JOURNAL OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS, VOLUME 12, ISSUE 1, JANUARY 2012 23

EFFECT OF CARRIER FREQUENCY OFFSET ON SER OF OFDM SYSTEM

Ms Bhagyashri A. Warhade, Dr B P Patil and Prof. Prabha Kasliwal
Abstract Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a key modulation technique for achieving high data rates and spectral
efficiency requirements for wireless communication systems. But OFDM is very sensitive to carrier frequency offset (CFO) which destroy the orthogonality of the subcarriers and it gives rise to inter-carrier interference (ICI). This ICI degrades the performance of OFDM systems significantly. The most important performance evolution metrics are Bit Error Rate (BER) and the symbol error rate (SER) which characterizes the associated degradation more accurately. In this paper, the expression for SER using QPSK modulation under AWGN channel is studied and simulation results are provided. The effect of carrier frequency offset on SER is shown in simulation results. Index Terms Symbol Error Rate, Carrier Frequency offset, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing, Signal to Noise Ratio.

1 INTRODUCTION
OFDM is a multicarrier modulation transmission (MCM) technique in which input data stream is divided into several of parallel bit streams, each is having lower bit rate, and by using these sub-streams to modulate several carriers. Orthogonality of the subcarriers is the important concept in OFDM which allows simultaneous transmission in a tight frequency space without interference from each other. Orthogonality is achieved by performing a Fourier Transform (or equivalently a Fast Fourier Transform) on the input stream. But the factors such as carrier frequency mismatching, time variations due to Doppler shift or phase noise usually eliminate the orthogonality of the subcarriers. It causes the ICI which degrades the performance of OFDM system [1]. CFO is caused by misalignment in carrier frequencies or Doppler shift. Several methods have been developed to reduce the effect of the CFO on OFDM [2], [3], [4]. OFDM has been a very popular technique for more efficient data communications. OFDM has recently been applied widely in wireless communication systems such as wireless local area network standards IEEE 802.11a, High Performance LAN type 2 (HYPERLAN/2) due to its high data rate transmission capability with high bandwidth efficiency [5]. Fading distribution has been employed as another useful and important model for characterizing the fading channel, especially AWGN fading. Another advantage of this channel is best fit for modeling urban multipath channels, could be better or more severe than Rayleigh fading channel. This paper is organized as follows. The Section II shows the OFDM System architecture, Section III derives the
PG Student Dept. Of Electronics Engg Maharashtra Academy of Engineering Pune, India. Principal Marathwada Mitra Mandals Institute of Technology, Lohgaon pune, India. Assoc. Prof. Dept of Electronics Engg. Maharashtra Academy of Engineering Pune, India.

SER expressions for QPSK schemes over AWGN channel, Section IV describes simulation results. Finally conclusion is provided in section V.

2. OFDM SYSTEM ARCHITECURE

OFDM System consists of transmitter, channel and receiver. Transmitter consists of serial to parallel converter, symbol mapping, IFFT and guard interval insertion. In the transmitter, the high speed serial data is converted into parallel data. The transmitted data is then modulated with Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK), Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK), Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) which are common modulation schemes used in OFDM application. This modulated data is then fed to IFFT in order to convert the frequency domain signal to time domain signal. IFFT is useful in order to generate the orthogonal frequency components. To eliminate inter-symbol interference (ISI) a guard interval is introduced for each OFDM symbol such that one symbol cannot interfere with the next symbol.

OFDM receiver mirrors the operation of OFDM transmitter. First the cyclically extended guard time is removed, which reduces the complexity of FFT.FFT is used to convert time domain signal back to frequency domain signal. The output of FFT is then demodulated and converted to serial data. The received binary signal was compared with the input binary signal to determine the erroneous bits. A channel is the media between the transmitter and receiver. The most common channel is the Gaussian channel, which is generally called Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) Channel. The AWGN channel is simple and usually it is considered as the starting point to develop the basic system for performance evaluation. The OFDM system architecture is as shown in fig .1 below:-

2012 JOT www.journaloftelecommunications.co.uk

24

For AWGN channel the complex fading coefficient We consider the first subcarrier with transmitted symbol X1=1+j and Xk = {+ 1 + j} and eq. (1) becomes
N

XkSl

Sl
l 1,l k

Xl k 1,2,....N

(4)

The probability of a correct decision is the probability that u+n lies inside the first quadrant of the complex plane and it is given in [6] as,

P(u n D1 / X 1 1 j , u ) Q( Re al (u ) / )Q( imag (u ) / )

(5)

Fig.1 OFDM System Architecture

Where, D1 is the first quadrant of the plane. To integrate (5) w.r.t. u to find the average correct symbol decision probability. Since the variable u is the two dimensional CHF can be written as [7]

3 SER EXPRESSION FOR OFDM USING QPSK MODULATION UNDER AWGN

We assume perfect quasi-static flat fading channel. The sampled signal for kth subcarrier after going through the fast fourier transform is given by [6],

(wI,wQ)=Exp(jwI[real(S1)-imag(S1)+jwQ
N

[imag(S1)+real(S1 )])x
l 2

cos {(wI real(Sl )+wQ

(6)

rk

XkSl

N l 1, l k

Sl

k 1

nk

(1)

imag (Sl)) x cos(wI imag (S1)-wQ Real(S1))}

Where Xk is the transmitted symbol for the kth subcarrier, denotes the complex fading coefficient having zero mean and variance 2 per dimension, nk is the additive white Gaussian Noise. N is the no of subcarriers. The ICI coefficients Sk depends on CFO is given by [6],

More compact version of (6) can be written using the vector notations as

Sk

sin(n[k 1 n[k 1 N sin( N

] 1 exp{ j (1 )(k 1)} ] N )

N

(2) Where is the normalized frequency offset which is the ratio between the CFO and the adjacent subcarrier spacing. If =1 then equation (1) becomes an ideal AWGN channel. The relation between product and sum of cosines is given as,
M

(WI ,WQ )

exp{ j

(S 1 A

1 S B )} l 2

cos(

l S A ) cos(

(7)

l SB )

Where,= transpose of (wI, wQ), SlA = transpose of (real (Sl ) imag. (Sl)) and S1B = transpose (imag. (Sl) - real (Sl )) for all l = 1,2,.N We use (3) to express (7) as (wI,wQ)=(1/22(N-2))exp,jT ( SlA- SlB)}
2n
2

cos( k )
k 1

1 2
M 1

2M

cos
K 1

ek

(3)

2n

Where is the transpose of (1 2 3 m ). e k is the kth column of a more general M2M1 matrix EM and The kth row is essentially the binary representation of the number where Zeros are replaced with 1s.

cos (T SA ek) cos (T SB )

k 1 n 1

(8)

Where SA = (S2A S3A.. SNA), SB= (S2B S3B.. SNB), ek & en are column matrices taken from more general (N-

25

1) (EN-1). By using Eulers relationship (8) can be written as

2N
2

2N

(wI,wQ)=(1/22(N-1))
k 1 n 1

{ Exp(jTCl)+
(9)

Exp(jTC2)+ Exp(jTC3)+ Exp(jTC4)}

Where Cl= S1A- S1B+ SAek+ SBel, C2= S1A- S1B- SAek- SBel , C3= S1A- S1B+ SAek- SBel , C4= S1A- S1B- SAek+ SBel Thus Fourier transform of (9) yields two dimensional pdf of u as
2N
2

when the number of subcarriers are sufficiently low. Careful inspection of SER formulae reveals that the tional complexity increases with the no. of subcarriers. But only a couple of subcarriers introduce the significant interference terms as shown in fig.3 [8]. A lower ity version can be obtained by truncating the ICI cients. Hence Truncation of no. of subcarriers does not introduce much deviation to the real performance given by simulation results. Fig. 4 shows the SER performance of an OFDM system having N=64 subcarriers and QPSK modulation scheme over AWGN channel, where the no. of subcarriers are truncated to 12 in calculating the theoretical SER values. It can be seen that the truncation does not introduce much deviation to the simulation results. The results show that SER decreases with the values of signal to noise ratio the effect is more noticeable at high signal-to-noise ratio. The increase in symbol error rate indicates performance degradation. The simulation model for the above said system is implemented using simulink of MATLAB.

2N

P(u)=(1/2

2(N-2)

)
k 1 n 1m 1

{real(u)10
0

SER Vs Signal to Noise ratio for QPSK for CFO=.1

kn*1,m+} x ,imag(u)- kn[2,m]}

(10)

Where (p,q) is the (p,q)th element of 2x4matrix defined as =( Cl, C2, C3 C4) and (x) is the Dirac delta function. Averaging (5) with respect to the pdf given in (10) yields the SER as
SER

10

-1

2N

2N

P()=1- (1/2

2(N-1)

)
k 1 n 1m 1

Q(

kn

[1,m])

10

-2

.Q

kn[2,m] )

(11)

10

-3

Where, is signal to noise ratio (Eb/N0) in dB. 2 Here N0=variance . Q is a Gaussian Q function given by,
2 v2

10

-4

THEORITICAL SIMULATION 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Signal to Noise ratio(Eb/N0)(db) 8 9 10

Q(x) =1/

2
x

.dv
Fig.2. SER for QPSK with CFO=0.1
The effect of CFO on SER is shown in fig.4 having N=12 subcarriers which indicates that as the value of CFO increases, SER also increases.

N is the number of subcarriers.

4 SIMULATION RESULTS
In Fig. 2, SER performance are shown for an OFDM system with QPSK modulation and N=10. However, it is vious that the analytical expression is easy to evaluate

26

10

Amplitudes of ICI of Coefficients with CFO=.1 N=64 N=128

CFO increases, the SER also increases. The computation complexity of SER formulae increases as the no. of subcarriers increases, it is shown that the truncation of the ICI sequence will not introduce a significant deviation from the simulation results.

10

-1

REFERENCES

Fig.
10
0

10

-1

[1+Xiang Liu and Lajos Hanzo, Exact BER Analysis of OFDM Systems Communicating over Frequency-Selective Fading Channels Subjected to carrier frequency offset,IEEE VTC07(spring), 22-25 April 2007, Dublin,Ireland,pp. 1951-2 10 1995. *2+ P. Moose, A Technique for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Frequency Offset Correction, IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 42, no. 10, pp. 29082914, October 1994. -3 10 *3+ J. Armstrong, Analysis of new and existing methods of -80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 reducing intercarrier interference due to carrier frequency k offset in OFDM, IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 47, no. 3, pp. 365 369, Mar. 1999. 3.The amplitudes Of ICI coefficients with CFO=0.1 [4] Y.Zhao and S. Haggman,Sensitivity to Doppler shift and SER vsEb/N0 for different values of CFO carrier frequency errors in OFDM systems-The consequences and CFO=0.01-Theoritical solutions, IEEE 46th Vehicular Technology Conf., vol. 3, Apr. 1996 CFO=0.01-simulation , pp. 1564-1568. CFO=0.1-Theoritical *5+ T. S. Rappaport, Wireless Communications Principles and CFO=0.1-simulation Practice, Second Edition, Prentice-Hall publications,2002.,Page CFO=0.5-Theoritical No.329 *6+ L.Rugini and P.Banelli, BER of OFDM systems impaired by CFO=0.5-simulation carrier frequency offset in multipath fading channels, IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun. Vol. 4, no.5, pp. 2279-2288, Sept 2005. [7] K. Sathananthan and C. Tellambura, Probability of Error Calculation of OFDM Systems with Frequency Offset, IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 49, no. 11, pp. 18841889, November 2001. [8] Prathapasinghe Dharamawansa and Nanda Rajtheva, An Exact Error Probability Analysis of OFDM Systems with frequency offset, Military Communication Conference (milcom 2006), 23-25 Oct 2006, Washington.

SER

10

-2

|Sk|

4 5 6 7 Signal to Noise ratio(Eb/N0)(dB)

10

Bhagyashri A. Warhade is currently pursuing Masters of Engineering degree in Electronics Engineering from Maharashtra Academy of Engineering Pune, India. Her Current research interests include OFDM and wireless communications. Dr. B. P. Patil received his Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics Engg. From Amravati University, India in 1990 and Masters in engineering degree from NIT Allahabad, India in 1996. He received Ph.D. in Electronics Technology from Guru Nanak Dev Univ., Amritsar India in year 2000. Presently working as Principal, Marathwada Mitra Mandals Institute of Technology, Lohgaon, Pune, India. He has published 80 plus research papers in various international and national referred journals and conferences. He is recipient of Sir Thomas Ward memorial Medal from the Institution of Engg., Calcutta, for his best paper in E & T Journal div. for the year 19992000. His area of Interest includes Communication and Wireless Sensor Network.

Fig.4. Comparison of SER for different values of CFO.

5 CONCLUSION
In this paper, SER expression for OFDM system under AWGN channel using QPSK modulation is studied and simulation results are shown, which indicates that SER decreases as the value of signal to noise ratio increases. The effect of carrier frequency offset in the OFDM system is measured in terms of SER with respect to signal to noise ratio. The simulation results are shown in fig. 4 for different values of CFO. This indicates that as the value of

27

Prabha S. Kasliwal, Associate Professor, Department of Electronics Engineering, Maharashtra Academy of Engineering, Pune. She completed her Masters in Digital Electronics. She is research scholar and working on Performance evaluation of Arithmetic unit using Vedic algorithm on FPGA. She has research grant for this project funded by University of Pune. Her area of interest is VLSI, Embedded Systems, Wireless Communication Systems.