CDMA over QAM and other Arbitrary Energy

Constellations
Serdar Boztas
Department of Mathematics
RMIT
GPO Box 2476V Melbourne 3001, Australia
Original Version: 1996
Abstract
Welch and Sidelnikov lower bounds on the maximum nontrivial correlations of complex
signal sets apply to the constrained case of uniform signal energy and have long been
used as a benchmark for testing the merit of signal sets in the design of good CDMA
sequence families. Welchs lower bound is generalized here to the arbitrary signal
energy case and applied to CDMA over QAM modulation. The generalized lower bound
is compared to the original bound and an explicit QAM-CDMA family is constructed.
1 INTRODUCTION
The design of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) sequence families, or
spreading codes is a very important problem that impacts on a wide range of
communication applications. With the trend towards wideband digital mobile
cellular and personal communications systems based on CDMA, it is quite
natural to consider generalizations of CDMA. QAM-CDMA is proposed here as a
Direct Sequence(DS)-CDMA system based on Quadrature Amplitude
Modulation. For the reader new to this area, a very good background reference
(which is somewhat dated in terms of the sequence designs it covers) on
sequences which can be applied to CDMA systems is the tutorial paper by
Sarwate and Pursley [1].
Since most current and currently proposed DS-CDMA systems are based on
uniform energy (e.g., PSK) modulation schemes, there are no known bounds on
how good a QAM-CDMA system can be. This paper addresses this problem by
deriving a lower bound which the maximum nontrivial cross- and
auto-correlation of a CDMA sequence family must obey, when the energy of the
sequences in the family is allowed to take on any nite value. It must be noted
that the maximum nontrivial correlation of a sequence family directly impacts on
the performance, and hence the user capacity, of a CDMA based cellular or PCS
mobile radio system.
The Welch [2] and Sidelnikov [3] lower bounds on the maximum nontrivial
correlations of complex signal sets (as observed by Krone and Sarwate in [4])
dier according to whether binary or nonbinary symbol alphabets are used. In
1
general, the nonbinary bounds are not as tight as the binary case. This implies
that there may be a performance improvement if nonbinary alphabets are used.
Sole [5] and Boztas et al. [6] gave sequence family constructions for the
quarternary case while Kumar and Moreno [7] gave prime alphabet constructions
which asymptotically meet the nonbinary Welch and Sidelnikov lower bounds
and deliver the performance improvement suggested by the lower bounds.
In this paper a generalized Welch lower bound is presented. A 16-QAM CDMA
sequence family is then designed by utilizing a construction in [6]. The
performance of the new family is evaluated by using the generalized bound. The
main dierence between the generalized and original Welch bounds is that the
generalized bound is dependent on the energy moments of the signal set.
2 THE GENERALIZED LOWER BOUND
Consider a signal set A = {a
1
, a
2
, . . . a
M
} with the M cyclically distinct signals
taking values in the Ldimensional vector space over the eld of complex
numbers. Hence
a
m
= (a
(m)
0
a
(m)
1
a
(m)
L1
)
with a
(m)
l
arbitrary complex numbers. Dene a 2pnorm for such vectors
x= (x
0
x
1
, x
L1
) by
x
2p
=
_
| x
0
|
2p
+ | x
1
|
2p
+ + | x
L1
|
2p
_
1/2p
(1)
where p 1, is an integer.
The correlation, or inner product between two vectors a
i
and a
j
in C
L
is given by

ij

=< a
i
, a
j
>=
L

l=1
a
(i)
l
a
(j)
l
1 i, j M (2)
where the autocorrelation
ii
of the ith signal yields its energy

ii
=< a
i
, a
i
>= a
i

2
2
. The maximum nontrivial correlation of the set A is
dened to be

max
= max
i=j
|
ij
| . (3)
We are now ready to state the main result of this paper.
Theorem 1 Given a family A, with M cyclically distinct vectors, and a xed
integer k 1, the following holds:

2k
max

1
(M 1)M

_
(

M
m=1
a
m

2k
2
)
2
C
L+k1
k
(
M

m=1
a
m

4k
2
)
_
, (4)
where C
n
k
denotes the binomial coecient n choose k.
2
Proof: The proof parallels the original proof of Welch in [1]. See [9] for details. 2
This theorem about inner products can now be utilized to derive lower bounds
on periodic and aperiodic correlations of sequence families, where the
asynchronous nature of the communication forces one to consider not only signals
but their cyclic shifts as well.
Before proceeding with this, it is convenient to dene the following terms:
Denote the energy of a member a
i
of the QAM-CDMA sequence family C by
E(a
i
), i.e., E(a
i
)

= a
i

2
2
. Then consider the average energy per signal of the
whole family C which is given by
E(C) =

M
i=1
E(a
i
)
M
,
where it is enough to include only one member of each cyclic equivalence class in
C, i.e., it is enough to perform the sum over A. It is also possible to dene higher
moments of the energy of a member, namely E
k
(a
i
), and the averages E
k
(C) over
the family C, in an analogous fashion.
The following corollaries to Theorem 1 are easily obtained.
Corollary 2 Dene
C
ij
() =
L

l=1
a
(i)
l
a
(j)
l
where u v is dened as u + v(mod L). Consider the maximum of both the auto
and cross correlations for the family C given by
C
max
= max
i=j or =0
| C
ij
() | .
Then
C
2k
max

1
(ML 1)ML
_
L
2
(

M
m=1
a
m

2k
2
)
2
C
L+k1
k
L(
M

m=1
a
m

4k
2
)
_
, (5)
which can also be written
C
2k
max

1
(ML 1)
_

_
LM
_
E
k
_
2
C
L+k1
k
_
E
2k
_
C
L+k1
k
_

_ (6)
where weve substituted E
m
for E
m
(C) for simplicity.
If L = 2N 1 and a
(m)
l
= 0 for N < l L, the periodic correlations of the
Lvectors become the aperiodic correlations of the Nvectors, and hence we
have:
Corollary 3 The aperiodic o-peak correlation of the family C obeys
C
2k
max

1
[M(2N 1) 1]
_

_
(2N 1)M
_
E
k
_
2
C
2N+k2
k
_
E
2k
_
C
2N+k2
k
_

_. (7)
3
The following theorem states the relationship between the bounds in the uniform
and non-uniform energy cases. It has been formulated only for the periodic
correlation, but the aperiodic correlation case can also be obtained.
Theorem 4 Let
2k
be the ratio between the generalized (see Corollary 2) and
the original Welch lower bounds on the (2k)
th
moments of periodic correlations
(with the generalized bound in the numerator). Then

2k
=
_
LM
_
E
k
(C)
_
2
C
L+k1
k
E
2k
(C)
_
_
LME
2k
C
L+k1
k
E
2k
_ (8)
holds (for the uniform energy case E is simply the energy of any signal in the
family) and
2k
satises the two inequalities
_
E
k
(C)
_
2
E
2k

2k

E
2k
(C)
E
2k
(9)
Proof: Consider the energy distribution moments of C as a random variable and
hence use the fact that
_
E
k
(C)
_
2
E
2k
(C) must hold. 2
3 A CONSTRUCTION FOR QAM-CDMA
The quarternary sequence family (each symbol in a sequence belonging to that
family takes values in the set {1, j} where j =

1) denoted Family A in [6]
is used in this section to construct a 16-QAM CDMA sequence family. This new
family will be called Family Q.
The construction begins with two existing sets of quarternary sequence families
denoted by U and V whose correlation properties are known and which contain
sequences of length 2
r
1. Let (u
i
(t)) be an enumeration of U and let (v
i
(t)) be
an enumeration of V. Dene the QAM-CDMA family Q as the set of sequences
(c
i
(t)) where
c
i
(t) = u
i
(t) + v
i
(t), t = 0, . . . , 2
r1
1
and and are two positive real numbers. Since u
i
(t) and v
i
(t) take on values
in {1, j} it can be seen that the sequences c
i
(t) take on values in a 45

rotated QAM constellation, and and give the designer some choice over the
exact parameters of the constellation.
Dene the periodic correlation between two sequences (c
i
(t)) and (c
j
(t)) chosen
from family Q at relative shift by

ij
() =
2
r
2

t=0
c
i
(t)c
j
(t )
where the complex conjugate is denoted by the bar and denotes addition
modulo 2
r
1, the period. It is easy to show that

ij
() =
2

u
i
,u
j
() +
2

v
i
,v
j
() + 2Re{
u
i
,v
j
()}, (10)
4
where
u
i
,u
j
(),
v
i
,v
j
(),
u
i
,v
j
() are correlations between the quarternary
component sequences (u
i
(t)) and (v
j
(t)). This leads to the observation that
C
max
( + )
2
(1 + 2
r/2
). (11)
Is it in fact possible that C
max
is less than the value given by this bound? This is
a question we will explore below.
The family A = {a
0
(t), a
2
(t), . . . , a
2
r (t)} consists of 2
r
+ 1 cyclically distinct
quarternary sequences and all their cyclic shifts, where r = 2s + 1 is an odd
integer 3. Each sequence has length L = 2
r
1. The complete correlation
distribution of A has been evaluated in [6] and it has been shown that
C
max
(A) 1 +

L + 1 = 1 + 2
r/2
which is asymptotically optimal. Let R = GR(4, r) be the Galois ring dened as
R =
Z
4
[X]
(f(X))
where f is a basic irreducible polynomial of degree r over Z
4
(see [6] for details of
Galois rings and how to obtain basic irreducible polynomials). This ring has a
maximal ideal 2 R and a multiplicative subgroup R

= R 2 R of invertible
elements. There is a one to one correspondence between the 2
r
+ 1 quarternary
sequences a
k
(t) k = 0, . . . , 2
r
in A and the cosets of the maximal
multiplicative subgroup G
1
=< > in R

where R is a root of f(y) of order

2
r
1. The coset representatives of G
1
in R may be taken as the elements
{t
0
, t
1
, . . . , t
2
r } = { 2 , 1 , 1 , (1 ) , (1
2
) , . . . , (1
2
r
2
) }
and this correspondence is then given by the fact that
a
k
(t) =
T(t
k

t
)

= (t
k

t
)
where T : R Z
4
is the Galois ring trace function, an analog of the trace
function in Galois elds, and () is the composition of the Galois ring trace with
the modulation map
()
from exponent sequences to complex sequences with
= e
i/2
.
Let the sets U and V be obtained by a partition of the sequences
{a
k
(t) : k = 3, . . . , 2
r
} into two sets of equal size. Let the coset representatives
for these sequences be given by {
1
,
2
, . . . ,
2
r1
1
} and {
1
,
2
, . . . ,
2
r1
1
}
which means that the sequences themselves are given by
u
i
(t) =
T(
i

t
)
= (
i

t
) i = 1, . . . 2
r1
1,
v
i
(t) =
T(
i

t
)
= (
i

t
) i = 1, . . . 2
r1
1
where
{
1
,
2
, . . . ,
2
r1
1
}
_
{
1
,
2
, . . . ,
2
r1
1
}
is a permutation of the set
{t
3
. . . , t
2
r } = { (1 ) , (1
2
) , . . . , (1
2
r
2
) }.
5
We can then write (using equation (10))

ij
() =
2
2
r
2

t=0
((
i

j
)
t
)+
2
2
r
2

t=0
((
i

j
)
t
)+2Re{
2
r
2

t=0
((
i

j
)
t
)}
since (x)(y) = (x y).
Theorem 5 The maximum nontrivial correlation magnitude C
max
for the
QAM-CDMA family Q dened above obeys:
C
max
(
2
+
2
)(1 + 2
r/2
) + 2(1 + 2
(r1)/2
) (12)
and is strictly less than the upper bound in equation (11).
Proof: Any of the three sums in (11) may be rewritten as

2
r
2
t=0
(f
t
) or

zG
1
(fz) where the constant f = (
i

j
), etc. Such a sum was shown in
[6] to take on one of the values in the set
{1 2
(r1)/2
2
(r1)/2
}
provided the constant f is a unit, i.e. is in R

. Note that the constants in the

three sums in (11) are all of the form
((1
i
)

(1
j
))
due to our careful denition of the
i
and
i
. We rst show that f = 0. This is
equivalent to showing

j
=
i
1.
But the only way

i
=
j
1 can hold is if the corresponding exponents
on both sides are equal mod 2
r
1, i.e., if j = 0 and i = 0 which is ruled out by
our choice of
i
and
i
. It can also be similarly shown (see [6] for details) that f
is in fact in R

but this is not strictly necessary since if f = 0 is a zero divisor

the sum

zG
1
(fz) takes on the value 1 which does not contradict the
conclusion of the theorem. 2
In order to apply the generalized Welch lower bound to Q, we need the moments
E
k
(Q) of the energy distribution of Q. Consider the sequence
c
i
(t) = u
i
(t) + v
i
(t) and note that its energy distribution is completely
determined by the correlation distribution of the pair of component sequences
(u
i
(t), v
i
(t)). In other words, this energy distribution depends on the relative
angle distribution between the two component sequences u
i
(t) and v
i
(t) (when
u
i
(t) and v
i
(t) point in the same direction the contribution to the energy is
( + )
2
, when their direction dier by /2 the contribution to the energy is
(
2
+
2
), and when they point in the opposite direction the contribution to the
energy is ( )
2
) which is itself completely determined by the correlation
distribution of the pair (u
i
(t), v
i
(t)).
Let N
k,l
denote the number of 0 t 2
r
2 such that u
i
(t) = k and v
i
(t) = l
with k, l {1, j}. Then the energy of the sequence c
i
(t) is given by
E(c
i
) =
2
r
2

t=0
| u
i
(t) + v
i
(t) |
2
6
which can be expanded into
E(c
i
) = [N
1,1
+ N
j,j
+ N
1,1
+ N
j,j
]( + )
2
+ [N
1,j
+ N
j,1
+ N
1,j
+ N
j,1
](
2
+
2
)
+ [N
1,j
+ N
j,1
+ N
1,j
+ N
j,1
](
2
+
2
)
+ [N
1,1
+ N
j,j
+ N
1,1
+ N
j,j
]( )
2
.
Rewriting in terms of the distribution of the relative angle between u
i
(t) and
v
i
(t) and collecting similar terms gives
E(c
i
) = N(0)( + )
2
+ N()( )
2
+ [N(/2) + N(/2)](
2
+
2
)
= [2
r
1](
2
+
2
) + [N(0) N()]2.
The term N(0) N() can be obtained from the crosscorrelation distribution of
the family A in a straightforward fashion by appealing to part 1 of Theorem 6 in
[6]. N(0) N() is in fact the real part of the crosscorrelation between sequences
u
i
(t) and v
i
(t) and it takes on the values {1 2
(r1)/2
} with relative frequency
2
r2
2
(r3)/2
.
4 CONCLUSIONS
The motivation for considering the generalization of Welchs lower bound to
signal sets with arbitrary energy distribution comes from the possibility of
applying CDMA over QAM links. There is still considerable theoretical work to
be done before this possible application can be evaluated. It is an interesting
open problem to consider algebraic methods for direct construction of
QAM-CDMA families, without taking the componentwise approach of this
paper. This problem will be addressed in future work.
5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author was with the Department of Electrical and Computer Systems
Engineering, Monash University, Clayton 3168, Australia when this work was
performed. The support of Telecom Australia during this period is hereby
acknowledged.
6 REFERENCES
[1] D. V. Sarwate and M. B. Pursley, Cross-correlation properties of
pseudorandom and related sequences, Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 68,
pp.593-618, May 1980. [2] L. R. Welch, Lower bounds on the maximum cross
correlation of signals, IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. IT-20, pp.397-399,
May 1974.
[3] V. M. Sidelnikov, On mutual correlation of sequences, Soviet Math Doklady,
vol. 12, pp.197-201, 1971.
[4] S. M. Krone and D. V. Sarwate, Quadriphase sequences for spread spectrum
multiple access communication, IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. IT-30,
pp.520-529, May 1991.
7
[5] P. Sole, A quarternary cyclic code and a family of quadriphase sequences
with low correlation properties, in Coding Theory and Applications, Lecture
Notes in Computer Science. New York: Springer-Verlag, vol. 388, 1989.
[6] S. Boztas, R. Hammons, and P. V. Kumar, 4-phase sequences with
near-optimum correlation properties, IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. IT-38,
pp.1101-1113, May 1992.
[7] P. V. Kumar and O. Moreno, Polyphase sequences with periodic correlation
properties better than binary sequences, IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol.
IT-37, pp.603-616, May 1991.
[8] S. Boztas and P. V. Kumar, Near-optimal four-phase sequences for CDMA,
Technical Report CSI-90-03-01, Communication Sciences Institute, University of
Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, March 1990.
8