See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/3318291

Analysis and design of OFDM/OQAM systems

based on filterbank theory
ARTICLE in IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING JUNE 2002
Impact Factor: 3.2 DOI: 10.1109/78.995073 Source: IEEE Xplore

CITATIONS

DOWNLOADS

VIEWS

326

1,913

409

3 AUTHORS, INCLUDING:
Pierre Siohan

Cyrille Siclet

Orange Labs

University Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1

151 PUBLICATIONS 1,323 CITATIONS

26 PUBLICATIONS 512 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

SEE PROFILE

Available from: Pierre Siohan

Retrieved on: 23 June 2015

1170

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 50, NO. 5, MAY 2002

Analysis and Design of OFDM/OQAM Systems

Based on Filterbank Theory
Pierre Siohan, Senior Member, IEEE, Cyrille Siclet, and Nicolas Lacaille

AbstractA discrete-time analysis of the orthogonal frequency

division multiplex/offset QAM (OFDM/OQAM) multicarrier
modulation technique, leading to a modulated transmultiplexer, is
presented. The conditions of discrete orthogonality are established
with respect to the polyphase components of the OFDM/OQAM
prototype filter, which is assumed to be symmetrical and with arbitrary length. Fast implementation schemes of the OFDM/OQAM
modulator and demodulator are provided, which are based on the
inverse fast Fourier transform. Non-orthogonal prototypes create
intersymbol and interchannel interferences (ISI and ICI) that,
in the case of a distortion-free transmission, are expressed by a
closed-form expression. A large set of design examples is presented
for OFDM/OQAM systems with a number of subcarriers going
from four up to 2048, which also allows a comparison between
different approaches to get well-localized prototypes.
Index TermsFilterbanks, multicarrier modulation, polyphase
representation, pulse shaping, transmultiplexer.

I. INTRODUCTION

HE principle of multicarrier modulation (MCM) consists

of splitting up a wideband signal at a high symbol rate into
several lower rate signals, each one occupying a narrower band.
A generally recognized advantage of MCM is its robustness
against different types of channel distortions, such as multipath propagation and narrowband interference. Orthogonal
frequency division multiplex (OFDM) is certainly, until now,
the most important class of MCM. The OFDM acronym often
recovers two different types of modulation. In the first one, as
proposed, for instance, in [1], each carrier is modulated using
quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). In this scheme,
which is also called OFDM/QAM [2], QAM symbols are
shaped with a rectangular window. In a second category of
OFDM systems, which is also called orthogonally multiplexed
QAM in [3] (O-QAM) or OFDM with offset QAM in [2]
(OFDM/OQAM), the modulation used for each subcarrier is a
staggered offset QAM (OQAM). Both the OFDM/QAM and
OFDM/OQAM modulation schemes theoretically guarantee
orthogonality and a maximum and identical spectral efficiency.
Furthermore, in practice, they can be implemented thanks to
Manuscript received April 27, 2000; revised January 10, 2002. The associate
editor coordinating the review of this paper and approving it for publication was
Prof. Gregori Vazquez.
P. Siohan was with France Tlcom R&D, DMR/DDH, Cesson-Svign
Cedex, France. He is now with IRISA-INRIA, Campus de Beaulieu, Rennes
Cedex, France.
C. Siclet is with the France Tlcom R&D, DMR/DDH, Cesson-Svign
Cedex, France.
N. Lacaille was with France Tlcom R&D, DMR/DDH, Cesson-Svign
Cedex, France. He is now with lUniversit de Technologie de Belfort-Montbliard, Belfort Cedex, France.
Publisher Item Identifier S 1053-587X(02)03151-3.

the discrete Fourier transform (DFT). An important difference

comes from the fact that OFDM/OQAM, unlike OFDM/QAM,
allows the introduction of an efficient pulse shaping, which
makes it less sensitive to the frequency offset due to the transmission channel and to the receiver. Therefore, if OFDM/QAM
constitutes the modulation kernel of the famous so-called coded
OFDM (COFDM) system, OFDM/OQAM is now presented as
being a good candidate to get still higher bit rates over wireless
channels [2].
Based on the earliest works in the field; see, for example,
[3][5], the orthogonality of OFDM/OQAM has been presented
for some time, only using continuous pulses of infinite length,
as, for instance, the well-known raised-cosine function. The importance of getting an orthogonal pulse-shaping satisfying given
criteria has only appeared recently. However, most of the solutions already proposed do not take into account the truncation
and discretization effects of the pulse shape, i.e., a natural consequence of DFT-based implementations. These effects imply a
loss of orthogonality, i.e., an intersymbol interference (ISI) and
an interchannel interference (ICI), which is implementation dependent and arises even for distortion-free channels.
In [6], the authors take into account the truncation effect and
choose to minimize the out-of-band energy of a time-limited
pulse shape. Once again, the discretization step of the resulting
pulse shape is ignored, and this only leads to an approximation
of the discrete orthogonality conditions. In the case of wireless
transmission, due to the time and frequency dispersion created
by this type of channel, it seems, however, more appropriate to
look for well-localized pulse shapes [2], [7]. Independently of
the present work, some authors [8] have recently proposed to
discretize orthogonality conditions given in continuous-time [6]
in order to get discrete orthogonality conditions. The evaluation in [8] is also based on the time-frequency localization criterion. In this paper, our approach is different and more directly
connected to filterbank formalism, as presented, for instance, in
transmultiplexer theory [9]. We start by discretizing the basic
definition equation of OFDM/OQAM, and afterwards, we derive the theoretical properties, the implementation scheme, and
the performances of the system. We represent all signals by their
complex envelope, and we assume, as usual, that the prototype
filter is real-valued and symmetrical. In this way, we are able to
get the following:
a description of OFDM/OQAM systems being equivalent to a modulated transmultiplexer, given in Section II,
leading to efficient implementations based on inverse fast
Fourier transform (IFFT) and presented in Section III;
the discrete orthogonality conditions with respect to the
polyphase components of a causal finite impulse response

1053-587X/02$17.00 2002 IEEE

SIOHAN et al.: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF OFDM/OQAM SYSTEMS

1171

(FIR) prototype filter of arbitrary length, which are derived in Section III;
an analytical expression of the overall distortion due to
the ISI and to the interchannel interference ICI created by
imperfect filterbanks in distortion-free channels, which is
derived in Section IV;
several design examples presenting a large set of orthogonal and nearly orthogonal prototype filters with different
pulse shapes. Design charts, tables, and graphical displays
are provided in Section V, allowing different comparisons
in terms of orthogonality and timefrequency localization.
denote the set of integer and real numNotations:
correspond to the space of
bers, respectively.
square-summable continuous and discrete-time functions,
respectively. Vectors and matrices are denoted with bold italic
letters, for instance, . Superscript stands for transposition.
with lower case letters, for inWe denote discrete filters of
, and their -transform with upper case letters, such
stance,
.
and
designate the real part and imaginary
as
part of the complex-valued number , respectively. Similarly,
, we get
and
for a filter
. Superscript denotes complex
. The
conjugation. For a filter
tilde notation denotes paraconjugation:
.
is the
norm of .

pulse shape that can be different from the rectangular window.

At the demodulation side, the symbols are estimated by

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)
In order to get simplified, easier-to-manipulate expressions, the
following notations can be introduced:

(6)

(7)

II. OFDM SYSTEMS USING OFFSET-QAM (OFDM/OQAM)

In this section, we recall the classical continuous-time formulation of OFDM/OQAM, and the discrete-time formulation
is then derived. We also introduce the notations that allow classical multirate relations of the filterbank theory [10] to be recovered in discrete time.

. Then, (1) (5) are rewritten as

We also denote

(8)

A. Continuous-Time Formulation

(9)

The principle of OFDM/OQAM is the transmission of offset

QAM symbols rather than QAM symbols. Then, the orthogonality can be maintained with pulse shapes being different
from the rectangular window [4]. The second specificity of
this scheme is that considering two successive carriers, the
time offset is introduced onto the imaginary part of the QAM
symbols on one of the carriers, whereas it is introduced onto
the real part of the symbols on the other one. The number
of carriers, which is denoted , is also assumed to be even
, and the continuous-time baseband transmitted
signal writes [11]

(1)
is the signaling interval,
the spacing bewhere
and
the real and imagtween two successive carriers,
inary parts, respectively, of the QAM complex-valued symbols
we want to transmit, and
a symmetrical real-valued

Another way to formulate the OFDM/OQAM continuous-time

transmitted signal is to write it as an expansion over some basis
with coefficients
functions
(10)
where

is defined by
(11)

Then, (9) is rewritten as

(12)
Assuming a distortion-free channel, the transmitted symbols are
, if and only if the set of
perfectly recovered, i.e.,
constitutes an orthonormal basis of its span, i.e.,
functions

(13)

1172

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 50, NO. 5, MAY 2002

where

is the Kronecker delta. In particular, we get

. It is worthwhile mentioning that these conditions are
is just defined modulo . Thus, it can be
unchanged if
.
assumed, as, for example, in [2], that

Then, assuming a distortion-free channel,

if
constitutes an orthonormal
and only if the set of functions
basis of its span, i.e.,

B. Discrete-Time Formulation
In the previous section, we considered continuous-time
with its classical real-valued inner product
signals in
. Now, our goal is to obtain a discrete-time signal
with its classical real-valued inner product
,
in
which is defined by

(14)
corresponds to the transmission of
Since the duration
complex-valued symbols, the critical sampling period is defined
by
(15)
is critically sampled, and therefore, the
This means that
spectral efficiency is still maximum. In order to get a causal diswith length equal to
is truncrete-time prototype
and is delayed by
cated to the interval
time units. Moreover, in order to get a prototype filter with norm still approximately equal to
has to be normalized with a multiplicative factor equal to
(16)
and
Thus, based on (8) and using the fact that
, the baseband transmitted discrete-time
that
OFDM/OQAM signal is such that

(20)

C. OFDM/OQAM Transmultiplexer
Equation (17) looks like the expression of a signal obtained at
sub-bands
the output of a synthesis bank of a filterbank with
on each sub-band.
and with an expansion factor equal to
and
denote the input signal and the filter
Indeed, if
on the th subband of this synthesis bank, respectively, then the
is written as [10, p. 117]
output signal
(21)
and

This exactly corresponds to (17) with

(22)
and with
(23)
can be defined by (23) since
has
We can remark that
modulo . Similarly, (19) looks
just to be equal to
like the expression of the output symbols of an analysis bank of
sub-bands and with a decimation factor
a filterbank with
on each sub-band. Thus, if
denotes the input
equal to
and
denote the filter and
signal of this bank and
the output signal on the th subband, respectively, then [10, p.
117]
(24)
, let us rewrite (19) in
Using the fact that
order to illustrate the analogy with (24):

(17)
with
(18)
At the demodulation stage, we get an estimate of the transmitted
real-valued symbol using the real-valued inner product of
and
(25)
Let us decompose
) by
(19)

with two integers

and

and
(26)

Then, in order to get a causal system, (25) is rewritten, making

SIOHAN et al.: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF OFDM/OQAM SYSTEMS

1173

Fig. 1. Transmultiplexer model of OFDM/OQAM modulations.

the reconstruction delay

trary length
works cited previously.

appear as

, which is not considered in the

III. DISCRETE ORTHOGONALITY FOR OFDM/OQAM

(27)

The orthogonality conditions of the modulated transmultiplexer we have just obtained naturally depend on the analysis
, respectively.
and synthesis filterbanks, i.e.,
To get a compact representation of this system, we use the
polyphase approach, which leads us to IFFT-based implementations, to the inputoutput relation and, finally, allows us to
get the mathematical orthogonality conditions.
A. Polyphase Approach

It appears that (27) corresponds to (24) with

and
(28)

Then, by defining
and
, which are the -transand
, respectively, we get the transmultiforms of
plexer scheme depicted in Fig. 1. In this way, we get a transmultiplexer with the following particularities.
The input and output signals are real-valued symbols.
is twice the ex The number of channels
, whereas for claspansion and decimation factors
sical transmultiplexers that are critically decimated [10]
or
or oversampled [12], we necessarily have
, respectively. Exact reconstruction in this case
is nevertheless made possible by the fact that the input
symbols are real-valued; therefore, the present transmultiplexer is equivalent to a critically decimated one with
complex-valued inputs [cf. (15)].
Before expansion by a factor , each real-valued input is
premodulated, whereas at the receiver side, the dual operation occurs after decimation, the real part being extracted
afterwards (cf. Fig. 1).
, with depending on the length of the pro A delay
totype filter, has to be included either at the transmitter
output or at the receiver input.
Compared with previous schemes proposed for orthogonal
MCM systems (see, for instance, [11] and [13]), our implementation scheme involves two integer parameters and that
allow us to handle the case of causal prototype filters with arbi-

The analysis and synthesis filterbanks in Fig. 1 can be

or of its
expressed as functions of the prototype filter
-transform
. Let us decompose
as a function of its
[10]
polyphase components of order
with
(29)
As

is real-valued and symmetrical, using (22) and (28),

and
can be written as

(30)
.Wecanthenrewrite
and
where
asfunctionsof
andderive thepolyphasematricesof thesynthesis(modulator)andanalysis(demodulator)parts,whicharede(type 2) and
(type 1) [10], respectively:
noted

(31)

(32)

1174

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 50, NO. 5, MAY 2002

Fig. 2.

General polyphase representation of the OFDM/OQAM transmultiplexer.

Fig. 3. OFDM/OQAM modulator realized with an IFFT.

Using these notations and the Noble identities [10, p. 119],

the transmultiplexer, as depicted in Fig. 1, is equivalent to its
polyphase representation shown in Fig. 2. Let
with a -transform
. Then,
denotes the
-transform of
. Besides, at the receiver side,
denotes the -transform of
with
.

where is the
antidiagonal matrix. Therefore, we
can directly derive from Fig. 2 the IFFT-based modulator and
demodulator schemes depicted in Figs. 3 and 4, respectively.
Furthermore, Figs. 3 and 4 only represent two basic schemes
that can be further improved, as shown in Appendix A.
C. InputOutput Relation

B. IFFT-Based Implementations
Direct implementation of the systems depicted in Figs. 1 and
2 would be very costly. However, as the modulator and demodulator are related to a modulated transform, we examine, in this
section, how it is possible to get an efficient IFFT-based implementation.
and
as functions of
In order to get the matrices
, we now introduce the matrices
and
,
which are given by
diag
diag

(33)

Using these latter notations and (31) and (32), we get

Let us now introduce a matrix notation where

and
are column vectors with
elements
and
, respecis the -transform of
. Then, it
tively.
can be seen from the scheme depicted in Fig. 2 that we have
the relation
(35)
denotes the transfer function of the section inwhere
cluding the expanders, delay lines, and decimators. Hence
with
(36)
Thus, from (34) and (36), we get
with

(34)

(37)

SIOHAN et al.: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF OFDM/OQAM SYSTEMS

Fig. 4.

1175

OFDM/OQAM demodulator realized with an IFFT.

It can be noted that with this latter expression, we recover

a PR condition that is identical to the ones already obtained at
first for PR cosine-modulated filterbanks [10, p. 379], [14] and
afterwards, with exception of the normalization constant, for the
PR orthogonal MDFT filterbanks [15].1
It is worthwhile mentioning that using the analogy with filterbanks again, each pair of polyphase filters
satisfying (40), for
, can be implemented in
Figs. 3 and 4 by means of a cascaded lattice that structurally ensures a perfect orthogonality [10, pp. 380383], [14].

After some computation reported in Appendix B, it can be

is as in (38), shown at the bottom of the page,
shown that
where

(39)
D. Mathematical Expression of Orthogonality
Perfect orthogonality is provided when there is no ISI, i.e.,
, nor ICI, i.e.,
.
Using filterbank terminology, we may also say that the orthogonal transmultiplexer checks the perfect reconstruction (PR)
, where
property with the delay if and only if
is the
identity matrix. In Appendix C, we derive
an equivalent formulation of this latter equality, which leads
us to the following theorem showing how the conditions of
perfect orthogonality can be directly related to the polyphase
components of the prototype filter.
be a symmetrical real-valued prototype
Theorem 1: Let
filter that is assumed to be causal and time-limited with arbibe its
type
trary length , and let
sub-band OFDM/OQAM
I polyphase components. Then, a
signal, using this prototype, can be transmitted through a distortion-free channel and reconstructed without ISI nor ICI, with
denoting the integer part functhe delay
tion by superior value if and only if

IV. ISI AND ICI FOR A DISTORTION-FREE CHANNEL

In this section, we give, in the case of a distortion-free
channel, explicit expressions of the ISI and ICI terms when
using OFDM/OQAM with a prototype filter that is not perfectly
orthogonal.
, i.e., a
A modulation of each subcarrier using OQAMstates modulation, implies that each real-valued symbol
, coded with bits, is such that
,
where is a fixed amplitude, and is an integer in the range
.
In practice, most often, prototype functions for communication systems are obtained by truncation and discretization
of continuous-time functions that are no longer orthogonal
in discrete time. Then, as (40) is not exactly satisfied, these
nonorthogonal prototypes create ISI, i.e., interference between
symbols inside a given subband, and ICI, i.e., interference
between symbols belonging to different subbands. Using (36)
1In that way, this result is an illustration of the equivalence between these two
aspects of multirate filterbanks.

(40)

..
.

..

..

..

..

..

..
.
(38)

1176

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 50, NO. 5, MAY 2002

and (38), it can be seen that each component

is such that

of

(41)

seen in several publications related to OFDM/OQAM over wireless channels [2], [7], [8], [16]. In this paper, in order to assess
our results on a solid basis, we will use two different localization measures.
Let be a discrete-time signal with finite energy, i.e.,
, and with Fourier transform denoted
. Its second, and in frequency,
order moment in time, which is denoted
, are given by
which is denoted

is the integer part function. Therefore, in the time

where
domain, we get (42), shown at the bottom of the page.
.
The total distortion is then given by
-OQAM, we have
, and thus,
For a
the maximum distortion is

(45)
and
where
shown that

minimize

and

, respectively. It can be

(43)
(46)
Moreover, using (39), we notice that
so that

mod
Moreover, for a real-valued signal,
It can be deduced from [17] that if
define a localization measure denoted such that
(44)

V. DESIGN RESULTS
The quality of a given prototype filter can be evaluated by
means of the resulting ISI and ICI and, generally, by its ability
to satisfy a given criterion. In this section, two situations are considered: a first one where the prototype is obtained by truncation
and discretization of orthogonal functions in continuous-time
and is therefore not perfectly orthogonal and a second one where
we design it in order to exactly satisfy the orthogonality conditions. In both cases, the timefrequency localization is used as
a criterion either for evaluation, as in Section V-B, or for optimization, as in Section V-C.
A. TimeFrequency Localization Measures
It is well known that the wireless channel introduces time and
frequency dispersion. To limit the resulting distortion, a solution proposed in [2] is to use basic signals being localized in
time and frequency with the same timefrequency scale as the
channel itself. In this context, time and frequency dimensions
are equally important. Indeed, timefrequency localization is
now often considered as being the right criterion, as it can be

.
, we can
(47)

is the unreachable optimum. This

where
inequality related to the uncertainty principle can be applied in
particular when is symmetrical with even length. In order to
avoid the restriction mentioned above, we can use, instead of
(45), the definition of second-order moments suggested in [18]
by Doroslovacki

(48)

(49)
(50)
(51)
where and are the gravity centers in time and frequency,
and
, which are secondrespectively, which minimize

(42)

SIOHAN et al.: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF OFDM/OQAM SYSTEMS

1177

order moments in time and frequency, respectively. It can be

shown that
mod

shown at the bottom of the page, where is the roll-off param. Therefore, the continuous-time expression of
eter
SRRC functions is given by

(52)
(56)
(53)

Then, we obtain a second criterion, which is denoted

As for OFDPs, their expression in continuous-time is as follows [6], [20]:

(57)

(54)
The optimum is still

B. Design Examples Based on Continuous-Time Orthogonal

Functions
By truncation and sampling of a prototype function satisfying orthogonality conditions in continuous time, it is possible
to get a discrete prototype being nearly orthogonal, as long as
its length is sufficient. In our simulations, we have compared
three types of functions that, initially, were defined in continuous-time:
1) the well-known square root raised cosine (SRRC) function (cf. for instance, [19]);
2) a family of pulses introduced by Vahlin and Holte in
[20], which we will call optimal finite duration pulses
(OFDPs);
3) a new family of functions called extended Gaussian functions (EGFs); see [21].
In all cases, the truncation limits the pulse length to
and the discretization is carried out with a sampling period
. These three families are interesting from
different points of view. Thus, SRRC functions mainly have
a historical interest, and we only consider them in order to
make a comparison with some well-known functions. The
OFDPs have two important properties. The first is that they are
orthonormal with a finite duration so that they do not need to
be truncated. The second is that they are optimized in order to
get as much of the pulse energy as possible within a frequency
. Finally, an important property of the
band
EGF is the fact that they can also lead to an orthonormal basis
after discretization and that, furthermore, they can be very
close to the achievable optimum bound in timefrequency
localization [2], [22]. Nevertheless, none of these pulses keep
strict orthonormality after both operations of truncation and
discretization.
First, let us give the continuous-time expressions of SRRC
,
functions OFDP and EGF. For a transmission rate equal to
the frequency expression of the SRRC function is as in (55),

is the th prolate spheroidal wave function trunwhere

and where
are
cated to the interval
some real-valued coefficients obtained thanks to an optimization procedure [20].
Last, the EGFs are defined by [21]

(58)
is a real-valued number,
are some
where
is the Gaussian function
real-valued coefficients, and
.
For OFDM/OQAM signals, we suppose that
, and in order to satisfy (13), we also suppose that
is such that
. Given that
, the corresponding filters are multiplied by a
. The discrete-time version
normalization factor equal to
of the SRRC, OFDP, and EGF prototype filters are then obtained
(except for
by truncation to the interval
OFDPs, which no longer need to be truncated) and thanks to
(16).
for the EGF, as
Besides, when setting
in [2] and [21], has to be approximately within the
range to get the best timefrequency localization measures [22].
, the maximum disIn Table I, we have compared, for
[cf. (44)] obtained for a few EGF and SRRC functortion
and
tions. They show that for a given length, except for
, the EGF clearly outperform the best SRRC funcand
tion. Some other simulations carried out with
give the results reported in Figs. 5 and 6. They lead us to the
ratio, the
conclusion that for any value of and a given
EGF can probably provide better results than the SRRC functions. They also show that in both cases, the distortion mainly
ratio.
depends on the
We can deduce from a result previously obtained for cosinemodulated filterbanks [22] that for OFDM/OQAM systems, the

(55)

1178

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 50, NO. 5, MAY 2002

TABLE I
MAXIMUM DISTORTION (D
) FOR SRRC(r ) AND EGF() WITH
DIFFERENT VALUES OF r AND ,AND FOR M = 4

of the
coefficients given in [20]. This table shows that the
distortion of OFDPs slightly increases when the number of
. It also shows that OFDPs
carriers increases beyond
have a smaller distortion than SRRCs for the same
ratio. Moreover, the distortion of OFDPs is also smaller than
and
. Finally, for
the distortion of EGFs for
and
, OFDPs are between the EGFs
and
.
obtained for
C. Design Examples Satisfying the Discrete Orthogonality
Conditions

Fig. 5. D
values for SRRC prototype functions with r = 1 and M = 4
(dashed line), M = 8 (dotted line), and M = 16 (solid line).

Fig. 6. Estimated (lines) and experimental (dots) D

values for EGF
prototype with  = 0:5 (solid line),  = 1 (dashed line), and  = 1:5
(dashdot line) for M = 4 (o); M = 8 (+) and M = 16 ( ).

maximum distortion related to discrete EGF prototypes can be

estimated by [16]
(59)
Our results reported in Fig. 6 give a good illustration of the
accuracy of this estimate for
and
.
Concerning the SRRC function, it can be seen in Fig. 5, with
, that an increase in the ratio
also
a roll-off value
tends to reduce the distortion. However, it is also clear that this
decrease is not as fast nor as regular as with the EGF.
In Table II, we have reported for different values of
the maximum distortion related to discrete-time OFDPs with
and
, which correspond
time duration equal to
and
, respectively.
to
These prototype filters have been computed thanks to the values

From Table I and Figs. 5 and 6 and as illustrated with previous publications (see, for instance, [23]), it also clearly apratios may
pears that to get low distortion values, high
be required. Furthermore, the truncation and sampling operations do not allow direct control of the timefrequency localization. On the other hand, if we choose to directly optimize the
prototype filter to get a maximum timefrequency localization
under the PR constraint (40), we are, at least, ensured to get
neither ISI nor ICI distortion. This optimization can be directly
under
conducted by optimizing the prototype coefficients
the constraint (40), or it can be also carried out using a set of lattice coefficients that corresponds to an efficient implementation
for
of each pair of polyphase components
, [10, pp. 380383], [22]. We have chosen
this second approach, which seems preferable, since it leads
to an unconstrained optimization problem with, furthermore, a
number of variables that are approximately reduced by a factor
of 2.
Let us refer to the optimization method of the lattice coefficriterion as the optimized lattice
cients according to the
(OL), knowing naturally that more generally, the optimization
of the lattice coefficients can be carried out with different types
of criteria, including, as in [20], the maximization of the in-band
energy. We can compare the OL method with the truncation and
discretization method applied to the EGF, OFDP, and SRRC
functions. We have chosen the parameter value, providing, in
for the EGF
general, the best localization measures, i.e.,
for the SRRC functions. As stated previ[21], [22] and
ously, the OL method is the only one that provides a perfect
distortion theoretically equal to 0
orthogonality, i.e., a
but, in practice, due to numerical inaccuracies, around
or
for double precision computers. Furthermore, as our
results reported in Table III show, it appears that for the two
), despite the introduction of the PR
measures used ( and
constraint, we have the following.
Compared with the SRRC function, the OL method always provides better localized prototype filters, even for a
smaller length than for SRRC filters.
Compared with the OFDP, OL filters have a better localization measure for a given length. This is not surprising
since OFDPs are not optimized according to the maximization of the timefrequency localization.
Compared with the EGF, we can see that the OL method
generally provides better results. This is particularly true
, i.e., a pulse length
for the shortest filter lengths (
limited to the duration of one complex-valued symbol).

SIOHAN et al.: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF OFDM/OQAM SYSTEMS

1179

TABLE II
MAXIMUM DISTORTION (D
) FOR THE VAHLIN PULSES

TABLE III
LOCALIZATION MEASURES OBTAINED FOR DISCRETE SRRC(r = 1), DISCRETE EGF( = 1), DISCRETE OFDP, AND FOR THE OL METHOD

Fig. 7. SRRC function with r = 1 for M = 1024 and L = 2048; 

0:0830; D
= 7:145e 02.

Some exceptions occur for the highest values of

for
which it may be possible that our optimization procedure
found local optima only.
Nevertheless, if one wants, for simplicity, to use analytical
expressions, it is also clear that EGF have to be preferred to the
OFDP and the SRRC functions to get well-localized prototype
filters.
As for MCM systems, the number of subcarriers is relatively
high (generally greater than 64 and sometimes up to 8192 [24]),
and as the computational complexity is more often a crucial
factor, the significant improvements we get for prototype filters
are of a particular practical
limited to one signaling interval
interest.
Figs. 710 show time and frequency representations obtained
. The comparison
for OFDM/OQAM systems with
between the SRRC function, the EGF, and the OL
for
method can be made with Figs. 79. In Fig. 10, we can compare
, and
the time and frequency responses of the EGF, with
. It is clear that the OFDP that is
of the OFDP, for
optimized to minimize the out-of-band energy yields a better
result in the frequency domain. On the other hand, the EGF,
which has a better localization in time, finally provides, with

Fig. 8.

 = 1 for
= 2:846e 02.

EGF with

0:1442;D

Fig. 9. OL for
7:002e 15.

= 1024 and

= 1024 and

= 2048; 

= 2048; 

= 0:9049; D

Fig. 10. EGF (dashed line,  = 1; 

= 0:9767;D
= 1:476e 03)
and OFDP (solid line, 
= 0:9328;D
= 5:399e 03) for M = 1024
and L = 8192.

1180

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 50, NO. 5, MAY 2002

, a better timefrequency localization measure

.
than the OFDP with
Concerning the comparison of the impulse responses for the
prototypes of length 2048 (see Figs. 79) with the ones with
length 8192 (Fig. 10), one has to take care of the different time
scales used for the graphical displays.

If

VI. CONCLUSION
We have presented an application of the filterbank theory to
the analysis and design of OFDM/OQAM systems. In a first
step, we have derived the transmultiplexer scheme that can be
associated with OFDM/OQAM systems with symmetrical FIR
prototypes of arbitrary length. Then, using a polyphase decomposition of this prototype, we have proposed fast implementation schemes of the OFDM/OQAM, modulator, and demodulator, which are based on the IFFT, and we have also found the
discrete orthogonality conditions related to the polyphase components of this prototype. Systems that do not exactly satisfy the
discrete orthogonality conditions create ISI and ICI. For such
nonorthogonal systems, and assuming a distortion-free transmission channel, we have derived the analytical expressions of
the ISI and ICI distortions created by imperfect filterbanks. Finally, we have provided a set of design examples that clearly
show that the numerical optimization of a discrete orthogonal
prototype has, at least, two important advantages compared with
truncation and sampling of prototypes being orthogonal in continuous time. Indeed, the direct design of orthogonal prototypes
in discrete time not only avoid ISI and ICI distortions for distortion-free channels, but they also allow us to obtain short prototype filters with very good localization measures. This naturally
tends to significantly reduce the computational cost of implementation.

is even,

, and for

(63)
Moreover, the FFT in (63) is an FFT with real-valued inputs; therefore, it can be carried out thanks to an FFT with
complex-valued inputs, instead of
real-valued inputs [25, p. 82].
is odd,
, and
If
(64)
Equation (64) corresponds to an odd DFT with real-valued
inputs that can also be realized thanks to an FFT with
complex-valued inputs instead of
real-valued inputs
[25, p. 83]. Thus, as in [23], it is possible to use only an
FFT of size .
Similarly, at the demodulation part, the IFFT followed by a rois also equivalent to an FFT
tation by
. Then, we will only
with a permutation of the inputs
keep the real part of the outputs of the FFT so that further reduction of the complexity is also possible.
APPENDIX B
COMPUTATION OF THE TRANSFER MATRIX
In Section III, we have shown that the transfer matrix
can be written
(65)
where
(66)

REDUCTION

OF THE

APPENDIX A
COMPLEXITY OF

THE

IFFT-BASED

IMPLEMENTATIONS
It can be seen from Fig. 3 that for
(60)
Let us define two integers

and

,letusfirstnotethatadelay
placedbetween
Toevaluate
an expansion and a decimation by leads to a transfer function
such that
, with
if is a mulotherwise. Thus, we obtain
tiple of and
, and from (66), we get
. Therefore, the entries of matrix are

by

or

(67)

(61)

In order to only retain the nonzero terms in (67), we now define

Let us also denote

if
if
Then, two different cases appear.

if
otherwise

(62)

(68)

, we also introduce (69), shown at the bottom of

and for
the page. Therefore, the entries in matrix can be rewritten as

if
if

(69)

SIOHAN et al.: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF OFDM/OQAM SYSTEMS

1181

shown in the first equation at the bottom of the page, where

(70)

(71)
Moreover, using (72), shown at the bottom of the page, we obtain from (70)(72) that

and finally

(73)
We can now notice that the argument of in (73) is real if
and
are even; otherwise, it is purely imaginary. Thus,
being given, defining
as the unique value of
, which has
the same evenness as , we obtain (74), shown at the bottom
, the
of the page. Using the decomposition
can be simplified as follows when
expression of
is even:

(75)
Furthermore, it can be checked by inspection from (29) and (69)
for
. Thus,
that
we finally obtain the expression of the transfer matrix given by
(38) and (39).

for

(72)

for

if
is even
otherwise

(74)

1182

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 50, NO. 5, MAY 2002

the necessary and sufficient conditions of orthogonality on the

polyphase components

APPENDIX C
ORTHOGONALITY CONDITIONS
The matrix

given by (65) can also be rewritten as

for
(81)
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Then, the orthogonality conditions can be derived from the

or equivalently, from the following
equality
relation:

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for

valuable comments that have led to improvements in this paper
and Dr. Vahlin, who provided data files allowing to include its
own prototype function, i.e., the OFDP, in our comparisons.
REFERENCES

This latter expression is also equivalent to

for

(76)

Then, using (68) and (69), (76) becomes

(77)
. Moreover,
This relationship is always true for
and
lead to the same relationship; thus

(78)

(79)
(80)
where
ness as

is the unique value of that has the same even. Moreover, as in Appendix B, using the fact that
for
, we obtain

[1] S. B. Weinstein and P. M. Ebert, Data transmission by frequency-division multiplexing using the discrete Fourier transform, IEEE Trans.
Commun. Technol., vol. COM-19, pp. 628634, Oct. 1971.
[2] B. Le Floch, M. Alard, and C. Berrou, Coded orthogonal frequency
division multiplex, Proc. IEEE, vol. 83, pp. 982996, June 1995.
[3] B. Hirosaki, An orthogonally multiplexed QAM system using the discrete Fourier transform, IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 29, pp. 982989,
July 1981.
[4] R. W. Chang, Synthesis of band-limited orthogonal signals for multichannel data transmission, Bell Syst. Tech. J., vol. 45, pp. 17751796,
Dec. 1966.
[5] B. R. Saltzberg, Performance of an efficient parallel data transmission
system, IEEE Trans. Commun. Technol., vol. 15, pp. 805811, Dec.
1967.
[6] A. Vahlin and N. Holte, Optimal finite duration pulses for OFDM,
IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 44, pp. 1014, Jan. 1996.
[7] R. Haas and J.-C. Belfiore, A time-frequency well-localized pulse for
multiple carrier transmission, Wireless Pers. Commun., vol. 5, pp. 118,
1997.
[8] H. Blcskei, P. Duhamel, and R. Hleiss, Design of pulse shaping
OFDM/OQAM systems for high data-rate transmission over wireless
channels, in IEEE Int. Conf. Commun., Vancouver, BC, Canada, June
1999.
[9] A. N. Akansu, P. Duhamel, X. Lin, and M. de Courville, Orthogonal
transmultiplexers in communication: A review, IEEE Trans. Signal
Processing, vol. 46, pp. 979995, Apr. 1998.
[10] P. P. Vaidyanathan, Multirate Systems and Filter Banks. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1993.
[11] B. Hirosaki, S. Hasegawa, and A. Sabato, Advanced groupband data
modem using orthogonally multiplexed QAM technique, IEEE Trans.
Commun., vol. COMM-34, pp. 587592, June 1986.
[12] R. Hleiss, P. Duhamel, and M. Charbit, Oversampled OFDM systems,
in IEEE Int. Conf. Digital Signal Process., Greece, July 1997.
[13] N. J. Fliege, Orthogonal multiple carrier data transmission, Eur. Trans.
Telecommun., vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 255264, MayJune 1992.
[14] T. Q. Nguyen and R. D. Koilpillai, The theory and design of arbitrarylength cosine-modulated filter banks and wavelets, satisfying perfect
reconstruction, IEEE Trans. Signal Processing, vol. 44, pp. 473483,
Mar. 1996.
[15] T. Karp and N. J. Fliege, MDFT filter banks with perfect reconstruction, in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Circuits Syst., vol. 1, Seattle, WA, Apr.
1995, pp. 744747.
[16] P. Siohan and N. Lacaille, Analysis of OFDM/OQAM systems based
on the filterbank theory, in IEEE Global Commun. Conf., Brazil, Dec.
1999.
[17] L. C. Calvez and P. Vilb, On the uncertainty principle in discrete signals, IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. II, vol. 39, pp. 394395, June 1992.
[18] M. I. Doroslovacki, Product of second moments in time and frequency
for discrete-time signals and the uncertainty limit, Signal Process., vol.
67, no. 1, pp. 5976, May 1998.
[19] P. R. Chevillat and G. Ungerboeck, Optimum FIR transmitter and receiver filters for data transmission over band-limited channels, IEEE
Trans. Commun., vol. COMM-30, pp. 19091915, Aug. 1982.
[20] A. Vahlin and N. Holte, Optimal finite duration pulses for OFDM, in
Proc. IEEE Global Commun. Conf., San Francisco, CA, Nov. 1994, pp.
258262.
[21] C. Roche and P. Siohan, A family of extended Gaussian functions with
a nearly optimal localization property, in Proc. Int. Workshop MultiCarrier Spread-Spectrum, Germany, Apr. 1997, pp. 179186.

SIOHAN et al.: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF OFDM/OQAM SYSTEMS

1183

[22] P. Siohan and C. Roche, Cosine-modulated filterbanks based on extended gaussian functions, IEEE Trans. Signal Processing, vol. 48, pp.
30523061, Nov. 2000.
[23] G. Cariolaro and F. C. Vagliani, An OFDM scheme with a half complexity, IEEE J. Select. Areas Commun., vol. 13, pp. 15861599, Dec.
1995.
[24] U. Reimers, Digital video broadcasting, IEEE Commun. Mag., pp.
104110, June 1998.
[25] M. Bellanger, Digital Processing of Signals: Theory and Practice. New York: Wiley, 1989.

Cyrille Siclet was born in Champigny-sur-Marne,

France, in September 1976. He received the engineer
degree in telecommunications from the cole
Nationale Suprieure des Tlcommunications de
Bretagne (ENST Bretagne), Bretagne, France, and
the D.E.A. degree from the University of Rennes,
Rennes, France, in 1999. He is pursuing the Ph.D.
degree at the University of Rennes.
Since March 1999, he has been working for France
Tlcom R&D, Rennes.

Pierre Siohan (M94SM99) was born in Camlez,

France, in October 1949. He received the Doctorat
degree from the cole Nationale Suprieure des
Tlcommunications (ENST), Paris, France, in 1989
and the Habilitation degree from the University of
Rennes, Rennes, France, in 1995.
In 1977, he joined the Centre Commun dtudes
de Tldiffusion et Tlcommunications (CCETT),
Rennes, where his activities were first concerned
with the communication theory and its application to
the design of broadcasting systems. Between 1984
and 1997, he was in charge of the Mathematical and Digital Signal Processing
Group. From September 1997 to August 2001, he was an Expert Member with
the Terrestrial Broadcasting and Radio Access Networks Laboratory: one of
the R&D laboratories of France Tlcom. He is currently Director of Research
with the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique
(INRIA), Rennes. His current research interest are in the areas of filterbank
design for communication systems and joint source-channel coding.

Nicolas Lacaille was born in Paris, France, in

1972. He received the engineer degree in electronic
engineering from the cole Suprieure dIngnieurs
en Electrotechnique et Electronique, Paris, France,
in 1995. He received the D.E.A. degree from the
University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in 1998.
He joined the cole Normale Suprieure de
Cachan in 1995. Since 1998 he has been with
Universit Technologique de Belfort Montbliard,
Belfort, France, where he is currently a Lecturer
with the Computer Sciences Department, where
he is mainly involved in computer architecture, signal processing, and
telecommunications.