.
 Eigen Decompositions

• The structure of OFDM allows for efficient channel estimator.

• We know that the channel impulse response is short compared with the OFDM symbol
length.
• This fact can be used to reduce the dimensionality of the estimation problem.
• when using the LMMSE estimator, we would like to use the statistical properties of the
channel to perform the matrix multiplication more efficiently.
• This can be done using the theory of optimal rank reduction from estimation theory, where an
Eigen Value Decomposition (EVD) results in a new more computationally efficient version
• The dimension of this space is approximately Ncp + 1 – i.e., one more than the number of
samples in the cyclic prefix. We can therefore expect that, after the first Ncp + 1 diagonal
elements in , the magnitude should decrease rapidly which reduces the complexity in channel
estimation
 SNR Analysis
• First, compare 1-tap (i.e. flat) Rayleigh-fading channel vs AWGN.
• i.e. y = hx + w vs y = x + w
• Note: all multipaths with random attenuation/phases are aggregated into 1-tap

• Next consider frequency selectivity, i.e. multi-tap, broadband channel, with multi-
paths
• Effect: ISI
• Equalization techniques for ISI & complexities

• Generalize! Consider diversity in time, space, frequency, and develop efficient

schemes to achieve diversity gains and coding gains
Single-tap, Flat Fading (Rayleigh) vs AWGN

Why do we have this huge degradation in performance/reliability?

 Rayleigh Flat Fading Channel

BPSK: Coherent detection.

Looks like
Conditional on h,
AWGN, but…
pe needs to be
“unconditioned”
Averaged over h, To get a much
poorer scaling

at high SNR.
 BER vs. SNR (cont.)

Frequency-selective channel (equalization

BER or Rake receiver)

Frequency-selective channel (no

equalization)
“BER floor”
AWGN channel
(no fading) Flat fading channel

SNR

means a straight line in log/log scale

Typical Error Event
Conditional on h,

When the error probability is very small.

When the error probability is large:

Typical error event is due to: channel (h) being in deep fade!
… rather than (additive) noise being large.
 Issues of OFDM

• Peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR)

• For OFDM signals, this ratio is much higher than for single-carrier signals
• OFDM signal is a sum of many subcarrier signals
• Total can be very high or very low

• Power amplifiers need to amplify all amplitudes equally

• Should have a linear characteristic with slope K on a Vout vs. Vin curve

• Yet practical amplifiers have limited linear ranges

• Causing distortion if outside the linear range
Ideal and Practical Amplifier Characteristics
Examples of Linear and Nonlinear Amplifier Output

Q: What is this
phenomenon termed?
 Difficulties/Issues of OFDM (continued)

• PAPR problem (continued)

• Expensive amplifiers have wide linear range

• Solutions
• Could reduce the peak amplitude
• Called input backoff
• But this would increase the signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR)
• Noise and interference would be relatively stronger because signal is weaker
• Specific PAPR reduction techniques can be used
• Specialized coding, phase adjustments, clipping, etc.
• Single-carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA)
Effects of PAPR
• The power amplifiers at the transmitter need to have a large linear range of operation.
• nonlinear distortions and peak amplitude limiting introduced by the High Power
amplifier (HPA) will produce inter-modulation between the different carriers and
introduce additional interference into the system.
• additional interference leads to an increase in the Bit Error Rate (BER) of the system.
• one way to avoid non-linear distortion is by forcing the amplifier to work in its linear
region. Unfortunately such solution is not power efficient and thus not suitable for
wireless communication.
• The Analog to Digital converters and Digital to Analog converters need to have a
wide dynamic range and this increases complexity.
• if clipped, it leads to in-band distortion (additional noise) and ACI (out-of-band
radiation)
 Improvement of PAPR
Several methods have been proposed to reduce the PAPR of OFDM signal

⮚Data coding technique

The main disadvantage of this method is to degrade
transmission efficiency
⮚Clipping technique
The main disadvantage of this method is to degrade
BER performance
⮚Active Constellation Extension technique
The main disadvantage of this method is to degrade average power
⮚Phase alignment technique
The main disadvantage of this method is required to transmit
side information which leads the degradation of transmission
efficiency
 Difficulties/Issues of OFDM (continued)

• Intercarrier Interference (ICI)

• OFDM frequencies are spaced very precisely
• Channel impairments can corrupt this
• Cyclic prefix helps reduce ICI
• But CP time should be limited so as to improve spectral efficiency
• A certain level of ICI may be tolerated to have smaller CPs
• Doppler spread, mismatched oscillators, or even one subcarrier can cause ICI
• Spacing between subcarriers may need to be increased
• Could also use different pulse shapes, self-interference cancellation, or
frequency domain equalizers
 Mitigation of Fading: Freq. Equalization
• Conduct channel estimation for h0 and h1
• Divide the correlated signal by β=h0+h1cos(φii)

● Requires channel estimation

● For low value values of β equalization also results in noise amplification

38
 Mitigation of Fading: Precoding
• Conduct channel estimation for h0 and h1
• Divide the transmitted signal by β=h0+h1cos(φii)

● Requires channel estimation

● Requires channel estimation knowledge at transmitter
● Does not result in any noise amplification at the receiver
● For low values of β, excessively high transmission power might be needed
at the transmitter

39
 Mitigation of Fading: Adaptive Loading
• Distribute power over sub-carriers such as to maximize total system data rate

● Requires channel estimation

● Requires channel estimation knowledge at transmitter

40
 OFDMA

• Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) uses OFDM

to share the wireless channel
• Different users can have different slices of time and different groups of subcarriers
• Subcarriers are allocated in groups
• Called subchannels or resource blocks
• Too much computation to allocate every subcarrier separately

• Subchannel allocation
• Adjacent subcarriers – similar SINR
• Must measure to find the best subchannel
• Regularly spaced subcarriers – diverse SINR
• Randomly space subcarriers – diverse SINR and reduced adjacent-cell
interference
OFDM and OFDMA
 OFDMA Opportunistic Scheduling

• Schedule subchannels and power levels based on

• Channel conditions
• Data requirements

• Adjust in a dynamic fashion

• Use channel variations as an opportunity to schedule the best choice in users
• Hence the term opportunistic scheduling
• Criteria (maybe more than one used simultaneously)
• System efficiency – pick users with best throughput
• Fairness – proportional fairness considers the ratio of users’ current rates to the users’ average
rates to know when a channel is best for them
• Requirements – audio, video
• Priority – public safety, emergency, or priority customers