1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION. 4
1.1 Motivation 4
1.2 Literature Review.... 5
1.3 Scope 8
1.4 Organization.. 9
2. ORTHOGONAL FREQUENCY DIVISION MULTIPLEXING. 10
2.1 Introduction.. 11
2.2 OFDM Transmitter and Receiver. 11
2.2.1 M-Ary PSK Modulation 13
2.3 Discrete Fourier Transform, OFDM Symbol Generation 15
2.3.1 Discrete Fourier Transform 15
2.3.2 Guard Interval 16
2.4 Demodulation of OFDM Symbols 19
2
Chapter Page
3. SPACE-TIME Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing 20
3.1 Introduction.. 20
3.2 Transmitter Diversity 20
3.3 Space-Time OFDM.. 23
4. TIME-VARYING DOPPLER CHANNEL AND INTER-CARRIER
INTERFERENCE. 26
4.1 Introduction.. 26
4.2 Time-Varying Channel. 27
4.3 Jakes Model. 30
4.4 Effect of Doppler Channel and Inter-Carrier Interference on
OFDM 31
4.4.1 Discrete Time System Model. 31
4.5 ICI Mitigation 35
5. DIFFERENTIAL SPACE-TIME BLOCK CODING. 36
5.1 Introduction 36
5.2 TJs Encoder. 37
5.3 Differential Decoding 39
5.3.1 Performance 40
5.4 Differential Space-Time OFDM 41
5.4.1 Differential Detection Applied to ST-OFDM 41

3
Chapter Page
6. CHANNEL ESTIMATION USING MODIFIED LOCAL SPLINES. 44
6.1 Introduction 44
6.2 Study of Splines. 45
6.3 Channel Estimation Using Modified Local Splines... 46
6.3.1 Pilot Arrangement in Space-Time OFDM System. 49
6.3.2 Spline Processing for Channel Estimation.. 51
7. PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL SPACE-TIME OFDM 59
7.1 Introduction.59
7.2 Transmitter.. 60
7.3 Receiver.. 64
8. SIMULATION AND RESULTS.. 69
8.1 Introduction. 69
8.2 Doppler Channel. 69
8.3 Performance of Partial Differential Space-Time OFDM 73
8.4 Conclusion and Future Scope. 79
REFERENCES. 81




4
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Motivation:
In the present world of technological revolution, there is an ever increasing
need for high data rates. With the growing importance for information exchange, the
importance for error-free communication is increasing. Communications signals
transmitted through wireless medium experience multi-path propagation effects,
leading to inter-symbol interference (ISI) and inter-carrier interference (ICI). This
calls for developing better communication technologies which can combat these
effects degrading the signal quality. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing
(OFDM) is an effective modulation scheme which has the capability to handle such
inadequacies in the transmission environment.
OFDM is a modern communication technique which converts a high data
rate stream of symbols into a set of low data rate streams of symbols transmitted on
sub-carriers. These sub-carriers are orthogonal to each other leading to increased
insensitivity to frequency selective fading. This method increases the symbol
duration which eliminates the effects of multi-path delay. But the inherent
disadvantage of this concept is that the increased symbol duration leads to inter-
symbol interference, which can be overcome by inserting a guard band between
different frames of symbols [1]. In mobile environment, the channel is a Doppler
channel and due to this, the channel characteristics may vary rapidly. This Doppler



5
spread leads to decrease in coherence time of the channel, which is the duration for
which the channel characteristics are constant. Due to the increased symbol
duration, this Doppler spread causes the channel to change within a single frame
duration, which leads to inter-carrier interference (ICI) [1] [2]. Hence, it is critical to
mitigate ICI.
Diversity is another concept which is implemented to improve the efficiency
of the existing communication techniques. Diversity is a method where multiple
copies of data are transmitted using multiple antennas. Diversity could be either
transmit diversity or receiver diversity. An effective transmit diversity was
introduced by S.M. Alamouti in [3], which is a method that is applicable to many
communication techniques. Transmit diversity provides advantage for
communication over fading channels [4].

1.2 Literature Review:
Tarokh et al presented Space-time codes in [5] which present a tradeoff
between data rate, size of the constellation, complexity of the trellis and the
diversity advantage. Keeping the number of antennas fixed, the decoding
complexity increases exponentially as a function of rate of transmission and level of
diversity [4].
The transmit diversity scheme using two antennas, proposed by Alamouti, employs
maximum likelihood detection based on linear processing at the receiver. This
scheme provides the promised full diversity when extended to an arbitrary number



6
of transmit antennas, and also the simple decoding property of the maximum
likelihood detection was retained [6].
Space-time codes in [3, 6] transmit multiple copies of data through number
of antennas, so that the multiple received versions of data improve reliability of
transmission. All the copies of data are combined at the receiver in an optimal way
to extract maximum information possible. This technique requires channel
information at the receiver. This requires transmission of pilot symbols along with
the data, which aid in channel estimation. The channel information can be used to
estimate the transmitted symbols [7].
The obtainable diversity is reduced with imperfect channel estimation. A
partial solution to this was proposed in [3], which required transmission of known
symbols at the beginning, making it not truly differential [4].
Removal of inter-carrier interference is important for wireless communication,
and several approaches have been proposed to remove it. Mostofi and Cox
developed a method in [8] for ICI removal. A linear model was used to find the
slope between adjacent OFDM frames. In real environment, the channel is Doppler
and varies randomly with time. Hence, the method was not suitable for a non-linear
nature of the Doppler channel [1].
In [9], a new method to estimate the channel variations using modified local
splines was developed. It was shown that this method estimates channel efficiently
and thereby helps in mitigating the inter-carrier interference (ICI).



7
King F. Lee and Douglas B. Williams presented a preliminary channel
estimation technique for a transmitter diversity system in which the pilots were sent
once every N blocks of OFDM symbols [1].
A differential detection scheme was proposed by Tarokh and Jafarkhani in
[11], wherein the receiver does not have access to the channel state information but
can still demodulate transmitted information from the received signal and thus
provide diversity. The scheme in [11] incurred a 3dB loss compared to the coherent
detection.
The channel estimation method using modified local splines was applied to
ST-OFDM system in [1]. A Doppler channel was assumed, and the estimated
channel was used in symbol retrieval helping in ICI mitigation.
Differential encoding was applied to a space-time OFDM system in [4]. A
constant channel was assumed and the symbols were retrieved using differential
decoding, which did not require channel information. This technique is best suitable
for channels with low Doppler or constant channels.

1.3 Scope:
In transmissions with multi-path effects, when frequency selective fading
becomes severe, there will be a great increase in the channel estimation errors due to
time variation of the channel parameters. This can be overcome by using differential
detection of symbols for ST-OFDM.



8
In [1], the channel estimation method proposed in [9], was extended to a
simple transmitter diversity space-time OFDM system [12]. Coherent encoded
symbols were considered, and the method was applied for channels with various
Doppler levels.
In this work, we propose to combine the differential encoding technique for
ST-OFDM proposed in [4] and the channel estimation for ST-OFDM in [1]. The
symbols considered are differentially encoded 4-PSK symbols. The channel
between the transmitter and the receiver is assumed to have doppler with Rayleigh
fading characteristics. Transmitter diversity with two transmit antennas and one
receive antenna is considered and space-time coding is applied to OFDM. Channel
estimation is done using the technique developed in [9]. Differential decoding is
applied to symbols after the channel equalization has been applied for the symbols
at the receiver. Simulations are performed and results are observed for both the
coherent and differentially encoded ST-OFDM. Also this method has been applied
for real and complex channel cases. It was found that the performance of partial
differential ST-OFDM is 3dB lower than the corresponding coherent ST-OFDM.

1.4 Organization:
The fundamentals of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing are
discussed in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 gives an overview of the transmitter diversity and
the application of transmitter diversity to OFDM to have space-time OFDM.
Chapter 4 mainly focuses on the time-varying nature of the channel. The Doppler



9
channel is modeled using Jakes model. Differential encoding and decoding is
presented in Chapter 5. Differential detection applied to space-time OFDM for time-
invariant channels is discussed. Chapter 6 discusses the channel estimation
technique using modified local splines. The detection of symbols using the
estimated channel for a time-varying Doppler channel is presented.
The motivation behind this work is to apply the channel estimation
technique for differential space-time OFDM. This idea is further elaborated, and the
necessary formulation for symbol retrieval is provided in Chapter 7. The proposed
scheme is simulated and the results and conclusion are provided.
10
CHAPTER 2
ORTHOGONAL FREQUENCY DIVISION
MULTIPLEXING

2.1 Introduction:
This chapter discusses the principle of orthogonal frequency division
multiplexing. OFDM is a multi-carrier modulation technique used in digital
communications. A large number of closely spaced orthogonal sub-carriers are used
to carry data divided into several parallel data streams or channels, one for each sub-
carrier. Each sub-carrier is modulated with a conventional modulation scheme (such
as quadrature amplitude modulation or phase shift keying) at a low symbol rate,
maintaining total data rates similar to conventional single-carrier modulation
schemes in the same bandwidth [13].

2.2 OFDM Transmitter and Receiver:
The block diagram of OFDM transmitter and receiver is given in Figure 2.1.
Binary data is converted into symbols using some modulation technique (such as
PSK or QAM), and these symbols are given as input to the OFDM system.

11

Figure 2.1: Basic block diagram of OFDM transmitter/receiver.

In OFDM, binary data is converted into symbols using modulation
techniques. In this work we consider 4-PSK modulation technique which maps two
bits of binary data into one single 4-PSK symbol. These symbols are grouped into
blocks of size of power of 2 (this choice of size of the block is to use FFT/IFFT for
OFDM instead of DFT/IDFT). Each of these blocks is called OFDM input frame. In
cases where channel estimation is necessary, pilot symbols are inserted in the input
frame of the PSK/QAM modulated symbols. These pilots are symbols known to
both the transmitter and receiver and help in channel estimation. Inverse fast Fourier
transform (IFFT) is computed on each frame to obtain symbols in time domain. This
block of symbols is converted from parallel to serial and a cyclic prefix is appended
to avoid the inter-symbol interference (ISI). The effect and elimination of ISI are
discussed in later in this chapter. These digital symbols are converted to analog and
transmitted over channel using transmitter antenna [2].

Bit to
Symbol


S/P
N
I
F
F
T


P/S
Add
CP
Remove
CP


S/P
N
F
F
T


P/S

Symbol
to Bit

Channel
Binary
Data
Binary
Output

12
At the receiver, the analog signal received is converted to digital and the
block of OFDM symbols is retrieved. The cyclic prefix appended before
transmission is removed and FFT of the frame is computed to obtain the symbols in
frequency domain. The pilot information from the received frame is used to estimate
the channel. Subsequently, this channel information is used to retrieve the original
symbols and binary data is decoded from the symbols. This constitutes the basic
OFDM structure [2].
2.2.1 M-Ary PSK Modulation:
This is a family of two-dimensional phase-shift keying modulation schemes.
Several bandwidth-efficient schemes of this family are important for practical
wireless applications [14]. As a generalization of the concept of PSK modulation, let
us decide to form a modulating symbol by grouping m consecutive binary bits
together. So, the number of possible modulating symbols is M = 2
m
and the symbol
duration T = mT
b
. E is the energy of the signal. Figure 2.2 shows the signal
constellation for m = 2. This modulation scheme is called QPSK. The signal points,
indicated by *, are equally spaced on a circle. This implies that all modulation
symbols s
i
(t), 0 i (M-1), are of same energy E. The dashed straight lines are used
to denote the decision zones for the symbols for optimum decision making at the
receiver [14]. Table 2.1 gives the mapping of binary data into 4-PSK symbols.
The signal points can be distinguished by their angular location:

i
= 2 i / M ; i = 0, 1... M 1

13

Figure 2.2: QPSK constellation [14]

Table 2.1: 4-PSK Mapping Truth Table

Sequence of Input Bits 4-PSK Symbol
1,1 exp (j*pi/4)
1,-1 exp (j*3*pi/4)
-1,1 exp (j*5*pi/4)
-1,-1 exp (j*7*pi/4)



0
(1,1)
(1,0) (0,0)
(0,1)

14
2.3 Discrete Fourier Transform, OFDM Symbol Generation:
The discrete Fourier transform and the inverse discrete Fourier transform
constitute the most important part of the OFDM system. The orthogonal nature of
the sub-carriers in OFDM is attributed to the use of IDFT / DFT in transmission and
reception.
2.3.1 Discrete Fourier Transform:
For N points in the time domain x(0), x(1), - - - - , x(N-1), performing N
point DFT on them gives N points in the frequency domain, X
0
, X
1
, - - - -, X
N 1.

X
k
is given by the equation (2-1) [9]:

0 k N-1 (2-1)

X
k
can be represented as a dot product of the x matrix with a matrix of
exponentials and can be represented as in equation (2-2) [4]:

X
k
x 0 ( )
x 1 ( )
x 2 ( )
.
.
x N 1 ( )

1
exp j
2 k ( )
N
1

exp j2
2k
N

.
.
exp j2 N 1 ( )
k
N

=
k
0 k N 1
(2-2)
X
k
=

=
1
0
) (
N
n
n x e
j 2 nk / N


15

DFT involves many complex computations and to avoid this, fast Fourier transform
(FFT) is used. FFT is used when N is a multiple of 2. The importance of DFT is that
when one of the sub-carriers has maximum power, all the other sub-carriers have
zero power at that frequency. Hence there is no interference from adjacent sub-
carriers, which is the most important characteristic of OFDM.
The PSK symbols generated are considered to be in frequency domain, and
the transmission is in time domain. Hence, for converting the frequency domain
symbols to time domain, inverse discrete Fourier transform (DFT) is used. IDFT
also ensures that the symbols are transmitted on sub-carriers which are orthogonal to
each other. Since these PSK symbols are complex symbols, on implementing IDFT,
the real part of the OFDM symbols has the in-phase component multiplied with the
cosine function and the quadrature-phase component multiplied with the sine
function. Similar to FFT, when N is a power of 2, IDFT can be implemented using
IFFT, hence reducing the computations.
2.3.2 Guard Interval:
After the symbols are generated using IFFT, these symbols are transmitted
through RF channel using antennas. Before the signal reaches the receiver antenna,
it undergoes multiple reflections and multiple delayed copies of the signal reach the
receiver antenna. This is called multi-path propagation delay [13]. Due to this delay,
one symbol interferes with the next symbol and this effect is called inter-symbol
interference (ISI). OFDM is inherently resistant to this ISI [15]. In the OFDM, the

16
data stream with high rate is converted into lower data rate streams when modulated
with orthogonal sub-carriers. This leads to increased time duration of each symbol
with respect to the propagation delay, which is much smaller than the symbol time
[4]. To overcome this effect, in OFDM, before the symbols are transmitted, a guard
band of symbols is inserted before the actual OFDM frame of symbols. This guard
band provides enough time frame and ensures that the symbols from the previous
OFDM frame are completely decayed before the next OFDM frame is transmitted,
hence avoiding ISI [4]. The guard interval used in OFDM is cyclic in nature (Figure
2.3). The last p symbols from the frame are appended at the beginning of the
frame. This length p of the cyclic prefix is determined based on the estimation of
the delay caused by the channel.

Figure 2.3: Use of cyclic prefix as guard interval [9].

Insertion of cyclic prefix has multiple advantages. First, it helps in carrier
synchronization at the receiver. Second, it also ensures sub-carrier orthogonality in
the duration T+Tg, where T is frame duration and Tg is duration of guard interval.
Finally, it also helps in implementation of circular convolution using linear
convolution [15].
CP
FRAME 1
CP
FRAME 2
CP
FRAME 3

17
To further elaborate on this point, consider N PSK symbols in frequency
domain, X(1), X(2), .. , X(N-1). Implementing IDFT on these symbols gives N
symbols in time domain, x(1), x(2),, x(N-1). The time/frequency-domain
relationship between the symbols can be represented by the Figure 2.4, where h(n)
and y(n), denote the channel and its output, respectively.

Figure 2.4: Frequency/time-domain relationships in OFDM [9].

The received symbols y(n) can be represented as convolution between
transmitted symbols x(n) and the channel h(n), using the equation

y(n) = x(n) * h(n) (2-3) [4]




I
F
F
T



P
/
S



S
/
P



F
F
T
Channel
h(n)
x(n) y(n)
X
1

X
2







X
N-1

Y
1

Y
2







Y
N-1

Frequency
domain
Frequency
domain
Time
domain

18
After the symbols y(n) are received at the receiver, they are converted into
frequency-domain symbols Y(f) using FFT. The above convolution equation can be
represented in frequency domain as

Y(f) = X(f) . H(f) (2-4) [4]

From the above equation, it can be seen that the spectrum of the output can be
expressed as the product of the input spectrum and the spectrum of the channel. In
practice, to achieve this effect, circular convolution must be performed between the
input and the channel in time domain. But when the symbols are transmitted through
the RF channel, the channel performs linear convolution on the time domain
symbols transmitted. Hence, with the insertion of cyclic prefix, the linear
convolution gives the effect of circular convolution. This eases the channel
estimation process, since in the frequency domain the output spectrum is the product
of the input and channel spectra. Channel estimation can be done using the equation

H(f) = Y(f) / X(f) (2-5) [4]

2.4 Demodulation of OFDM Symbols:
To extract the symbols at the receiver, the reverse process of the
transmission is performed. At the receiver, the cyclic prefix is removed before the
symbols are converted into frequency domain. After the guard interval is removed,

19
FFT is performed on the received symbols. This results in regeneration of all the
sub-carriers of the OFDM symbols. Channel equalization techniques are applied on
these frequency-domain symbols to retrieve the original transmitted symbols [1] [4].
20
CHAPTER 3
SPACE-TIME ORTHOGONAL FREQUENCY DIVISION
MULTIPLEXING

3.1 Introduction:
Transmit diversity is considered one of the practical means to achieve
improved performance in a multipath wireless environment [6]. Space diversity can
be implemented using multiple antennas either at the transmitter or at the receiver or
at both transmitter and receiver. Using multiple antennas at the receiver increases
the complexity of the receiver. Hence transmitter diversity has gained importance.
This topic is elaborated in Section 3.2. Section 3.3 discusses the implementation of
space-time block codes to conventional OFDM for performance improvement.

3.2 Transmitter Diversity:
Diversity refers to transmitting multiple copies of data over independent
channels with a view to improve performance while maintaining the data rate. This
technique was first proposed by Alamouti [3]. This technique provides better
resistance towards multipath fading and improves the performance of the advanced

21
modulation schemes such as OFDM and CDMA [1]. This scheme uses space
redundancy and assumes two transmit antennas. Hence the diversity order obtained
is equal to the one obtained with maximal ratio receiver combining (MRRC)
technique with two receive antennas [1]. The scheme comprises of performing three
functions:
Encoding the sequence of information symbols and transmitting;
Using the combining scheme at the receiver;
Applying the decision rule for maximum likelihood detection [3; Figure 3.1].

Figure 3.1: Two- branch transmitter diversity scheme with one receiver [1], [3]

In this technique proposed by Alamouti, two symbols are transmitted
simultaneously using two different antennas. Symbol S
0
is transmitted from the first
antenna and S
1
is transmitted from the second antenna in the first symbol period. In
o
s

*
1
s
1
s

*
0
s


0
0 0

j
e h =


1
1 1

j
e h =
0
n
1
n
Interference
& noise
Channel
estimator
Channel
estimator
o
h
1
h


Maximum
likelihood
detector
o
h
1
h
0
~
s
0
~
s
Rx
antenna


Retrieved
Symbols

22
the second symbol period, (-S
1
*) is transmitted from antenna 1 and ( S
0
*) is
transmitted from antenna 2. Since two adjacent symbol time periods and two
antennas with spatial diversity are used in this technique, this type of encoding is
called, space-time coding. If instead two adjacent frequency carriers are used, then it
is called space-frequency coding [3].
The channel can be represented by h
0
(t) and h
1
(t) respectively for antenna 1
and antenna 2:
( )
0
0 0 0

j
e h t h = = (3-1)
( )
1
1 1 1

j
e h t h = =

The equation of the received signals can be given by

0 1 1 0 0 0
) ( n s h s h t r r + + = = (3-2)
1
*
0 1
*
1 0 1
) ( n s h s h T t r r + + = + =

where r
0
and r
1
are received signals at time t and t+T respectively, and n
0
and n
1
are
white Gaussian noise at time t and t+T.
These signals are combined to retrieve the original signals. The estimated
signals
0
~
s and
1
~
s can be given by the following equations combining r
0
and r
1
:
*
1 1 0
*
0
0
~
r h r h s + = (3-3)
*
1 0 0
*
1
1
~
r h r h s =

23
Using the above equations we can solve for
0
~
s and
1
~
s :


*
1 1 0
*
0 0
2
1
2
0
0
~
) ( n h n h s s + + + = (3-4)

0
*
1 1 0 1
2
1
2
0
1
~
) ( n h n h s s + + =

These two combined signals are sent to maximum likelihood detector to estimate S
0
and S
1
. For PSK symbols, maximum likelihood detection is done based on the
Euclidean distance of the estimated symbols with the PSK symbols. This scheme
for two antennas can be generalized to multiple antennas.
This method can be applied to OFDM symbols for improving the
performance in the sense of reducing the inter-carrier interference (ICI) [3].

3.3 Space-Time OFDM:
Consider a set of PSK symbols In to be transmitted. These symbols are taken
as a block of N (64 in this case) at a time and IFFT of this block of symbols is
computed. As already mentioned before, a cyclic prefix is appended to this block of
symbols before transmission to avoid the effect of multi-path fading. Coming to
space-time OFDM, consider two successive blocks of symbols In
1
and In
2
. For each
of these blocks of symbols IFFT is computed to obtain x
1
and x
2
. These two blocks
of symbols are transmitted from two different antennas, a1 and a2, simultaneously.
The two antennas are assumed to be co-located. Each of these transmitted blocks of
symbols experiences a different channel. Let the channel through which the symbol

24
x
1
(n) is transmitted be h
1
(n) and the one through which x
2
(n) is transmitted be h
2
(n).
These channels are assumed to be time-varying Rayleigh channels in this work. At
the receiver, both these transmitted blocks of symbols get combined. After the
signal is received, cyclic prefix is removed to obtain the received signal vector r
1

[1]. See Figure 3.2.

Figure 3.2: Two-transmitter diversity space time OFDM [1].

At time instant 2, according to the Alamoutis algorithm [3], conjugates of
the symbols are to be transmitted. Hence -In
2
* is transmitted from the first antenna
and In
1
* is transmitted from the second antenna. Keeping in mind the computational
complexity and memory usage for computing IFFT, instead of taking the conjugates
of the symbols and frequency domain and computing the IFFT, the time domain
IFFT
& CP
Bit 2 Symbol
Conversion
Binary
Data

S
/
P
IFFT
& CP
In
1

In
2

Antenna
1

Antenna
2

CP
Removal
& FFT
Channel
Estimation
Diversity
Decoder
R
1
, R
2

P/S
Conversion
PSK
Symbols

25
symbols x
1
and x
2
generated during the first time instant are used. These blocks of
symbols are conjugated and time reversed (except the first symbol), which would
give the same effect as conjugation in frequency domain. Cyclic prefix is appended
for the symbols and these symbols are transmitted through different channels, and at
the receiver both the signals get combined. After receiving the signal, the cyclic
prefix (CP) is removed to obtain the signal r
2
[1].
The channel parameters for both the channels can be estimated by inserting
pilot symbols in the input frame. Hence based on the estimated channel values, the
transmitted symbols can be retrieved.
FFT is performed on the retrieved frame of symbols 1
~
x and 2
~
x to obtain the
symbols in frequency-domain. Maximum likelihood estimation is applied on these
frequency-domain symbols to obtain the actual transmitted PSK symbols In
1
and
In
2
. For estimation of transmitted symbols, the most important part is channel
estimation. In this work, channel estimation is done using a technique called
modified local splines, which will be discussed in the following chapter.
26
CHAPTER 4
TIME-VARYING DOPPLER CHANNEL
AND INTER-CARRIER INTERFERENCE

4.1 Introduction:
OFDM symbols are transmitted through a channel which in practice is time
varying. As discussed in the previous chapters, the transmitted symbols have inter-
symbol interference (ISI) due to multi-path propagation in the channel. This can be
avoided by appending a cyclic prefix to the transmitted OFDM frame. Due to this
cyclic prefix, the OFDM frame undergoes circular convolution with the channel. If
the channel were to be constant over the duration of the frame, then this convolution
would become mere multiplication in frequency domain. If this were the case, then
channel estimation would be easy and so would be the symbol retrieval. This can be
described by the following equation [1],
Y(f) = X(f) . H(f) (4-1)
Hence, at a particular sub-carrier frequency, the output would be the product of the
input and the channel at that frequency. In the case where the channel is time
varying, this equation is invalid. Hence, with a time-varying channel, the symbols


27
27
on one sub-carrier are affected by the symbols on the other sub-carriers. This
phenomenon is referred to as inter-carrier interference (ICI) [1], [9].

4.2 Time-Varying Channel:
Channel is the most important part of the transmission of any type of signal.
The effect of the channel on the signal has to be counteracted for the original data to
be retrieved properly at the receiver. Hence, it is very important to have an idea
about the physical characteristics of the channel. For a transmitted signal, multiple
copies of the original signal reach the receiver after traveling in multiple paths. All
these copies are different in nature, each one approaching the receiver with different
delays and different attenuation. This effect is called multi-path delay spread [13].
Consider a baseband equivalent model that transmits a signal ) (t s
l
at time t
[1], [13]. This signal is assumed to propagate in k different paths where k is random.
At the receiver, k different delayed copies of the signal are received, and the final
received signal is given by the equation,

)) ( ( ) ( ) (
) ( 2
0
t t s e t t r
n l
t f j
k
n
n l
n c


=

=

(4-2) [6]
where
= fc Carrier frequency
= ) (t
n
Propagation delay for
th
n path
= ) (t
n
Attenuation factor for
th
n path


28
28
Delay spread is caused due to the variations in ) (t
n
and Doppler spread is
caused due to variations in both ) (t
n
and ) (t
n
. These variations are random and
lead to fluctuations in signal strength, which is called fading. To further understand
the effect of fading, there has to be a model for the channel. Rayleigh fading model
is most suitable for studying channel variations, since these time variations in
channel are random in nature [9],[13]. In the Rayleigh fading channel model, the
envelope channel impulse response has Rayleigh probability distribution function
(Figure 4.1), which is given by the equation

2 2
2 /
2
) / (
b x
e
b
x
y x f y

= =
[9] (4-3)


Figure 4.1: Rayleigh distribution [9]


29
29
Rayleigh fading model can be defined for a transmission which does not
have line of sight propagation. Hence, the signal reaches the receiver traveling
through multiple paths undergoing multiple reflections.
Let us assume ) , ( t h is the impulse response of the time-varying channel with
the path delay . The channel is considered to be discrete in time since the OFDM
system is also a discrete-time system at baseband level. Hence, ) , ( t h can be
represented by ) ( j h
i
, which is the amplitude of the j
th
tap of the channel at time
instant i. The evolution of the channel fingers along time is given in Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2: Evolution of channel taps with time [1]

At any time instant i, the amplitude of the taps gives the channel impulse
response at that time instant. The amplitude of the tap changes with time and this
Finger
Time
Amplitude


30
30
variation is random [9]. These variations of the channel taps follow Rayleigh
distribution [2], and the autocorrelation of the channel taps is given by Jakes model
[16], discussed below.

4.3 Jakes Model:
One of the most popular models for Rayleigh fading channels is the Jakes
model [16]. Jakes model is based on summation of sinusoids. Zero-order Bessel
function of first kind is used to formulate the autocorrelation of the Doppler
channel. The autocorrelation between the channel taps at k
th
tap with a lag of l time
instant is given by [1], [9],
) 2 ( ) (
2
l f J l
d o
k
k h
= (4-3)
where,
Doppler frequency,
c
v
f f
c d
=

c
f =Carrier Frequency
v= Mobile speed (m/sec)
c= Speed of light = sec / 10 3
8
m

The Doppler spectrum of the channel (Figure 4.3) is given by the Fourier transform
of the autocorrelation function [16].

2
) / ( 1
1
) (
d d
d h
f f f
f S

(4-4)


31
31
4.4 Effect of Doppler Channel and Inter-Carrier Interference on OFDM:
Orthogonality of the sub-carriers is the main characteristic of OFDM. If the
channel is time variant, this orthogonality is affected. At the receiver, the received
signal contains the contributions of other sub-carriers as well. This effect is called
inter-carrier interference and is discussed in detail in the next section.
4.4.1 Discrete Time System Model:
Figure 4.4 represents the discrete time model for OFDM. Consider a block
of OFDM with N symbols X
0
, X
1
, X
2
,- - - - , X
N-1
. IFFT of this block of symbols is
computed to obtain N symbols in time domain, given by x(0), x(1), - - - - , x(N-1).
Before these are transmitted over the channel, a cyclic prefix is appended to this
block of symbols. Assume that the channel is finite impulse response (FIR) with M
number of taps. The value of the channel taps varies according to Jakes model;
) ( j h
i
denotes the value of j
th
tap at time instant i. The output of the channel is
given by the product of the input and the channel tap value at that instant [9].

=

=
1
0
)) ((
) (
M
j
ModN j i i i
x j h y (4-5)
where,
ModN j i
x
)) ((
, signifies the circular structure of the input buffer.







32
32







Figure 4.3: Discrete time model of OFDM system.

Since the duration of the channel is assumed to be M time instants, the
length of the cyclic prefix should be M-1. Hence, the length of the OFDM block is
(N+M-1). The output of the channel will be of size (N+M-1) and the first M-1
symbols which constitute the cyclic prefix are discarded. The remaining N symbols
can be represented by y(0), y(1), - - - - y(N-1). The output symbols Y
0
, Y
1
, Y
2
, - - - ,
Y
N-1
are obtained by computing the FFT of the received symbols in time domain.
The output in time domain can be represented by the following equation.









I

F

F

T



P

to

S



h
i
(j)



S

to

P




F

F

T

X
0

X
1

X
2

X
N-1

x(0) Y
0

Y
1

Y
2

Y
N-1

x(n) y(n)
y(0)


33
33








[1] (4-6)
The above equation for y can be written in a different form as,

ModN j i
M
j
j i
x i h y
)) ((
1
0
) (

= [9] (4-7)
The equation for the output of the channel can be represented in frequency domain
as [12],
.......... } ) ( { } ) ( { ) (
1 1
+ + =
i i o
x i h f x i h F f Y
.......... ) ( * ) ( ) ( * ) (
2
1
+ + =
fi j
o
e f X f H f X f H



fi j
M
i
i
e f X f H
2
1
0
) ( * ) (

=
(4-8)





1
0 , 1 ,
0 , 1 ,
0 , 1 ,
0 , 1 ,
2 , 1 , 0 , 1 ,
1 , 2 , 1 , 0 ,
1
) 1 (
) 2 (
.
.
.
.
.
.
) 2 (
) 1 (
) 0 (
.
) 1 (

...... ) 1 (

0 0 .. .......... .......... 0
0 ) 2 (

. .......... ) 2 (

0 .. .......... .......... 0
.
.
0 ....... .......... 0 ) (

......... .......... ) (

0
0 ...... .......... .......... 0 ) 1 (

......... ) 1 (

.
.
.
) 1 (

.. .......... ) 1 (

0 0 . .......... .......... ) 1 (

) 1 (

) 0 (

......... ) 0 (

) 0 (

0 ... .......... .......... 0 ) 0 (

) 1 (
) 2 (
.
.
) (
) 1 (
.
.
.
) 1 (
) 0 (

N
N N
n M n
n M n
n M n
n M n
n M n n n
n M n M n n
N
N x
N x
x
x
x
N h N h
N h N h
M h M h
M h M h
h h h h
h h h h
N y
N y
M y
M y
y
y


34
34
For any discrete frequency m, Y(f) can be represented by Y(k) as [1],[9],

ki j
M
i
i
e k X k H k Y
2
1
0
) ( * ) ( ) (

=
i l k j
M
i
N
l
i
e l k X l H
) ( 2
1
0
1
0
) ( ) (

=
=



} ) ( ){ (
) ( 2
1
0
1
0
i l k
N
l
M
i
i
e l H l k X

=

=

(4-9)

The term in the braces can be written as H
k,l
, which is a two-fold Fourier transform
of the channel taps. The first index is along time axis and the second one along
channel tap axis. Therefore, we can write
k
Y as [9]

) (
1
0
,
l k X H Y
N
l
l k k
=

=

) ( ) (
1
1
, 0 ,
l k X H k X H
N
l
l k k
+ =

=

ICI k X H
k
+ = ) (
0 ,
(4-10)
From the above equations, it can be inferred that with a time-varying channel, the k
th

sub-carrier output contains contributions from other sub-carriers as well [17]. Thus,
the time-varying channel introduces ICI in the OFDM output, which increases the
error rate. Hence, to have optimum performance with OFDM, ICI has to be
removed.



35
35
4.5 ICI Mitigation:
For every kind of transmission, the transmitted signal would have to face the
degrading effects of the channel. The techniques used to overcome these effects are
called channel equalization techniques. For example, when a signal is transmitted
through a channel, fading would occur. To overcome the effect of fading, the output
of the channel is sent through the inverse of the channel. Hence, there is a need to
generate a filter whose response is inverse of the channel response. If the channel is
time-invariant, a set of known symbols can be transmitted and based on these
symbols the channel can be estimated.
There are various techniques for channel estimation based on training
symbols which are also called pilots. Once the channel is estimated, then channel
equalization can be applied on the received output of the channel to generate the
original transmitted signal. In a time-varying environment, these training symbols
have to be transmitted at regular intervals to estimate the channel. The frequency of
the transmission of the pilots depends on how fast the channel is varying. For a
continuously varying channel, the pilots are sent in parallel with the data symbols.
The location of the pilot symbols is known to the receiver, and the channel is
estimated at the pilot locations. This channel information at the pilot locations is
interpolated to get the channel estimate at every time instant. This concept is further
discussed in Chapter 5.
36
CHAPTER 5
DIFFERENTIAL SPACE-TIME BLOCK CODING

5.1 Introduction:
The previous chapter discussed the channel estimation being used for
elimination of the ICI. There is another technique which can be used to overcome
the burden of frequent channel estimation and interpolation. For a time-varying
channel with low Doppler, where the channel tap values do not change very
frequently, the channel can be assumed to be constant for the duration of a single
OFDM frame. For such type of channel, there is another technique called
differential encoding, can be used to overcome the effect of ICI on the output. In
this technique, there is no need for channel estimation. Neither the transmitter nor
the receiver has any information about the channel state [4]. Tarokh and Jafarkhani
[11] proposed a technique for encoding and decoding of symbols which does not
require channel estimation. This technique is simple, helps in avoiding error
propagation, and is also applicable for different numbers of transmit antennas.
The STBC technique proposed by Alamouti [3], gives good performance but
requires channel estimation. Channel estimation requires pilot symbols to be


37
37
transmitted, which is a loss of bandwidth. To avoid this loss of bandwidth,
differential encoding can be implemented with the STBC OFDM. The performance
of this scheme is 3dB below the coherent detection space-time block coding (STBC)
scheme.

5.2 TJs Encoder:
Consider a system with two transmit antennas and one receiver antennas.
Assume the modulation scheme to be MPSK [11] (in this work, 4-PSK is
considered). The symbols generated by using this scheme can be represented by the
equation
A = } { ) / 2 exp( ) 2 / 1 ( M k j k = 0, 1, 2..M-1 where M = 2
b
(5-1)
Figure 5.1 gives the block diagram of a particular type of differential
encoder called TJs encoder.

Figure 5.1: Block diagram of differential encoder [18].

In differential encoding, before the actual data bits are sent, an arbitrary
initial signal vector S
0
= (s
1 ,
s
2
), which is not known to the receiver and does not
carry any information, is sent [18]. STBC-OFDM of the differentially encoded
STBC
Encoder
Symbol
Computation
Delay
S
t-1
= (S
2t-1
, S
2t
)
S
t
= (S
2t+1
, S
2t+2
)

S
2t+1
, -S
*
2t+2


S
2t+2
, S
*
2t+1

R
t
= (R
1
t,
R
2
t
)


38
38
symbols is performed, and the resulting symbols s
1
and s
2
are transmitted. These
symbols s
1
and s
2
are transmitted from antenna 1 and antenna 2 at time instant 1 and
-s
1
*
and

s
2
*
are transmitted from antennas 1 and 2 respectively at time instant 2.
If S
t 1
= (s
2t - 1 ,
s
2t
) is a signal vector fed to the STBC encoder at (t-1)
th

instant, the encoder generates two output signal vectors (s
2t - 1 ,
s
2t
) and
(-s
2t
*
,
s
2t
*
- 1
) which form an orthogonal set denoted by:

D( S
t - 1
) = S
2t 1
S
2t

-

S
2t
*

S
2t
*
1
(5-2)

where (s
2t - 1 ,
s
2t
) and (-s
2t
*
,
s
2t
*
- 1
) are to be transmitted from antennas 1 and 2
respectively during two consecutive symbol periods [4] [18].

D( S
t - 1
) is taken as a reference to generate the next STBC encoder input,
S
t
=

(s
2t + 1 ,
s
2t+2
), which is given by the equation [18],

S
t
= R
t
D( S
t - 1
) (5-3)

where R
t
= (R
t
1
, R
t
2
) is differential coefficient vector. Equation (5-3) is the
differential encoding rule for TJs DSTBC scheme.

The differential coefficient vector R
t
is used to carry the message symbols.
The mapping from the actual message bits to the R
t
vector can be explained as


39
39
follows. Assume that at t
th
encoding operation, information block C
t
= (C
t
1

, C
t
2
)
arrives where each contains b bits. C
t
is gray mapped into two MPSK symbols
A A x x c X
t t t t
= ) , ( ) (
2 1
given by [18]. The corresponding differential coefficient
vector R
t
(c
t
) is computed to satisfy the equation,

X
t
(C
t
) = R
t
(C
t
) D(X
0
) (5-4)
where X
0
= ( 1/ 2 , 1/ 2 ). The mapping can also be described by

R
t
(C
t
) = X
t
(C
t
) D
H
(X
0
) (5-5)
where
H
is conjugate transpose [18].

5.3 Differential Decoding:
Consider the the received signals be r
2t 1
, r
2t
, r
2t +1
, r
2t
. Assuming there
is no noise involved, at the receiver [4][11]:

(r
2t 1
r
2t
*
) = (s
2t - 1
s
2t
) (
1
,
2
)

(5-6)
and
(r
2t +1
r
2t+2
*
) = (s
2t + 1
s
2t +2
) (
1
,
2
)

(5-7)

where (
1
,
2
) =
1

2
*



2
-
1
*



40
40

Using the received symbols r
2t 1
and r
2t +1,
the vectors R
1
and R
2
are computed:

R
1
= r
2t + 1
r
2t -1
*
+

r
2t+2
*
r
2t
(5-8)

R
2
= r
2t + 1
r
2t
*
-

r
2t+2
*
r
2t - 1
(5-9)


R
1
= ( |
1
|
2
+ |
2
|
2
) A(C
t -1
)

and
R
2
= ( |
1
|
2
+ |
2
|
2
) B(C
t -1
)

(5-10)

Thus we can write [4][11],
(R
1 ,
R
2
) = ( |
1
|
2
+ |
2
|
2
) (A(C
t -1
) B(C
t -1
)) (5-11)

The receiver computes the vector closest to (R
1 ,
R
2
). Once the closest vector is
computed, inverse mapping is used to compute (A(C
t -1
) B(C
t -1
)) and the transmitted
bits are recovered [4].
5.3.1 Performance:
The performance of this scheme proposed by Tarokh and Jafarkhani in [11] is
3dB worse than the transmit diversity scheme of Alamouti [3] (which employs
coherent detection). In the equations (5-10) and (5-11), the noise term is ignored,
which if not ignored would have doubled the noise power compared to the coherent
detection scheme. This would justify the 3dB penalty in the differential encoding
scheme.




41
41
5.4 Differential Space-Time OFDM:
Space-time coding techniques proposed by Tarokh and Jafarkhani in [11]
and the differential encoding schemes discussed in this chapter improve spectral
efficiency in wireless communication systems based on perfect channel estimation.
With channels with high Doppler, or when the number of channel parameters is
large, it may be difficult or cost-ineffective to estimate channel state information
(CSI) [4].
The cost of channel estimation increases with the increase in the number of
channel parameters for multipath transmissions. An alternative solution which also
results in improved system performance would be to introduce differential detection
of multiple symbols for STBC combined with OFDM [4].

5.4.1 Differential Detection Applied to ST-OFDM:
Figure 5.3 shows the differential space-time OFDM transmission scheme. In
this scheme, the raw bits are transformed into symbols based on some modulation
scheme like M-PSK or QAM. These symbols are differentially encoded based on
the method explained in Section 5.3. The output symbols from differential encoder
are the same as the outputs from the D-encoders in the block diagram [4].
These output symbols from N differential encoders are sent to the
corresponding OFDM block to compute symbols in time domain. The two output
symbols from the L
th
D-encoder are sent on the corresponding L
th
OFDM sub-
carrier of each of the transmit antennas. Cyclic prefix is appended to the OFDM


42
42
frame before transmission to avoid ISI. The resulting OFDM frames are transmitted
from antennas 1 and 2 respectively.
Ant 1
Data
As
Ant 2
Data
Bs


Data

Figure 5.2: Block diagram of DST-OFDM [4].

L-th OFDM of Transmitter 1
- - - - - - - - | - S
2
*
, 2t+1
, S
1 , 2t+1
, - S
2
*
, 2t -1
, S
2 , 2t -1
,|- - - - - - -

L-th OFDM of Transmitter 2
- - - - - - - - | S
1
*
, 2t+1
, S
2 , 2t+1
, S
1
*
, 2t -1
, S
2 , 2t -1
,|- - - - - - -

The signals received at the receiver, are the result of convolution of the OFDM
symbols transmitted with the channel taps. At the receiver the cyclic prefix is first
removed and FFT is computed to transform the time-domain symbols into
D-Encoder 1
D-Encoder 2
D-Encoder N
OFDM

OFDM
CP
CP
Remove
CP
IFFT
Differential
Decoder
S
/
P
S
/
P
Channel
1
Channel
2


43
43
frequency domain. These symbols are now decoded carrier by carrier using the
decoding method discussed in Section 5.4.
44
CHAPTER 6
CHANNEL ESTIMATION USING MODIFIED
LOCAL SPLINES
6.1 Introduction:
As mentioned in Section 4.5, the symbols transmitted through the channel
experience ICI due to multi-path propagation. To overcome the effect of ICI on the
retrieved symbols, channel equalization techniques have to be applied on the
symbols received at the receiver. This requires the estimation of the channel
information for the duration of the symbol. In Chapter 4, the random nature of the
channel tap amplitude was discussed. In this work, we estimate the channel taps for
a ST-OFDM system using a method developed in [9] with the help of modified
polynomial splines. The channel taps are estimated at the center of the block, and
using an algorithm, the channel taps are estimated throughout the time duration of
the OFDM frame. The spline approximation gives a decent estimate of the channel
tap values with an exception of processing time delay [1].

45
6.2 Study of Splines:
Splines are piece-wise polynomials with pieces that are smoothly connected
together [17]. Splines help in interpolation and approximation of functions. Splines
can also be used for digital to analog conversion of systems. Digital splines can be
used to convert a low data rate digital system to a high data rate system. These
splines are constructed from basic building blocks called B-splines [1]. B-splines are
derived from a modified symmetrical unit pulse [19], which can be represented by
the equation,

=
< <
=
otherwise
T
t
T
t
T
t b
, 0
2
| | ,
2
1
2 2
, 1
) (
0
(6-1)
The polynomial B-splines are obtained by performing the ) 1 ( + n - fold convolution
of the B-spline of zero order [1], which can be represented as

) ( ...... .......... )......... ( * ) ( * ) ( ) (
0 0 0 0
t b t b t b t b t b
n
= (6-2)

In the frequency domain, it reflects as the + ) 1 (n times multiplication of the Fourier
transform of B-spline of zero order, which is given by equation,


1
) 2 / (
) 2 / sin(
) (
+

=
n
n
T
T
T B

(6-3)

46
Continuity of the points is ensured while using splines for function approximations
due to the important property of B-splines being differentiable up to order of (n-1)
[1].
There are different types of splines that are used for function approximation.
In [19], a special type of modified local spline is used to estimate the channel. We
discuss in detail the channel estimation using modified local spline in the following
section. This method is extended to estimate the channel parameters for a space-
time OFDM (ST-OFDM) system [1].

6.3 Channel Estimation Using Modified Local Splines:
Consider the block diagram of the space-time OFDM system in Figure 3.1.
The frequency-domain symbols
1
In and
2
In are generated every
s
T seconds, and
hence, the data rate can be denoted as
s
T / 1 . A frame of N symbols is collected and
IFFT is performed on them to obtain the time-domain symbols at both the transmit
antennas. The discrete time-domain symbols can be represented by ) (
1
n x
and ) (
2
n x . A cyclic prefix (CP) of length (M-1) is appended to both the frames of
symbols ) (
1
n x and ) (
2
n x , where M is the length (number of taps) of the channel.
The total length of both the OFDM frames becomes (N+M-1). Let us assume that
the duration of these (N+M-1) symbols as T seconds:

) 1 ( * + = M N T T
s
(6-4)


47
The symbols ) (
1
n x and ) (
2
n x are transmitted through the two time-varying
channels ) (
1
n h and ) (
2
n h simultaneously during the first time slot. The channels
can be considered as digital FIR filters. The channel taps can be represented as
) 1 ( .... )......... 1 ( ), 0 (
1 1 1
M h h h
i i i
and ) 1 ( .... )......... 1 ( ), 0 (
2 2 2
M h h h
i i i
[1].
Since the channels considered are Rayleigh fading Doppler channels, the
channel taps change every
s
T seconds. Hence, the channel coefficients change for
every symbol transmitted. Hence, for an OFDM frame of size (N+M-1), the channel
coefficients change (N+M-1) times. The channel coefficients can be expressed in
the form of a matrix. The size of the channel matrix would be M M N + ) 1 ( . The
rows of the matrix represent the channel taps at a particular time instant within a
frame and the columns represent a particular channel tap. Thus, ) (
1
j h
i
and ) (
2
j h
i

represent the values of tap j at time instant i for channel 1 and channel 2,
respectively.
The output of both the transmit antennas after the filtering operation can be
put in a matrix as follows [1]:
[ ]
) 1 ( 1 1 1 1 1 1
... .......... .......... ) (

=
M i i i i
x x x y

) 1 ( 1
1
1
.
.
.
.
.
) 1 (
) 0 (
M i
i
i
h
h
h
(6-5)


48
[ ]
) 1 ( 2 1 2 2 1 2
... .......... .......... ) (

=
M i i i i
x x x y

) 1 ( 2
2
2
.
.
.
.
.
) 1 (
) 0 (
M i
i
i
h
h
h
(6-6)

y
1
and y
2
are of length (N+M-1). According to the space-time coding explained in
Section 3.3, we obtain the received signal
1
r by adding outputs from both the
antennas, which is also of size (N+M-1) as shown below:


1
r = (y
1
)
1
+ (y
2
)
1
(6-7)

The first (M-1) values are due to the cyclic prefix (CP) and are redundant.
Hence, these (M-1) values are discarded and an FFT is applied on the remaining N
symbols to obtain symbols in frequency domain ) 1 ( ..... )......... 1 ( ), 0 (
1 1 1
N R R R . The
pilot information is extracted from these symbols [1]. We discuss more about pilots
in Section 6.3.1.
During the second time slot, ) (
*
2
n x is transmitted from antenna 1 and ) (
*
1
n x
is transmitted from antenna 2. A frame of N symbols is transmitted after cyclic
prefix (CP) of length (M-1) is appended on them. These (N+M-1) length symbols
are transmitted through the time-varying channels ) (
1
n h and ) (
2
n h , respectively.
The outputs
2 1
) (
i
y and
2 2
) (
i
y from the antennas are generated similar to the first

49
time slot. The final received signal
2
r , at the second time slot is obtained by adding
2 1
) (
i
y and
2 2
) (
i
y as follows [1]:


1
r = (y
1
)
2
+ (y
2
)
2
(6-8)

The first (M-1) symbols are discarded and FFT is performed on the remaining N
symbols to obtain frequency domain symbols ) 1 ( ..... )......... 1 ( ), 0 (
2 2 2
N R R R . The
pilot information is collected to estimate the channel taps [1].

6.3.1 Pilot Arrangement in Space-Time OFDM System:
In the space-time OFDM symbols, the symbols are transmitted
simultaneously from both the antennas, and hence the received signal is the sum of
both the signals. In order to extract information about both the channels of the
different signals, a special configuration is used for the pilots in the OFDM frame.
1
In and
2
In are the two symbol streams from two antennas, respectively. During the
time instants when the pilot symbols are transmitted from antenna 1, we transmit
null symbol or no symbol at transmit antenna 2 at the corresponding subcarriers.
Similarly, we have null symbols at transmit antenna 1, while pilots are transmitted
from the second antenna [10].
The pilot information for both the channels can be obtained separately using
equation (6-9):
(6-9)
) ( 11
) ( 1
) ( 11
^
) (
l
l
l
pilot
R
H =
) ( 12
) ( 1
) ( 12
^
) (
l
l
l
pilot
R
H =

50

where
) ( 11

l
H = pilot estimate for channel 1 at l
th
pilot instant of first transmit antenna,
time 1
) ( 12

l
H = pilot estimate for channel2at l
th
pilot instant of second transmit antenna,
time 2

Represents the pilots at transmit antenna 1
Represents the pilots at transmit antenna 2

The above equations are in the frequency domain, and the channel matrices
) ( 11

l
H and
) ( 12

l
H are of length 1 L and are in frequency domain. An IFFT is
applied on both the matrices to obtain
) ( 12

l
H and
) ( 12

l
H . Mathematically, it can be
represented as follows:


and (6-10)

The matrices have first M significant values. We can observe that the remaining (L-
M) values are zero or almost zero and thus are ignored [1].
The channel estimates thus obtained contains the average value of the
channel coefficients over one frame of time. The initial (M-1) time instants of the
11
) ( pilot
12
) ( pilot
) ( 11
^
H IFFT = ) ( 12
^
H IFFT =
avg h11
^
avg h12
^

51
channels are redundant because they do not contribute to useful output. Hence,
avg h11
^
and avg h12
^
contain the average of the remaining N time instants. Thus, for any
filter tap j, the value avg h11
^
or avg h12
^
contains the average value of the coefficient of
th
j tap over one frame. These values are closest to the median values of N
coefficient values. These values give us an estimate of the value of the
th
j channel
tap at the midpoint of the frames [1]. Thus,

) ( ) ( 11
^
1
2
11
^
j h j h avg M
N
= + and ) ( ) ( 12
^
1
2
12
^
j h j h avg M
N
= + (6-11)

This mid-point estimate is at one time-instant out of (N+M-1) time instants in
each OFDM frame for each tap. The mid-point estimates for consecutive frames are
T seconds away from each other. ) ( ) ( 11 k h j and ) ( ) ( 12 k h j are the mid-point estimates
for the
th
j tap of the channel during the
th
k frame be [1] .

6.3.2 Spline Processing for Channel Estimation:
As explained in the previous sub-sections, channel is estimated for every time
frame, and the midpoint estimates of both the channels are obtained. Hence, some
definite number of samples for the channel estimates of ) (
1
n h and ) (
2
n h are
available. For the retrieval of symbols, the channel information for all the time
instants should be available, hence the channel estimation has to be done between
the midpoint estimates of two adjacent frames. Local splines should be used to find

52
the value of channel taps between the midpoint estimates, since each tap of the
channels is a realization of a random process. Modified local splines perform much
better than the normal local spline. Thus, we use modified local splines for
estimating the channels [1].
The block diagram of modified local splines for L1=L2=1 is given in Figure
6.1. For channel estimation using spline processing, we use B-spline of second
order. Range of the second order B-spline is between -1.5T to +1.5T. A three-tap
FIR filter is obtained by sampling it at T T t , 0 , = , which is called prefilter 1
denoted by ) (
2
n . All the midpoint estimates of the taps of both the channels are
collected and separately pretreated with this filter ) (
2
n to obtain output ) (
1
n c and
) (
2
n c represented in equation (6-12) [1].

=
=
2
0
) ( 11
2 1
) ( ) ( ) (
k
j k n h k n c and

=
=
2
0
) ( 12
2 2
) ( ) ( ) (
k
j k n h k n c (6-12)



Figure 6.1: Depiction of multi-rate processing and implementation of modified local
splines [1]




-T 0 T
) ( ) ( 11 k h j
and

) ( ) ( 12 k h j
@
T / 1

-T T
0
Pre-filter 1 pre-filter 2

post-filter
Up sampling
by (N+M-1)
) ( ) ( 11 k h j
and

) ( ) ( 12
^
i h j
@ 1/T @ 1/T @ (N+M-1)/T

53
) (
1
n c and ) (
2
n c , the outputs of pre-filter 1 are fed to prefilter 2, ) (n g which is an
anti-causal 3-tap filter with taps
1 0 1
, , a a a

. The tap values are

8 / 1 24 / ) 1 (
1 1
= + = =

n a a and 4 / 5 2 1
1 0
= = a a . The filter taps are shifted in
time by one unit to make it causal and the filter taps change to
2 1 0
, , a a a .
) (
1
n d and ) (
2
n d are the outputs of pre-filter 2, with the inputs ) (
1
n c and ) (
2
n c
respectively [1]. Mathematically, they can be represented by equation (6-13):

=
=
2
0
1 1
) ( ) (
k
k
k n c a n d and

=
=
2
0
2 2
) ( ) (
k
k
k n c a n d (6-13)

The outputs of the prefilter 2 are convolved with another second-order B-
spline named as the post-filter represented as ) (
2
t b . ) (
2
t b is sampled at a rate of
(N+M-1)/T to obtain a digital FIR filter ) (
2
n b . The sampling rate of ) (
2
n
and ) (n g is 1/T and also the rate of the signals ) (
1
n c , ) (
2
n c and ) (
1
n d , ) (
2
n d is 1/T.
But the rate of ) (
2
n b is (N+M-1)/T. Hence, multi-rate signal processing should be
used to implement this method. We use a polyphase approach of digital filters to
implement multi-rate signal processing [1].
Polyphase approach is used to find the output of a filter when the data should
be converted from one data rate to another. In our case, ) (
1
n d and ) (
2
n d are at a rate
of 1/T and ) (
2
n b is at rate of (N+M-1)/T. Therefore, in the polyphase approach, the

54
post-filter ) (
2
n b is split into (N+M-1) filters, each of data rate 1/T. The number of
taps of ) (
2
n b is given by the equation [1]:

Number of taps

+
=
1
3
M N
T
T
= ) 1 ( 3 + M N (6-14)

The length of each polyphase filter is 3. The
th
i tap values of
th
polyphase is
represented by equation (6-15):

) ) 1 ( 3 ( ) (
2
+ =

i b i P (6-15)

) (
1
n d and ) (
2
n d are convolved with each of the polyphase filters as shown in
Figure 6.2 to obtain the channel estimates for all (N+M-1) time instants.










55

















Figure 6.2: Polyphase approach to perform multi-rate signal processing [1].

The vectors ) ( ) ( 11
^
i h j and ) ( ) ( 12
^
i h j obtained are of length (N+M-1) and
contain the channel coefficients for the
th
j tap and
th
m frame for all time instants.
The channel estimates obtained by this method are delayed in time by three frames.
) (
1
n d
and
) (
2
n d
0
P
1
P
1 +M N
P
) 0 ( ) ( 11
^
j h
and
) 0 ( ) ( 12
^
j h





P

to

S


C
O
N
V
E
R
S
I
O
N

) ( ) ( 11
^
i h j
and
) ( ) ( 12
^
i h j
) 1 ( ) ( 11
^
j h
and
) 1 ( ) ( 12
^
j h
) 1 ( ) ( 11
^
+ M N h j
and
) 1 ( ) ( 12
^
+ M N h j
) (
1
n d
and
) (
2
n d
) (
2
n b

) ( ) ( 11
^
i h j
and
) ( ) ( 12
^
i h j
Up-sampling
by (N+M-1)

56
This delay is due to the three filters used in the spline processing. The filter taps are
shifted in time, in order to make the system causal, thereby introducing delay of one
frame in each filter [1]. The same procedure is used to obtain the channel taps at the
second time slot. After the channel is estimated for both the time slots, the
transmitted symbols are obtained by using time-domain-based processing. For this,
channel matrices are formed as shown below to obtain the transmitted OFDM
symbols [9].
















1
^
i
h
=

) 1 ( ...... ) 1 ( 0 0 .. .......... .......... 0
0 ) 2 ( ... .......... ) 2 ( 0 .. .......... .......... 0
.
.
0 .. .......... .......... 0 ) ( ......... .......... ) ( 0
0 ....... .......... .......... 0 ) 1 ( ......... ) 1 (
.
.
.
) 1 ( .. .......... ) 1 ( 0 0 . .......... .......... ) 1 ( ) 1 (
) 0 ( ......... ) 0 ( ) 0 ( 0 ... .......... .......... 0 ) 0 (
0 , 1
^
1 , 1
^
0 , 1
^
1 , 1
^
0 , 1
^
1 , 1
^
0 , 1
^
1 , 1
^
2 , 1
^
1 , 1
^
0 , 1
^
1 , 1
^
1 , 1
^
2 , 1
^
1 , 1
^
0 , 1
^
N h N h
N h N h
M h M h
M h M h
h h h h
h h h h
i M i
i M i
i M i
i M i
i M i i i
i M i M i i

57











(6-16)
where, time slot i= 1 or 2.

At the receiver, the input symbol streams
1
In and
2
In can be retrieved based
on the symbols at the receiver and the estimated channel parameters.
The transmitted symbols are given by the equations:

( ) ) ( ) ( ) ( *

(
2 21 1 12 22 21
11
12
1
^
r conj h inv r h inv h h inv h h inv inv x +

+ =
( ) ) ( ) ( ) ( *

(
2 22 1 11 21 22
12
11
2
^
r conj h inv r h inv h h inv h h inv inv x

+ =
(6-17)

) 1 ( ...... ) 1 ( 0 0 .. .......... .......... 0
0 ) 2 ( ... .......... ) 2 ( 0 .. .......... .......... 0
.
.
0 .. .......... .......... 0 ) ( ......... .......... ) ( 0
0 ....... .......... .......... 0 ) 1 ( ......... ) 1 (
.
.
.
) 1 ( .. .......... ) 1 ( 0 0 . .......... .......... ) 1 ( ) 1 (
) 0 ( ......... ) 0 ( ) 0 ( 0 ... .......... .......... 0 ) 0 (
0 , 2
^
1 , 2
^
0 , 2
^
1 , 2
^
0 , 2
^
1 , 2
^
0 , 2
^
1 , 2
^
2 , 2
^
1 , 2
^
0 , 2
^
1 , 2
^
1 , 2
^
2 , 2
^
1 , 2
^
0 , 2
^
N h N h
N h N h
M h M h
M h M h
h h h h
h h h h
i M i
i M i
i M i
i M i
i M i i i
i M i M i i
=
2
^
i
h

58
where

1
r is the received signal at time 1of length (Nx1).

2
r is the received signal at time 2 of length (Nx1).
) ( 11
^
h is the estimated channel 1 matrix of size (NxN) at time 1
) ( 12
^
h is the estimated channel 2 matrix of size (NxN) at time 1
) ( 21
^
h is the estimated channel 1 matrix of size (NxN) at time 2
) ( 22
^
h is the estimated channel 2 matrix of size (NxN) at time 2

An FFT is performed on both 1
^
x and 2
^
x to obtain the frequency-domain
transmitted symbols
1
In and
2
In [1]. This process generates the symbols in the
frequency domain and maximum likelihood detection is applied to these symbols to
retrieve the original PSK symbols transmitted.
In this work, this method of modified local splines for channel estimation
is applied to the differential space-time OFDM, which is discussed in the next
chapter.
59

CHAPTER 7
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL SPACE-TIME OFDM

7.1 Introduction:
As explained in the previous chapters, the symbols transmitted are affected
by the channel and experience inter-carrier interference (ICI). There are multiple
ways to combat ICI from the received symbols. One of them is to use differential
encoding mentioned in Chapter 5. This method does not require the estimation of
channel and is simple to implement. But in some cases, where the channel has high
Doppler, this method has its limitations. Hence for channels with high Doppler,
channel equalization techniques have to be applied to inverse the effect of the
channel on the transmitted symbols.
In [4], ST-OFDM was implemented using differential encoding, where the
channel was assumed to be constant. The input symbols in this work were
differentially encoded 4-PSK symbols. The results of the differentially encoded ST-
OFDM were 3dB less when compared to the corresponding coherent encoded
version. In [1], ICI mitigation in ST-OFDM was done by applying channel
equalization techniques to the received symbols, in which the channel estimation

60
was done using the method of modified local splines. In this method, the input
symbols used were coherently encoded 16-QAM. The method was simulated for
different channel conditions with different Doppler.
In the present work, we propose a new technique by combining both
differential encoding and channel equalization for ICI mitigation.

7.2 Transmitter:
Consider a stream of input data In. These bits are converted into symbols
using 4-PSK modulation (Figure 7.1). Table 2.1 is the truth table which gives the
relation between the input bits and the 4-PSK symbols. The symbols are assumed to
have unit magnitude. This stream of symbols is divided into two data streams: S
1

and S
2
. A set of M such symbols, is considered from each stream and these
symbols are given to an array of M differential encoders. Differential encoding of
the symbols is done according to the equation,

4
3
*
1 2
*
2 1
S
S
B
A
S S
S S
(7-1)
where,
S
1
and S
2
are differentially encoded symbols from previous time instant
A and B are the 4-PSK symbols from stream 1 and stream 2 respectively
S
3
and S
4
are differentially encoded symbols generated


61

Figure 7.1 Block diagram of transmitter in partial differential ST-OFDM.

The outputs of the differential encoders are arranged according to a specific
configuration to form the input frame for the OFDM. Since in this work we apply
channel equalization techniques at the receiver, it is necessary to transmit pilot
symbols for estimation of the channel. As mentioned in Chapter 6, pilots are
inserted between the data symbols. The pilot symbols used are coherently encoded
4-PSK symbols, even while the data is differentially encoded. Sixteen pilot symbols
are used per frame of OFDM symbols. The configuration of the OFDM frame is
considered as given in Table 7.1. According to this configuration, during the time
instant when the pilot symbol is transmitted from one of the antennas, a null symbol
or zero is transmitted from the second antenna. This is to ensure that the symbols do
not have the effect of the other channel on them, since the main goal of inserting the
pilots is to estimate the corresponding channel. Hence, according to the given
Bit 2
Symbol
4-PSK
Binary
Data

S
/
P

S
/
P
D-Encoder
D-Encoder
D-Encoder
Insert Pilots
IFFT
Add CP
Insert Pilots
IFFT
Add CP
Pilots
Pilots

62
configuration, the OFDM frame of length 64 contains 32 data symbols, 16 pilot
symbols, and 16 null symbols. Hence, the number of differential encoders to be used
is M=32.

Table 7.1 Configuration of OFDM Input Frame
Tx 1 Tx 2
Pilot Null Symbol
Null Symbol Pilot
Data Symbol Data Symbol
Data Symbol Data Symbol
Pilot Null Symbol
Null Symbol Pilot
. .
. .
Pilot Null Symbol
Null Symbol Pilot
Data Symbol Data Symbol
Data Symbol Data Symbol


After the input frame X
1
is formed, IFFT is computed to generate 64
symbols in time domain, denoted by x
1
. To overcome the inter-symbol interference
(ISI), a cyclic prefix of length L-1 is appended to this OFDM frame of length N=64.

63
The length of the cyclic prefix is determined by the length of the channel, which is
assumed to consist of 10 taps. Hence, the length of the resultant frame is N+L-1 =
73. Now this frame is transmitted through antenna 1 at time slot 1. Similarly, for the
second symbol stream, input frame X
2
is constructed and IFFT is computed to
generate time-domain symbols x
2
. Cyclic prefix is appended and the OFDM frame
is transmitted simultaneously through antenna 2.
Since the transmission technique under consideration is space-time OFDM,
in the second time slot, -conj(X
2
) is transmitted from the first antenna and conj(X
1
)
is transmitted from antenna 2 simultaneously. These conjugates of the frames are
once again converted into time domain, and cyclic prefix is appended before
transmission. Computation of IFFT is complex and expensive to implement. Due to
this reason, instead of computing the IFFT of the conjugate of the frequency-domain
frames, the time-reversed conjugate of the time-domain frames is transmitted. This
is given by the following equations:

)} 64 ( , ), 2 ( ), 1 ( ), 0 ( { ) ( x x x x X ifft =

)} 1 ( , ), 63 ( ), 64 ( ), 0 ( { ) (
* * * * *
x x x x X ifft = (7-2)

Once the time-domain frames are formed for time slot 2, CP is appended for
both the frames and the resulting frames are transmitted through antenna 1 and
antenna 2 simultaneously.


64
7.3 Receiver:
The transmitted symbols travel through the channel and reach the receiver
(Figure 7.2). At the receiver, once the signal is received, the cyclic prefix is
removed from the received frame, since those symbols are redundant. At time slot 1,
both the frames transmitted from the antennas 1 and 2 are combined at the receiver
to give r
1
. Similarly, at time slot 2, both frames are combined to give r
2
. Let us
assume that the channel associated with antenna 1 and antenna 2 at time slot 1 is
represented by h
11
and h
12
respectively and the channel at time slot 2 is represented
by h
21
and h
22
. In the frequency domain the channel can be represented by H
11
, H
12
,
H
21
, and H
22
. The received signal is a convolution of the OFDM frame and the
channel taps. This can be represented mathematically as a product of channel matrix
and the input vector containing OFDM symbols.


Figure 7.2 Block diagram of receiver in partial differential ST-OFDM.


Remove CP
FFT
Channel
Estimation
Diversity
Decoding
Differential
Decoding
Extrapolate
Generate
h-matrices
Symbol
2 Bit
Binary
Data
Pilots

65
The equations of the symbols received at the receiver can be given by

R
1
= H
11
X
1
+ H
12
X
2

R
2
= -H
21
conj(X
2
) + H
22
conj(X
1
) (7-3)

The corresponding equations in time domain are given by

12 12 1 11 1
x h x h r + =


*
1 22
*
2 21 2
x h x h r + =
(7-4)

where,
*
1
x is the time-reversed conjugate of x
1
and
*
2
x is the time-reversed conjugate
of x
2
.

In the present work, we consider a time-varying Doppler channel with
Rayleigh fading characteristics. Hence, at the receiver, to perform channel
equalization, channel tap information for the duration of the transmitted frame
should be estimated. This channel estimation is done using the method of modified
local splines discussed in Chapter 6. For this, the channel information is extracted
first at the pilot locations for each of the channels. This information is used to

66
interpolate and estimate the channel information for all the time instants of the
OFDM frame duration.
Once this channel information is estimated, the transmitted symbols x
1
and
x
2
can be retrieved by solving the set of equations (7-4). In this equation, h
11
, h
12
, h
21

and h
22
are given by the equation (6-16). But since the above set of equations is not
in two variables, a modified version of the second equation is used to retrieve the
symbols from the received signals. This equation is given by

1 22 2 21
*
2
~ ~
x h x h r + =
(7-5)

where,
21
~
h and
22
~
h are different from
21
h and
22
h .

By using the first part of the equation (7-2) and equation (7-5), we can find
out x
1
and x
2
. The equations used to retrieve the symbols are

( ) ) ( )
~
( )

( *
~
)
~
(

(
2 21 1 12 22 21
11
12
1
^
r conj h inv r h inv h h inv h h inv inv x +

+ =
( ) ) ( )
~
( )

( *
~
)
~
(

(
2 22 1 11 21 22
12
11
2
^
r conj h inv r h inv h h inv h h inv inv x

+ = (7-6)
where,
) ( 11
^
h is the estimated channel 1 matrix of size (NxN) at time 1

67
) ( 12
^
h is the estimated channel 2 matrix of size (NxN) at time 1
) ( 21
^
h is the estimated channel 1 matrix (corresponding to
21
~
h )
of size (NxN) at time 2
) ( 22
^
h is the estimated channel 2 matrix(corresponding to
22
~
h )
of size (NxN) at time 2
where, N = 64 is considered

From the retrieved frames of symbols x
1
and x
2
, the differentially encoded
symbols are extracted based on the configuration specified in Section 7.2. These
symbols are sent to the differential decoder to extract the coherently encoded
symbols. The symbols are retrieved by using the reverse process of equation (7-1):

4
3
*
1 2
*
2 1
S
S
S S
S S
inv
B
A
(7-7)

where A and B represent the estimated 4-PSK symbols.

A represents the symbols from stream 1 and B represents the symbols from
stream 2. From these retrieved symbols, the original 4-PSK symbols are retrieved by
applying the maximum likelihood detection procedure. From these symbols, the
original binary data can be extracted.

68
This method has been simulated for real and complex channel conditions,
and the results are presented in the next chapter.

69

CHAPTER 8
SIMULATION AND RESULTS
8.1 Introduction:
The partial differential space-time OFDM system has been simulated in a
time-varying environment using MATLAB. The results are presented in this
chapter. The system performance is observed for various Doppler conditions of the
channel. Table 8.1 provides the system parameters considered in the simulation.
Section 8.2 provides the simulation results for the Doppler channel used. The use of
pilots for channel estimation and the results of channel estimation using the method
of modified local splines are presented. In Section 8.3, the performance graphs of
the partial differential ST-OFDM are discussed. Comparison of the proposed
technique with differential ST-OFDM and with coherent pilot-assisted ST-OFDM is
also presented. In Section 8.4, the conclusions from the results and the future scope
of this method are discussed.

8.2 Doppler Channel:
Doppler channel with Rayleigh fading is considered in this work. The
channel is modeled using Jakes channel model. The channel is assumed to consist of
10 taps.


70
Table 8.1: System Parameters

Carriers, N 64
FFT size 64
Modulation 4-PSK
Number of pilots 16
Bit-rate 400 Kbps
Carrier Frequency 2 GHz
Channel length 10
Cyclic Prefix(CP) length 10-1=9
OFDM frame length 64+10-1-73


The Jakes model is given by:

H

=

H
1
+ noise (8-1)


where,

is given by:


= J
0
(2 f
d
T
s
) (8-2)



71
where, J
0
(.) is the zeroth-order Bessel function of the first kind, f
d
is the Doppler
frequency, and T
s
is the information symbol duration.

varies with the terminal
velocity. The Doppler frequency is given by:

f
d
= f
c
x (v / c ) (8-3)

where, v is the velocity of mobile terminal, c is the velocity of light and f
c
is the
carrier frequency [4].
C = 3 * 10^8 m/sec.
Carrier frequency f
c
= 2GHz.

4-PSK symbols have been used in this work. The length of each OFDM
frame is 64. Since the channel is assumed to have 10 taps, the length of the cyclic
prefix would be (10-1) = 9. Hence the length of the transmitted block of symbols
would be (64+10-1) = 73. Sixteen pilot symbols are used in each OFDM input
frame of 64 symbols. Channel estimates for all the time instants are obtained using
the method of modified local splines. The obtained estimates by this method are
delayed by 3T. The comparison of the actual and the estimated channel values for a
single tap of h1 and h2 at 6% Doppler are presented in Figures 8.1 and 8.2
respectively.


72

Figure 8.1: Comparison of actual and estimated channel for tap 1 of h1 at 2%
normalized Doppler.


73

Figure 8.2: Comparison of actual and estimated channel for tap 1 of h2 at 2%
normalized Doppler.

8.3 Performance of Partial Differential Space-Time OFDM:
In this section the performance graphs for the proposed scheme are
presented. The results are compared with the differential ST-OFDM and coherent
pilot assisted ST-OFDM. Figure 8.3 gives the comparison of probability of error at
different normalized Doppler values for the three schemes in consideration.




74

Figure 8.3: Comparison of bit error rate of ST-OFDM.

Figures 8.4 and 8.5 present the comparison of residual inter-carrier
interference (ICI) power, and signal to ICI ratio at different Doppler values for the
three schemes in consideration. Residual ICI is computed using the equation [9],

2
.
1
~
Re
.
1

=
=
F N
i
i
i sidual
x x
F N
ICI (8-4)
where N = Number of sub-carriers
F = Number of frames
=
i
x Actual symbol
=
i
x
~
Estimated symbol


75


Figure 8.4: Comparison of residual ICI power.


76

Figure 8.5: Comparison of signal to interference ratio.
Figures 8.6, 8.7 and 8.8 represent the phase rotation of the received symbols
with respect to the original symbols. Since 4-PSK symbols are considered, for a
symbol to have error, the minimum phase rotation required is pi/4. The graphs
clearly indicate that for partial differential ST-OFDM, the number of symbols with
high phase error is less when compared to the differential ST-OFDM and slightly
more when compared to the pilot-assisted coherent ST-OFDM. The graphs are for
2% normalized Doppler.


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Figure 8.6: Phase rotation of symbols for pilot assisted differential ST-OFDM.





78




Figure 8.7: Phase rotation of symbols for differential ST-OFDM.



79

Figure 8.8: Phase rotation of symbols for pilot assisted coherent ST-OFDM.
8.4 Conclusion and Future Scope:
The main aim of this work was to show that the proposed scheme performs
better than the existing technique of differential ST-OFDM, and to compare it with
the conventional, coherently encoded ST-OFDM. It was shown that combining
differential encoding with pilot-assisted ST-OFDM certainly helps in ICI mitigation
compared to the coherent ST-OFDM. Previously developed technique for
coherently encoded symbols has been extended to differentially encoded symbols.


80
Channel estimation results for both the channels have been presented. The
performance comparison has been presented for increasing Doppler frequencies.
From the above graphs, it can be concluded that the partial differential ST-
OFDM performs much better when compared to the differential ST-OFDM without
channel estimation. Particularly, the performance improvement is significant at high
Doppler levels. But the performance of the pilot-assisted partial differential ST-
OFDM is 3dB lower compared to the pilot-assisted coherent ST-OFDM.
The estimated channel matrix, formed to retrieve the differentially encoded
symbols from the retrieved signals, is sparse and very sensitive to matrix inversion.
The method ICI mitigation for OFDM systems using LSQR equalizer, employed in
[20] can be used to address the underlying sparse nature of channel matrix for the
ST-OFDM system as a future study. The performance of the proposed scheme can
also be studied for higher orders of PSK and QAM constellations.

81

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