Manmeet Singh Khurana, Project Report, EEL 6509, UFID#63314786

Performance Evaluation of OFDM System with Rayleigh,

Rician and AWGN Channels
Manmeet Singh Khurana, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida

Abstract Problems such as Inter Carrier Interference (ICI)

and Inter Symbol Interference (ISI) were very common with
modulation schemes used before Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing (OFDM) came like Code Division Multiple Access
(CDMA), Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) and Time
Division Multiple Access (TDMA). We can achieve high spectral
efficiency by using OFDM and also fading environments can be
avoided using it. Modulation in OFDM uses multiple number of
sub-carriers that are orthogonal to each other and thus ISI and
ICI can easily be prevented. So I intend to analyze OFDM System
with modulation schemes like (QPSK and BPSK) over Rayleigh,
Rician and Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) fading
environments. MATLAB will be used to simulate and evaluate the
performance of OFDM System.
Index Terms Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
(OFDM), BPSK, QPSK, Rayleigh Fading, Rician Fading, AWGN
Channel.

I. INTRODUCTION

frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is

a process where digital data is encoded on multiple
carrier frequencies. OFDM nowadays is very popular as it is
used for applications such as digital television and audio
broadcasting, DSL Internet access, wireless networks
wideband digital communication, powerline networks, and 4G
mobile communications etc. The problems with the
modulation schemes used before OFDM include Inter Symbol
Interference (ISI), Inter Carrier Interference (ICI), and Lower
Spectral Efficiency. OFDM is a frequency-division
multiplexing (FDM) scheme used as a digital multi-carrier
modulation method. A large number of closely spaced
orthogonal sub-carrier signals are used to carry data on several
parallel data streams or channels. 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 [3].
RTHOGONAL

OFDM converts single high data rate stream into

corresponding lower data rate and hence increases the symbol
duration, which helps eliminating Inter Symbol Interference
(ISI) and Inter Carrier Interference [1]. In the OFDM system
there is overlap to some extent among different sub-channels

as can be seen in Fig 1 which help to lower the bandwidth

usage. Also ICI is eliminated since these carriers are
orthogonal to each other.

Fig 1. (a) FDM: Multicarrier technique (b) OFDM: Orthogonal

technique.

Another way to understand the same thing is thinking that

OFDM combines both modulation and multiplexing.
Multiplexing in general refers to independent signals which are
produced by different sources. The spectrum is shared among
users having different sources. The independent signals are a
sub-set of one main signal. So we can say that in OFDM, main
signal is split into individual channels, modulated by data and
finally re-multiplexed to create OFDM carrier.
A. OFDM vs FDM
OFDM forms a special case of FDM. FDM contains a single
carrier whereas OFDM have multiple carriers. It can be better
explained by an example of flow of water. Consider two cases
of flow of water, one from a tap and another from shower. The
flow of water from tap could be considered as FDM and the
one from shower can be view as OFDM because the flow of
water from tap is one stream and cannot be sub-divided. But
water flow from shower consists a lot of little streams. This
can be seen from the figure 2.

Manmeet Singh Khurana, Project Report, EEL 6509, UFID#63314786

Fig 2. (a) FDM: one big stream (b) OFDM: lot of small streams

The advantage of one over another is pretty clear. Think of

a case where you could use your thumb to stop the flow of
water from tap (FDM). But you cannot stop the flow from
shower (OFDM) using only a thumb. So we can see that both
respond differently to interference. With same interference
level OFDM is more efficient.

passband bandwidth will become B Nf (Hz). This is more

evident from Fig 2.

The interference concept will be clearer from the following

example. Consider the example of making a shipment via a
truck. There could be two options i.e. hiring a big truck vs
bunch of smaller ones. The amount of load carried in both
cases will be same.

Fig 4. Orthogonality in an OFDM systems

As shown above, the figure explains how the orthogonality

among different subcarriers is achieved. It occurs when at the
peak of each subcarrier spectrum, the contribution from all
other subcarriers is zero. This is what basically makes OFDM
much more efficient.

Fig 3. (a) FDM: all cargo on one truck (FDM) (b) OFDM:
splitting the shipment into more than one.

Here in case of an accident, all the cargo will suffer when a

big truck is hired and only one fourth of cargo will be suffered
in the case where shipment is split into four small trucks. If the
cargo is seen as signal the four small trucks could be
considered as sub-carriers in an OFDM system and they must
be orthogonal for this idea to work.
B. Orthogonality in OFDM
Now coming over to orthogonality which is the most
important concept of OFDM system. OFDM is conceptually a
specialized FDM as mentioned earlier. The additional features
include the fact that all the carrier signals are orthogonal to
each other. In OFDM, the sub-carrier frequencies are selected
in a way that sub-carriers are orthogonal to each other, which
minimizes the cross-talk between the sub-channels and so
inter-carrier guard bands are not required. This helps to
simplify the design of transmitter as well as receiver. Also we
now dont require a separate filter for each sub-channel as in
FDM. [3]
For orthogonality we need the sub-carrier spacing to be f
=k/TU Hertz, wherein TU in seconds is the used symbol
duration (the receiver side window size), and k is a positive
integer, mostly equal to 1. Thus with N sub-carriers the total

C. Mathematical Model
The mathematical definition of OFDM is important and
valuable to consider. This will help us to see how the signal is
generated and how the receiver will operate. This will help us
understand the effects of imperfections in the transmission
channel. OFDM over closely spaced in the frequency domain
transmits a large number of narrowband carriers. In order to
avoid a large number of modulators and filters at the
transmitter and complementary filters and demodulators at the
receiver, it is desirable to be able to use modern digital signal
processing techniques, such as fast Fourier transform (FFT)
[4]. Mathematically, each carrier can be described as a
complex wave

Sc(t) contains real as well as imaginary parts. Real part

corresponds to real signal. Both, amplitude and phase of the
carrier denoted by Ac(t) and fc(t) respectively will vary on a
symbol by symbol basis. Over the symbol duration procedures,
the values of the parameters will be constant. The IFFT & FFT
operations could be performed with the help of easily available
commands in MATLAB.
D. Communication Block Diagram
Now coming over to the block diagram of an OFDM

Manmeet Singh Khurana, Project Report, EEL 6509, UFID#63314786

communication system which is shown by Fig. 5. At the
transmitter, we have input - a stream of bits which are
modulated [2] using schemes like QPSK, QAM etc. It is
followed by Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT), then
converted to analog signal. The process is reversed at the
receivers end.

Fig 5. OFDM Communication Model

The OFDM system can be modeled with the help of

MATLAB. The system parameters can be varied and tested.
Thus performance of OFDM can be measured with different
channel conditions like Rayleigh, Rician fading environments
over noisy channels like Additive White Gaussian Noise
(AWGN). Different criteria could be used to assess the
performance of the OFDM system for example peak power
clipping, channel noise, its tolerance to multipath delay spread,
time synchronization errors etc. The description of different
blocks of OFDM communication model [4] is as follows: Serial to Parallel Conversion: Input data stream from
random data generator is converted into word size which
then can be transmitted for example 1 bit/word for BPSK, 2
bits/word for QPSK and then shifted into a parallel format.
Each carrier then carrier one data word for transmission.
Modulation of Data: Modulation is required to encode the
data. Differential encoding can be used wherein data
transmitted on each carrier is differentially encoded with
previous symbols and then mapped into a phase shift keying
(PSK) format. An extra symbol is added at the start as this
coding technique requires an initial phase reference. The
data on each symbol is then mapped to a phase angle based
on the modulation method. For example for BPSK the phase
angles used are 0 and 180 degrees. Constant amplitude
signal can be achieved via PSK and is thus chosen for its
simplicity. Also on the other hand amplitude variations due
to fading possess many other problems as well.
Inverse

Fourier

Transform:

Corresponding

time

waveform is formed using an inverse Fourier transform once

the required spectrum is obtained. The guard period is then
added to the start of each symbol.
Guard Band: Two sections make up the guard period. First
half of the guard period time contains a zero amplitude
transmission. Cyclic extension of the symbol to be
transmitted makes the other half of the guard period. This is
to allow for symbol timing to be easily recovered by
envelope detection. However it might not be required in any
of the simulations as the timing could be accurately
determined by position of the samples. After the guard has
been added, the symbols are then converted back to a serial
time waveform. This is then the base band signal for the
OFDM transmission.
Channel: A channel model is required to transmit the
signal. Due to various losses including free scale path loss,
additional losses due to water, gases etc. signal to noise
ratio, multipath, and peak power clipping are need to be in
control. The signal to noise ratio is determined by the
amount of white noise (AWGN) in the transmitted signal.
Multipath delay could be the result of the filter. The length
of the filter represents the maximum delay spread, while the
coefficient amplitude represents the reflected signal
magnitude.
Receiver: The receiver performs the reverse operation to the
transmitter. First the guard period is removed. Original
transmitted spectrum is then found using the FFT of each
symbol. The phase angle evaluation is then done for each
transmitted carrier followed by demodulation of the received
phase by converting back to the data word. The data words
are then combined back to the same word size as the original
data.
The relationship between all the carriers must be controlled
carefully to maintain the orthogonality of the carriers if we
want to generate OFDM successfully. To achieve this first we
have to choose required spectrum based on modulation scheme
and input data which will be used to generate OFDM. Data is
assigned to each carrier which will be transmitted. The type of
modulation then used to calculate required amplitude and
phase. The time domain of the signal is generated of the
required spectrum using an Inverse Fourier Transfer. Inverse
Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) is used in most applications.
The reason being that IFFT performs very efficient
transformation and provides a simple way of ensuring the
carrier signals produced are orthogonal.
OFDM provides high level of robustness against multipath
delay spread as a result of the long symbol period being used,
which help minimizes the inter-symbol interference. High level
of multipath robustness is achieved by the addition of a guard
period between transmitted symbols. Time for multipath
signals from the previous symbol die away before the

Manmeet Singh Khurana, Project Report, EEL 6509, UFID#63314786

information from the current symbol is gathered due to the
guard band [9] thereby eliminating Inter Symbol Interference
(ISI). Cyclic extension of the symbol is used as the most
effective guard period because if we use cyclic prefix (CP) as
Guard Interval (GI) the transmitted signal will become
periodic. Inter Carrier Interference (ICI) is avoided using this
only.
E. Parameters of OFDM systems
Following are the parameters of Wi-Fi/IEEE 802.11a which
is a system based on OFDM.
Parameters
Value/Description
Data Rates
6 Mbps to 48 Mbps
Modulation
BPSK, QPSK, 16 QAM and 64 QAM
Coding
Convolution concatenated with Reed
Solomon
FFT Size
64 with 52 sub-carriers uses, 48 for data
and 4 pilots
Subcarrier
20 MHz divided by 64 carriers or
frequency spacing
0.3125 MHz
FFT Period
Also called symbol period, 3.2 s
Guard Duration
One quarter of symbol time, 0.8 s
Symbol Time
4 s

II. DESCRIPTION
This section will describe different type of fading environment
including Rayleigh and Rician fading. Apart from that AWGN
noise channel will be discussed. These fading environments
and noise channel will be used to model OFDM in Evaluation
section.
A. Rayleigh Fading
Rayleigh fading is a model where the transmitted signal is
scattered before it arrives at the receiver by many objects in
the environment. According to central limit theorem the
channel impulse response could be modelled as a Gaussian
process independent of the individual components distribution
if there is ample scattering [5].
Central Limit Theorem can be applied if there are large
number of paths and so each path can be modelled as
circularly symmetric complex Gaussian random variable with
variable being time. This model is then called Rayleigh fading
model [6]. If there is no dominant component to the scatter,
then such a process will have zero mean and phase evenly
distributed between 0 and 2 radians. The envelope of the
channel response will therefore be Rayleigh distributed.
A circularly symmetric complex Gaussian random variable is
of the form,
Z = X + jY
Where imaginary as well as real parts are Independent and
Identically Distributed (IID) Gaussian random variables with

zero mean. For a circularly symmetric complex random

variable,
Variance of a circularly symmetric complex Gaussian
random variable is completely specified byHere magnitude |Z|, which has a Probability Density
Function (PDF) p(z), is called the Rayleigh Random
Variable

B. Rician Fading
It occurs when there is a LOS along with non-LOS path in
between receiver and transmitter such that the received signal
comprises of both the direct and scattered multipath waves..
When one of the paths (say LOS) is much stronger than the
others, then Rician fading occurs. The amplitude gain in such
cases can be characterized by a Rician distribution model.
Without the presence of any line of sight (LOS) path between
the OFDM receiver and transmitter than the Rican Fading is
similar to Rayleigh Fading [7].
Parameters K and can be used to define Rician Fading,
where K is called the Rice Factor and is the ratio of the power
in the direct path to that of other scattered paths. is the total
power from both paths and is used as a scaling factor for
distribution. The received signal amplitude not considering the
power R is then Rice distributed with parameters:

And,

The resulting Probability Density Function (PDF) is then

given by-

Where I0() is the first kind zero order modified Bessel

function. Now if the Rice Factor K is 0 then the Rician Faded
Envelope reduces down to Rayleigh faded Envelope.
C. AWGN Channel
An Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) [8] channel is
responsible for adding White Gaussian noise to the signal
when it passes through the channel. Here values at any pair of
times are identically distributed and statistically independent to
each other [2].
AWGN channel is not related to or affected by either fading
or any other system parameters. It just acts as a noise that is

Manmeet Singh Khurana, Project Report, EEL 6509, UFID#63314786

added to the OFDM modulated signal while it is travelling

through the channel. The following equation mathematically
gives the channel capacity of an AWGN Channel -

Where C is the channel capacity

III. EVALUATION/SIMULATION
This section will include the simulations part. First we will
see the behavior of Rayleigh and Rician fading environment
followed by OFDM simulations for BPSK and QPSK in
Rayleigh fading environment.
A. Rayleigh Behavior

Fig. 7 Multipath model for Rayleigh Channel

B. Rician Behavior

Fig. 8 Baseband IQ packet without Rician fading Channel

Fig. 8 shows the baseband IQ packet without the Rician

fading channel [11] whereas Fig. 9 shows the baseband IQ
packet with Rician fading channel. Also we can see the
Multipath model for Rician Channel in Fig. 10.
If we analyse and compare Rayleigh fading channel model
with Rician fading channel model based on Fig 6, 8 and 9, we
can see that efficiency of the received signal in the presence of
Rayleigh fading environment is better as compared to that of
Rician.

Fig. 6 Baseband IQ packet with and without Rayleigh fading

Channel

Fig 6 shows the behavior of baseband IQ packet with and

without Rayleigh fading channel [10]. The Rayleigh model
used here is a 3-path Rayleigh channel model. The multipath
model is shown below.

Same goes for Multipath model. We get better results in

case of Rayleigh fading channel environment than that of
Rician fading channel environment.

Manmeet Singh Khurana, Project Report, EEL 6509, UFID#63314786

Fig. 9 Baseband IQ packet with Rician fading Channel

Fig. 11 SNR vs BER plot for QPSK Modulation in Rayleigh Channel

Fig. 10 Multipath model for Rician Channel

C. OFDM simulation part 1

Here we will simulate OFDM system having QPSK
modulation. The fading environment used is Rayleigh with
Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) model [13]. The plot
of the simulation shown in Fig. 11 consists of graph between
Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) on x-axis and Bit Error Rate
(BER) on y-axis for Rayleigh fading environment and AWGN
noise.
Two plots can be seen in Fig. 11 for Rayleigh fading
environment which can be used to compare the practical
approach with theoretical one. And from the plots it can be
seen that simulated i.e. practical approach is very much close
to the theoretical approach.
Fig. 12 shows the constellation of the received signal at two
different values of SNR which can be changed in the code
prior to the simulation. As expected the received constellation
is better for a greater SNR value i.e. 27.01.

Fig. 12 Constellation of received signal at two different SNR

values

Manmeet Singh Khurana, Project Report, EEL 6509, UFID#63314786

D. OFDM simulation part 2
In this part we will simulate an OFDM system in Rayleigh
fading environment and Additive White Gaussian Noise
channel [12]. The modulation scheme used is binary phase
shift keying (BPSK). The plot is shown in Fig. 13.

and is one of the reason it is used widely today. It does have a

great potential to be part of future wireless communication
systems like 5G.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to extend my gratitude to Dr. Dapeng Oliver
Wu for providing me with the opportunity to work on this
project and also for his continuous support and guidance.

REFERENCES
[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

Fig. 13 Bit error probability plot for BPSK in Rayleigh Channel

[6]

From the plot we can see that simulated result for this case is
in close proximity to the theoretical approach.

IV. RELATED WORK

OFDM is currently used in applications such as digital
television and audio broadcasting, DSL Internet access,
wireless networks, powerline networks, and 4G mobile
communications. OFDM is one of the strongest pillars on
which 4G or long term evolution (LTE) networks is built.

[7]

[8]

[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]

OFDM has few disadvantages like high peak-to-average

power ratio (PAPR), it is sensitive to phase noise and it is
sensitive to Doppler shift and frequency offset. Solution to
some of these have already been done while for other the work
is still going on.
Also the development of wireless communication systems
has reached a point where a lot of research is happening about
as to what 5G networks will look like and how will they
function. I believe that OFDM will improve a lot and will be
one of the integral parts of 5G networks in near future.

V. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

OFDM has been studied to provide solution to problems
like ISI and ICI. The simulation of the OFDM communication
system was done under different combination of modulations,
channel noise and fading environment using MATLAB codes
[10] [11] [12] [13]. The advantages of OFDM makes it unique

[13]

S. Weinstein and P. Ebert, Data transmission by frequency-division

multiplexing using the discrete Fourier transform, IEEE Transactions
on Communication Technology, vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 628634, October
1971.
Sai Krishna Borra and Suman Krishna Chaparala, Performance
Evaluation of OFDM System with Rayleigh, Rician and AWGN
Channels, International Journal of Emerging Technology and
Advanced Engineering, Volume 3, Issue 3, March 2013.
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequencydivision_multiplexing
Ashok Kamboj, Geeta Kaushik, Study & Simulation of O.F.D.M
System, International Journal of Modern Engineering Research, Vol.2,
Issue.1, pp-235-241, Jan-Feb 2012.
Robertson, P.; Kaiser, S. "The effects of Doppler spreads in OFDM (A)
mobile radio systems", Vehicular Technology Conference, 1999. VTC
1999 - Fall. IEEE VTS.
Bernard Sklar (July 1997). "Rayleigh Fading Channels in Mobile
Digital Communication Systems Part I: Characterization". IEEE
Communications Magazine 35 (7): 90100.
Abdi, A. and Tepedelenlioglu, C. and Kaveh, M. and Giannakis, G.,
"On the estimation of the K parameter for the Rice fading distribution",
IEEE Communications Letters, March 2001, p. 92 -94.
S. Popa, N. Drahgiciu, R. Reiz, Fading Types in Wireless
Communications Systems, J. Elect. and Electron. Eng., vol. 1, pp. 232237, 2008.
Dr. Dapeng Oliver Wu, EEL 6509 Lecture Notes
http://www.rfwireless-world.com/downloads/rayleigh-channel-modelmatlab.rar
http://www.rfwireless-world.com/downloads/rician-channel-modelmatlab.rar
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/submissions/25
693/v/1/download/zip
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/submissions/30
697/v/1/download/zip