ANALYSIS OF OFDM MIMO

_______________

A Thesis

Presented to the

Faculty of

San Diego State University

_______________

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Sciences

in

Electrical Engineering

_______________

by

Jing Xiao

Summer 2010
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Copyright 2010

by

Jing Xiao

All Rights Reserved

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DEDICATION

Dedicated to my husband, my son and my parents.

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ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

Analysis of OFDM MIMO)

by
Jing Xiao
Master of Science in Electrical Engineering
San Diego State University, 2010

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a block transmission

technique. In the baseband, complex-valued data symbols modulate a large number of
tightly grouped carrier waveforms. The transmitted OFDM signal multiplexes several low-
rate data streams and each data stream is associated with a given subcarrier. OFDM is
implemented in broadband wireless access systems as a way to overcome wireless channel
impairments and to improve bandwidth efficiency. OFDM is used today in wireless local
area networks (LANs) as specified by the IEEE 802.11a and the ETSI HiperLAN/2
standards. It is also used for wireless digital radio and television transmissions, particularly
in Europe.
Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication refers to wireless
communication systems using an array of antennas (i.e. multiple antennas) at either the
transmitter or the receiver. Multiplexing would cause interference, but MIMO systems use
smart selection and/or combining techniques at the receiving end to transmit more
information and to improve signal quality. MIMO systems provide a significant capacity
gain over conventional single antenna systems, along with more reliable communication.
In this project, we will investigate MIMO techniques for OFDM systems in the context of
WiFi and WiMax. We will conduct an extensive simulation-based study of MIMO-OFDM
systems. We will analyze the performance of various MIMO techniques under different
fading channel conditions. It is known that the complexity of OFDM with MIMO is
overwhelming due to the necessity for multiple Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs) at the
receiver. In order to reduce system complexity, we also propose a novel combining technique
that will exploit MIMO gains with only a single FFT at the receiver.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

ABSTRACT ...............................................................................................................................v
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................... viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................x
CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1
1.1 Introduction of Wireless Communication ..........................................................1
1.2 Overview of OFDM and MIMO ........................................................................2
1.3 Motivation of Research and Contributions of Thesis ........................................4
1.4 Outline of Thesis ................................................................................................4
2 OVERVIEW OF THE WIRELESS COMMUNICATION CHANNEL .......................6
2.1 Multi-path Spread ..............................................................................................7
2.2 Flat and Frequency Selective Fading .................................................................7
2.3 Rayleigh Fading .................................................................................................8
2.4 Doppler Fading ..................................................................................................8
2.5 Slow and Fast Fading .......................................................................................11
3 INTRODUTION OF OFDM MIMO ...........................................................................13
3.1 Overview of OFDM Techniques .....................................................................13
3.2 Overview of MIMO Techniques ......................................................................16
3.3 Introduction of MIMO OFDM.........................................................................18
4 DIVERSITY COMBINING TECHNIQUES ..............................................................20
4.1 Selection Diversity ...........................................................................................20
4.2 Alamouti Scheme .............................................................................................22
4.2.1 Two-transmitter-One-Receiver Alamouti Scheme .................................22
4.2.2 Two-Transmitter-Two-Receiver Alamouti Scheme ...............................24
4.3 Beamforming Technique .................................................................................25
4.4 Maximal-Ratio Receiver Combining (MRRC) ................................................28
5 CHANNEL ESTIMATION .........................................................................................31
5.1 Single Channel Estimation ...............................................................................31
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5.2 Joint Channel Estimation .................................................................................33

6 SINGLE FFT (FAST FOURIER TRANSFORM) RECEIVER COMBINING
SCHEME .....................................................................................................................40
6.1 Single FFT Receiver Combining Scheme without Channel Estimation ..........41
6.1.1 Single FFT Receiver Combining Scheme with Known Channel
Information ......................................................................................................41
6.1.2 Single FFT Receiver Combining Scheme In Unknown Channel
Condition..........................................................................................................46
6.2 Convolutional Coding and Viterbi Decoding ..................................................49
7 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK ..................................................................57
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................59
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LIST OF FIGURES

PAGE

Figure 2.1. Multi-path spread.....................................................................................................7

Figure 2.2. SISO simulations under Rayleigh fading channel, L is the number of tap
in Rayleigh fading channel. ...........................................................................................9
Figure 2.3. Illustration of the Doppler fading effect. ...............................................................10
Figure 2.4. SISO simulation under Rayleigh and Doppler fading channel, fd is
Doppler shift factor. .....................................................................................................11
Figure 3.1. Basic Structure of OFDM transmitter system. ......................................................13
Figure 3.2. Basic structure of OFDM receiver system. ...........................................................14
Figure 3.3. OFDM signal with cyclic prefix. ...........................................................................14
Figure 3.4. Modulated BPSK OFDM signals with 64 subcarriers in frequency domain
and in time domain with cyclic prefix. ........................................................................15
Figure 3.5. With channel distortion demodulated BPSK OFDM signals with 64
subcarriers in frequency domain with cyclic prefix. ....................................................16
Figure 3.6. Equalized BPSK OFDM signal with 64 subcarriers. ............................................17
Figure 3.7. MIMO structure. ....................................................................................................17
Figure 3.8. MIMO OFDM structure. .......................................................................................19
Figure 4.1. The basic structure of transmit selection diversity. ...............................................21
Figure 4.2. Result of selection diversity when the number of the transmit antennas are
1, 2 and 4. .....................................................................................................................22
Figure 4.3. Performance of Alamouti Code Two-Branch Transmit Diversity with One
Receiver. ......................................................................................................................24
Figure 4.4. Performance of Alamouti scheme Two-Branch Transmit Diversity with
Two Receivers, the diversity is equal to One-Branch Transmit Diversity with
four Receivers. 4th order diversity is obtained here. ...................................................26
Figure 4.5. Structure of two transmit antenna and one receive antenna Beamforming
scheme..........................................................................................................................26
Figure 4.6. Performance of Beamforming scheme between 1 transmitter and 1
receiver, 2 transmitters and 1 receiver, 4 transmitters and 1 receiver..........................28
Figure 4.7. Basic structure of Maximal-ratio Receiver Combining.........................................29
Figure 4.8. Performance of Max Ratio Combining when the number of the receiving
antenna are 1,2 and 4. ..................................................................................................30
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Figure 5.1. Basic structure of Single Channel Estimation. ......................................................32

Figure 5.2. Performance about 1 transmitter 1, 2 and 4 receiver selection diversity
scheme and 1 transmitter 1, 2 and 4 receiver selection diversity scheme with
preamble. ......................................................................................................................34
Figure 5.3. Performance of single transmitter and single receiver when the rate
between energy and noise of the preamble is 0dB, 5dB and 10dB..............................35
Figure 5.4. Basic structure of Joint Channel Estimation. ........................................................36
Figure 5.5. Joint channel estimation in two transmit antennas one receive antenna
compare to single channel estimation 1 transmit antenna and 1 receive
antenna. ........................................................................................................................38
Figure 6.1. Two transmitters and one receiver scheme with one FFT. ....................................40
Figure 6.2. Performance about single FFT combining sum abs 1Transmit antenna
1,2,3,4 Receive antenna. ..............................................................................................43
Figure 6.3. Performance about single FFT combining sum square 1Transmit antenna
1,2,4 Receive antenna. .................................................................................................44
Figure 6.4. Performance comparison of single FFT combing sum abs, sum square and
sum square with weight. ..............................................................................................45
Figure 6.5. Performance comparison between sum square single FFT combing with
weight and MRRC. ......................................................................................................47
Figure 6.6. Performance comparison between 1 transmit antenna 1,2,4 receive
antenna single FFT combining Sum square with weight and Selection
diversity........................................................................................................................48
Figure 6.7. Performance Comparison of 1Transmit antenna 1,2,4 Receive antenna
single FFT combining sum square with weight and preamble. ...................................50
Figure 6.8. Convolutional code: k bits input, n bits output and L memory depth. ..................50
Figure 6.9. Performance comparison between single FFT combining sum abs with
coding and without coding. ..........................................................................................51
Figure 6.10. performance comparison between single FFT combining sum square
with coding and without coding. ..................................................................................52
Figure 6.11. Performance comparison between single FFT combining sum square
plus weight with coding and without coding. ..............................................................53
Figure 6.12. Performance comparison between single FFT combining sum square
with weight, preamble plus coding and sum square with weight and preamble..........54
Figure 6.13. Performance comparison between single FFT combining sum square
with weight, preamble plus coding and MRRC with preamble and coding. ...............55
Figure 6.14. Performance comparisons between sum square with weight, preamble
plus coding and selection diversity with preamble and preamble. ..............................56
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My deepest gratitude to Professor Santosh Nagaraj for always being there offering
suggestions and guidance. The thesis would not have been completed without his help. My
special thanks to Professor Sridhar Seshagiri and Professor Samuel K. Kee S. Moon for their
great patience to go through my thesis. Finally, I want to give my heartfelt thanks to my
husband for his support and encouragement, also I want to give my thanks to my parents and
my beloved baby Leo.
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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 INTRODUCTION OF WIRELESS COMMUNICATION

Wireless communications is a rapidly growing segment of the communications
industry, with the potential to provide high-speed high-quality information exchange between
portable devices located anywhere in the world. It has been the topic of study since 1960s,
the tremendous development of wireless communication technology is due to a confluence of
several factors. First, the demand of wireless connectivity is explosively increased. Second,
the dramatic progress of VISL technology has enabled small-area and low-power
implementation of sophisticated signal processing algorism and coding algorism. Third,
second generation wireless communication standards, like CDMA, GSM, TDMA, make it
possible to transmit voice and low volume digital data. Furthermore, third generation of
wireless communications can offer users more advanced service that achieves greater
capacity through improved spectral efficiency [1].
Potential applications enabled by this technology include multimedia Internet-enabled
cell phones, smart homes and appliances, automated highway systems, video
teleconferencing and distance learning, and autonomous sensor networks. However, there are
two significant technical challenges in supporting these applications: first is the phenomenon
of fading: the time variation of the channel due to small-scale effect of multi-path fading, as
well as large-scale effect like pass loss by distance attenuation and shadowing by obstacles.
Second, since wireless transmitter and receiver need communicate over air, there is
significant interference between them. Overall the challenges are mostly because of limited
availability of radio frequency spectrum and a complex time-varying wireless environment
(fading and multipath).
In nowadays, the key goal in wireless communication is to increase data rate and
improve transmission reliability. In other words, because of the increasing demand for higher
data rates, better quality of service, fewer dropped calls, higher network capacity and user
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coverage calls for innovative techniques that improve spectral efficiency and link reliability,
more technologies in wireless communication are introduced, like OFDM and MIMO.

1.2 OVERVIEW OF OFDM AND MIMO

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is a method of digital
modulation in which the data stream is split into N parallel streams of reduced data rate
with each of them transmitted on separate subcarriers. In short, it is a kind of multi-
carrier digital communication method. OFDM has been around for about 40 years and it
was first conceived in the 1960s and 1970s during research into minimizing interference
among channels near each other in frequency [2].OFDM has shown up in such disparate
places as asymmetric DSL (ADSL) broadband and digital audio and video broadcasts.
OFDM is also successfully applied to a wide variety of wireless communication due to
its high data rate transmission capability with high bandwidth efficiency and its robustness
to multi-path delay [3].
OFDM has been proposed as a transmission method to support high-speed
data transmission over wireless links in multipath environments. During the last forty
years, OFDM has developed into a popular scheme for wideband digital communication,
whether wireless or over wires, used in applications such as digital television and
audio broadcasting, wireless networking and broadband internet access [4]. In wireless
environments, transmitted signals follow several propagation paths. When refleted from
surrounding objects these paths reach the receiver with different propagation delays that
causes delay spread, inter-symbol interference (ISI), fading, and random phase distortion.
For example, the delayed copies of the transmitted signal will interfere with subsequent
signals, resulting in ISI. The transmitted symbol rate is therefore limited by the delay
spread of the channel.
OFDM has been used in wireless LAN standards such as American IEEE802.11a and
the European equivalent HIPERLAN/2 and in multimedia wireless services such as
Japanese Multimedia Mobile Access Communications [5].
802.11 is a set of IEEE standards that govern wireless networking transmission
methods. They are commonly used today in their 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g versions to
provide wireless system standards in the home, office and commercial establishments. The
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802.11a standard uses the same core protocol as the original standard, operates at 5 GHz
band, and uses a 52-subcarrier orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) with a
maximum raw data rate of 54 Mbit/s, which yields realistic net achievable throughput in the
mid-20 Mbit/s. Since the 2.4 GHz band is heavily used to the point of being crowded, using
the 5 GHz band gives 802.11a a significant advantage [6].OFDM is also applied in 802.16
and WiMAX technologies. IEEE 802.16 standard is the IEEE Standard for Wireless
Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs), also known as WiMAX and WirelessLAN [7].
Wimax is an acronym that stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. It is
a telecommunications technology that provides wireless data in a variety of ways, from
point-to-point links to full mobile cellular type access [8].
MIMO has been developed for many years for wireless systems. One of the
earliest MIMO to wireless communications applications came in mid 1980 with the
breakthrough developments by Jack Winters and Jack Saltz of Bell Laboratories [9]. They
tried to send data from multiple users on the same frequency/time channel using multiple
antennas both at the transmitter and receiver. Since then, several academics and
engineers have made significant contributions in the field of MIMO. Now MIMO
technology has aroused interest because of its possible applications in digital television,
wireless local area networks, metropolitan area networks and mobile communication.
Comparing to the Single-input-single-output (SISO) system MIMO provides enhanced
system performance under the same transmission conditions. First, MIMO system
greatly increases the channel capacity, which is in proportional to the total number of
transmitter and receiver arrays. Second, MIMO system provides the advantage of spatial
variety: each one transmitting signal is detected by the whole detector array, which not
only improved system robustness and reliability, but also reduces the impact of ISI (inter
symbol interference) and the channel fading since each signal determination is based on N
detected results. In other words, spatial diversity offers N independent replicas of
transmitted signal. Third, the Array gain is also increased, which means SNR gain
achieved by focusing energy in desired direction is increased [10].On the other hand,
MIMO also cost more energy including both the transmission energy and the circuit
energy consumption. Energy-efficiency analysis of MIMO system is important topic in
MIMO research.
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1.3 MOTIVATION OF RESEARCH AND CONTRIBUTIONS OF

THESIS
In order to manage the bandwidth and power more efficiently, multiple antennas may
be used at either the transmitter or the receiver. Multiple antennas offer diversity to the
communication and improve transmission reliability over a fading channel using. Some
commonly used techniques with multiple antennas are:
Maximal-ratio combining (MRC). In MRC, signals from each antenna for each
subcarrier are individually weighted to provide maximum SNR at the subcarrier.
Coherent channel state estimation (CSI) is necessary to get the weights for combining
the received signals.
Beamforming techniques. If the channel state information is available at the
transmitter, by using Beamforming the capacity can be further increased and the
decoding complexity can be reduced by the proper design of precoder and power/rate
allocation. Beamforming has been proposed in the ongoing IEEE 802.11n
standardization.
All of the multiple antenna techniques mentioned above involve multiple FFT/IFFT
implementations when applied to OFDM. When the number of transmit/receive antennas is
large, we need more IFFT circuits to transfer the signals from frequency domain to time
domain at the transmitter side and also more FFT structures to transfer signals from time
domain to frequency domain at the receiver side, which substantially increases the system
power budget and cost. In this thesis, we explore a new class of schemes for achieving
multiple antenna gains in OFDM on fading channels wherein only one IFFT circuit is
necessary at the transmitter and only one FFT circuit is necessary at the receiver. We study
the performance of such 1-FFT schemes using analysis and simulations. We show that 1-FFT
schemes, although inferior to MRC and Beamforming, offer significant benefits while
keeping complexity very low.

1.4 OUTLINE OF THESIS

In the first chapter, we aim to introduce the basic structure of OFDM and MIMO,
including transmitter and receiver structure of OFDM MIMO, concept and application of
MIMO are also shown. The basic idea why and how MIMO and OFDM are combined
together will be explained in the first chapter.
In chapter 2 and chapter 3, channel impairment mechanisms such as multi-path effect
and Doppler fading are explained, communication system schemes are introduced under
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these impairment mechanisms and error probability of the different schemes are analyzed
under the condition that CSI (channel state information) are fully or partially known over
these fading channels.
In chapter 4, if channel state information is unknown, there are two methods used in
this thesis to get channel information. One is single channel estimation, another is joint
channel estimation,, these two estimation methods could be applied to the schemes shown in
chapter 2, then the error probability of analysis will be found and the results will be
compared to previous ones.
In chapter 5, new schemes will be introduced in this chapter. 1FFT schemes will be
applied, and there are different ways to improve these schemes, like adding weight,
convolutional coding and Viterbi decoding, then the comparison between the new scheme
with MRRC and selection diversity are discussed.
Finally, Chapter 6 summarizes the main conclusions and provides suggestions for
further work in this area.
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CHAPTER 2

OVERVIEW OF THE WIRELESS

COMMUNICATION CHANNEL

This chapter summarizes some of the problems encountered during wireless

transmission process. The first part of the chapter will provides an overview of channels
encountered during mobile radio propagation and their effects on signal quality. The latter
part of the chapter will focus on diversity schemes and beam forming schemes under the
channel.
In wireless communications, there are many distortion mechanisms in the
communication channels. First, reflections from objects in the surroundings cause multi-
path effect; the signal received at the receive antenna are composed of many of its own
replicas from different paths, which arrive at a receiving antenna at different time (called
time dispersion), causing multipath fading and inter-symbol interference. Fading due to
multi-path fading spread is called flat fading and frequency selective fading, which will be
explained in detail in the second section of this chapter.
Second, when transmitter and receiver move relative to each other with a
constant velocity, time-varying Doppler effect occurs. Fading due to Doppler spread
include fast fading and slow fading.
Third, the received power attenuation depends strongly on path length the
transmitted signal undergone. When there is large terrain between transmitter and
receiver like hills and buildings, this attenuation is very likely to happen.
Finally, there are system noise which comes from thermal noise in receiver
equipment, atmospheric noise and various kinds of random noise like interference between
wireless carriers, transmitters and systems. These noises are independent from the
transmitting signals and the fading characteristic of the channel. Usually, it is described
as additive white Gaussian noise (AWG).
We will discuss the impairment mechanisms in detail in the following section.
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2.1 MULTI-PATH SPREAD

In conventional wireless communications, one antenna is used at the source, and
another antenna is used at the destination as the receiver. As we discussed, this structure
sometimes gives rise to problems of multipath effects. When an electromagnetic field meets
with obstructions such as hills, canyons, buildings, and utility wires, the wave fronts are
scattered, and thus they take many paths to reach the receiver. Because those multiple
waves arrive at random delays (phases), angles and amplitudes, problems such as fading, cut-
out, and intermittent reception occur [11]. In digital communications systems such as
wireless Internet, it can cause reduction in data speed and increase in the number of errors.
We illustrate the effects in Figure 2.1: the scattered wave from the transmitter to the receiver
causing the multi-path effect, resulting in signal distortion and delay that can not be ignored.

Tx Rx

multi-path fading

Figure 2.1. Multi-path spread.

2.2 FLAT AND FREQUENCY SELECTIVE FADING

There are in general two fading effects, namely, flat fading and frequency selective
fading signals are transmitted to receivers, if all the spectral components of the transmitted
signals are affected by the same amplitude gains and phase shifts, the channel is called flat
fading channel. In this case, the transmitted signal bandwidth is much smaller than the
channels coherent bandwidth. Flat fading channel is encountered in many wireless
environments and causes deep fades. The amplitude distribution of flat fading is either
Raleigh distribution or Ricean distribution.
On the other hand, if the spectral components of the transmitted signals are affected
by different amplitude gains and phase shifts, the fading is said to be frequency selective. In
this case the transmitted bandwidth is larger than the channels coherence bandwidth.
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Frequency selective fading will induce inter-symbol interference, which can be undone by
digital processing. In other words, assuming a single transmitted impulse, whose time
duration Tm is the duration between the first and last received component that possesses the
maximum delay spread, therefore the coherence bandwidth f c is 1/ Tm. As we all know,
symbol time is Ts. A channel is said to frequency selective fading if Tm>Ts and it is said to
flat fading if Tm<Ts. [12].

2.3 RAYLEIGH FADING

The Rayleigh distribution is used to model multipath fading with non-line-of- sight
(NLOS). If there is a line of sight (LOS), Rician fading is more applicable. In this case, the
probability density function (PDF) of fading amplitude of i-th path i is given by

where i= E [i2] and E[]denotes the expectation of its argument [13].

Let us consider BPSK signals in a slow, Rayleigh fading channel with additive white
Gaussian noise. We define the number of channel taps as L, meaning that there are L taps to
represent the fading channel. After simulation with Matlab using simply one transmitter
antenna and one receiver antenna, the results of which are shown in Figure 2.2, we see that
when the tap is 1 in the fading channel, the bit error rate is the best; when the tap is 5, the bit
error rate is the worst, which is simply because more taps mean more fading within the
channel, and thus the worse the performance becomes.

2.4 DOPPLER FADING

Another major concern in wireless communications is the Doppler effect (shift). As
we all know, this effect occurs due to the relative speed between the elements in the
communication system. The Doppler effect is the change in frequency/wavelength of a wave
as perceived by an observer moving relative to the source of the waves. The total Doppler
effect may therefore result from either motion of the source or motion of the observer. The
effect of the Doppler is directly proportional to the magnitude of the relative speed and is
modeled here as a contribution to the carrier frequency.
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Figure 2.2. SISO simulations under Rayleigh fading channel, L is the

number of tap in Rayleigh fading channel.

For waves which do not require a medium, such as light or gravity in special
relativity, only the relative difference in velocity between the observer and the source needs
to be considered [14]. For wireless communication, when electromagnetic wave is traveling
towards or away from the receiver, the carrier frequency will be shifted, causing Doppler
shift. It is noticed that Doppler shift is usually prominent when the transmit antenna is far
from receive antenna.
As we can see from Figure 2.3, the phase difference between two transmission paths
is:

The Doppler shift is:

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Figure 2.3. Illustration of the Doppler fading effect.

Because the detected frequency increases as objects moving toward the observer, the
source's velocity must be subtracted when motion is moving toward the observer. (This is
because the source's velocity is in the denominator.) Conversely, detected frequency
decreases when the source moves away, and so the source's velocity is added when the
motion is away.

If a pure sinusoid is transmitted, a range of frequencies adjacent to this sinusoid

frequency will be received. Doppler shift broadens the spectrum of the received signal by
spreading the basic spectrum in frequency domain. If the signal spectrum is wide enough
compared to this spreading, the effect is not noticeable. Otherwise, distortion will occur. Let
us investigate
2 the BPSK signals in slow, Rayleigh and Doppler fading channel with additive
white Gaussian noise with one transmitter antenna and one receive antenna. The
performance when fd = 0, fd = 0.01, fd = 0.05 are shown in Figure 2.4 respectively. One can
see that when fd is larger, the performance is getting worse because of the effect of Doppler
fading. larger, the performance is getting worse because of the effect of Doppler fading.
Both multi-path fading and Doppler effects can impair the reception of the transmitted
signal. It is also well known that inter symbol interference happens when multiple paths are
received with various delays and co-channel users create distortion to the target user. And
thermal noise is electronic white noise that definitely need be counted in.
Diversity, as stated by Proakis [15] is an effective way of improving error rate
performance in fading channels. MIMO OFDM is introduced as a scheme in wireless
communications to offer diversity, capacity and array gain [16] by using MIMO and also to
 11

Figure 2.4. SISO simulation under Rayleigh and Doppler fading channel,
fd is Doppler shift factor.

avoid inter symbol interference by using OFDM.

2.5 SLOW AND FAST FADING

Fading due to Doppler spread includes both slow fading and fast fading. In wireless
communication, a channel can be time varying and those dynamic channels are characterized
as slow or fast fading channels. Fast fading channel changes significantly during the duration
of a symbol. And when the channel varies rapidly, it distorts the symbols amplitude and
phase erratically over its interval. On the other hand, slow fading occurs when the channel
changes much slower than one symbol duration. This does not imply that the effects of the
channel can be neglected, but it is possible to track the changes in the channel to
appropriately compensate for channel dynamics.
We define coherence time T c of the channel as the period of time over which the
fading process is correlated. T c is closely related to Doppler spread fd as:
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T c 1/ f d
If the symbol time duration T s is smaller than T c, the fading is slow fading; otherwise, the
channel fading is fast fading [17].
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CHAPTER 3

INTRODUTION OF OFDM MIMO

3.1 OVERVIEW OF OFDM TECHNIQUES

In OFDM, a block of data is converted into a parallel form and mapped into
each subcarrier in time domain. By transmitting the symbols in parallel, the interval
between the signals becomes much larger and this effectively eliminates inter symbol
interference in time dispersive channels. IFFT (Inverse fast Fourier transformation) is in
turn used to transfer the signal from time domain to frequency domain. It takes in N
symbols at one time where N is the number of subcarriers in the system. Each of these N
input symbols has a period of T seconds. As we know, the basis functions for an IFFT are
N orthogonal sinusoids. Each input symbol acts like a complex weight for the
corresponding sinusoidal basis function. Since the input symbols are complex, the value of
the symbol determines both the amplitude and phase of the sinusoid for that subcarrier. The
IFFT output is the summation of all the N sinusoids. Thus, the IFFT block provides a
simple way to modulate data onto N orthogonal subcarriers. The block of N output
samples from the IFFT make up a single OFDM symbol [18]. The basic structure of
OFDM transmitter is shown in Figure 3.1.

Figure 3.1. Basic Structure of OFDM transmitter system.

After transmitted through the channel (in wireless communications, channel means
the route through which the message is sent), when the frequency signals reach the
receiver, the receiver has to perform Synchronization (both timing and frequency),
Channel Estimation, Demodulation and Decoding. The data processing at receiver end
 14

reverses that at the transmitter side, that is, at the receiver, an FFT block is firstly used to
transfer the received time-domain signal into frequency-domain. Ideally, the output of the
FFT block should be identical to the transmitted symbols before the IFFT block.
Assuming channel information is known, the symbols will be demodulated and
estimated based on these channel information.
The basic structure of OFDM receiver is shown in Figure 3.2.

Figure 3.2. Basic structure of OFDM receiver system.

When there are more than one transmission path between the transmitter and the
receiver, or received signal is the sum of many versions of the transmitted signal with
varying delay and attenuation, the multi-path effect occur, among which ISI effect is the
most important. To reduce this effect, two methods are generally used in the OFDM
scheme: parallel data transmission and cyclic prefix. Usually the length of the cyclic
prefix is no shorter than the length of the channels impulse response. The basic idea is
to replicate part of the OFDM time-domain waveform from the back to the front to create
a guard period. The duration of the guard period Tg should be longer than the worst-case
delay spread of the target multi-path environment. In Figure 3.3, the structure of cyclic
prefix is illustrated [19].

Figure 3.3. OFDM signal with cyclic prefix.

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We will better understand this concept through the following example, which
shows OFDM signals in frequency domain (BPSK signals such as 1,-1). After cyclic
prefix is applied, the number of subcarriers increase from 64 to 80, in which the last 16
subcarriers as we can see from Figure 3.4 is exactly the same with the first 16 subcarriers.

Figure 3.4. Modulated BPSK OFDM signals with 64 subcarriers in frequency

domain and in time domain with cyclic prefix.

For illustration purpose, let us consider BPSK signals in slow, frequency non-
selective fading channels with additive white Gaussian noise. 64 subcarriers in frequency
domain are set, illustrated in the top curve in Figure 3.4. The signals are then transferred
to time domain and the cyclic prefix is added, the results of which are shown in the bottom
curve in Figure 3.4.
In Figure 3.5, we show the OFDM signals with cyclic prefix in frequency domain
after channel distortion. , As we can see the last 16 subcarriers from Figure 3.5 is exactly the
same with the first 16 subcarriers.
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Figure 3.5. With channel distortion demodulated

BPSK OFDM signals with 64 subcarriers in frequency
domain with cyclic prefix.

After we get the demodulated signals, we need equalize them. Figure 3.6 shows the
equalized OFDM subcarriers in time domain without cyclic prefix.

3.2 OVERVIEW OF MIMO TECHNIQUES

Multiple Input/ Multiple Output (MIMO) is a technology that uses multiple
antennas to transmit and receive signals. The basic MIMO structure is shown in Figure
3.7, where Tn stands for the nth transmitter antenna and Rn resembles the nth receiver
antenna. In some special cases, for example, MISO is a system with multiple inputs and
single output. On the other hand a system with single input and multiple outputs is called
SIMO.
In a MIMO system, data (x1, x2 xN) are transmitted with N transmitting antenna
arrays. The receiver is constructed of M (M>=N) antenna arrays. Let rj(j= 1, 2,, M)
represents the signal received by the jth antenna (see Figure 3.7), then the signals
received at the receiver can be represented as:

r1=h11x1+h12x2++h1NxN
2=h21x1+h22x2++h2NxN

rM=hM1x1+hM2x2++hMNxN
 17

Figure 3.6. Equalized BPSK OFDM signal with 64 subcarriers.

Figure 3.7. MIMO structure.

where hij is a weight coefficient that represents the impact of the jth transmitting signal xj on
the jth receiver signal strength. We define a channel matrix H as:

Therefore, in MIMO system, the transmitted signals {xi } can be recovered by

estimating the channel matrix H and the receiving signal vector R
 18

MIMO system can provide two types of gains: diversity gain and spatial
multiplexing gain. And in past work, it is known that there is a fundamental tradeoff
between these two gains: higher spatial multiplexing gain comes at the price of sacrificing
diversity [20].
Diversity is used in MIMO to combat channel fading. Since in MIMO each pair of
transmitting and receiving antennas provides a signal path from the transmitter to the
receiver and each path carry the same information simultaneously, the signal achieved in the
receive antenna is more reliable and the fading can be effectively decreased. If the path
gains between individual transmitreceive antenna pairs fade independently, in this case
multiple parallel spatial channels are created. By transmitting independent information
streams in parallel through the spatial channels, the data rate can be increased. This effect is
also called spatial multiplexing [21].

So the benefit of diversity is lower error probability and the benefit of multiplexing is
higher rate though the difference between them is that the requirement of diversity is
sending the same information and the requirement of multiplexing is send independent
information. Obviously, the conflicts between the two suggest fundamental tradeoff
between benefits obtained from diversity and multiplexing.

3.3 INTRODUCTION OF MIMO OFDM

MIMO OFDM ( Multiple I n p u t M u l t i p l e Output, Orthogonal Frequency
Division Multiplexing) is a technology that combines MIMO and OFDM together to
transmit data in wireless communications in order to deal with frequency selective
channel effect. The OFDM signal on each subcarrier can overcome narrowband fading,
therefore, OFDM can transform frequency-selective fading channels into parallel flat
ones. Then by combining MIMO and OFDM technology together, MIMO algorithms
can be applied in broadband transmission [22].
A MIMO OFDM system transmits data modulated by OFDM from multiple
antennas simultaneously. At the receiver, after OFDM demodulation, the signal are
recovered by decoding each the sub-channels from all the transmit antennas [23].
MIMO OFDM will allow service providers to deploy a Broadband Wireless Access (BWA)
system that has Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) functionality. Specifically, MIMO-OFDM takes
 19

advantage of the multipath properties of environments using base station antennas that do
not have LOS. By combining both techniques, MIMO-OFDM can offer both robustness and
high throughput. In a multiuser scenario where many users communicate with a central
station (base station or access point), MIMO-OFDM becomes even more appealing because
it provides an additional opportunity to exploit due to many users.
In Figure 3.8, the basic structure of MIMO OFDM is demonstrated. In this figure, the
signals are modulated by OFDM modulator, then they are transmitted by MIMO system,
finally, the signals are recovered by the OFDM demodulator.

Figure 3.8. MIMO OFDM structure.

Therefore, MIMO OFDM achieves spectral efficiency, increased throughput and the
inter-symbol interference (ISI) can thus be prevented.
 20

CHAPTER 4

DIVERSITY COMBINING TECHNIQUES

In this chapter, the usage of diversity combining techniques to improve system

performance will be presented. In nowadays, the most popular transmit diversity techniques
in use are Selection Diversity, Space Time Coding (Alamouti scheme) and Beamforming
techniques. On the other hand the main receive diversity techniques that will be discussed in
this chapter is maximal-ratio combining in which the estimations of different channels are
coherently combined to recover the transmit signals.
In this chapter we will examine these schemes in greater detail and will compare the
error probability through modulations in the case that the channel state information are
known either by receiver or transmitter ( in Beamforming, channel state information need be
known by the transmitter, in other cases, channel state information need be known by the
receiver). We will focus on the performance of the MIMO system. In our simulation binary
phase-shift keying (BPSK) modulation will be used, the impairments of the channel include
Rayleigh fading and Doppler fading. In these modulations, each transmitter antenna carries
64 subcarrier, with cyclic prefix, it becomes 80, after convolving with channel and
demodulation, we will use different combining scheme and compare them. In our
simulation, perfect synchronization in time and frequency are available.

4.1 SELECTION DIVERSITY

In multiple input and single output systems, selection diversity selects the branch
providing the largest magnitude of log-likelihood ratio (LLR). The LLR for BPSK signals in
fading channels is found to be proportional to the product of the fading amplitude and the
matched filter output after phase compensation.
Channel state includes statistics information such as fading amplitudes, phases and
delay. In selection diversity technique, none of these channel information is required.
Selection diversity uses one receiver antenna which greatly reduces the complexity of the
wireless systems. Here, the receiver simply looks at the outputs from each fading channel and
 21

selects the one with the highest signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In this case, the strongest signal
is picked up and other signals that have undergone deep fades are unlikely to be picked by
the receiver, which can avoid the deep fading effect. Therefore, the more the channels are,
the more accurate the recovered would be. There is also no need for any addition of the
fading channel outputs, which further decreases the complexity. Since Selection diversity
does not require any knowledge of the phases, it is usually used in non coherent or
differential coherent modulation schemes. The structure of selection diversity is shown in
Figure 4.1: the signals from the transmitter antenna are sent through multiple channels,
selected by the detector system and finally received by the receive antenna.

Figure 4.1. The basic structure of

transmit selection diversity.

Selection diversity can be viewed as the practical methods to reduce the

implementation complexity of MIMO systems while still taking benefit of the use of multiple
antennas. The performance of the BPSK signals in slow, Rayleigh channel with additive
white Gaussian noise using one transmit antenna, two transmit antennas and four transmit
antennas, respectively, and one receive antenna in all cases are calculated, the results of
which are illustrated, in Figure 4.2. When there four transmit antennas are used, the
performance is the best, the other extreme, that is, when one transmit antenna is used, the
performance is the worst. This agrees with our above-mentioned principle that the more
transmit antennas, the higher the received signal fidelity is.
 22

Figure 4.2. Result of selection diversity when the number of the transmit
antennas are 1, 2 and 4.

4.2 ALAMOUTI SCHEME

Alamouti scheme is an orthogonal transformation scheme that gives the second order
transmission diversity, which is applied to the receiver that can greatly reduce the complexity
of the receiver. In this section, we will firstly investigate the two-transmitter-one-receiver
Alamouti scheme. We then develop the two-transmitters-two-receiver scheme based on the
results of the two-transmitter-one-receiver scheme.

4.2.1 Two-transmitter-One-Receiver Alamouti

Scheme
This scheme uses two transmitting antennas and one receiving antenna and can
be defined by the following three functions:
At the transmitter of the Alamouti scheme, the two signals x1, x2 are transmitted at
 23

the same time from the two transmitting antennas In this case, x1, x2 are baseband complex
symbols carrying the information. The time and transmit sequence are shown as the
following:
Time Antenna1 Antenna2

T X1 x2
T+T -x2* x1*
. Symbols x1 and x2 are sent with the first beam at time t, while -x2*and x1* (* stands
for complex conjugate) are transmitted through the second beam at time t+T, where T is the
symbol duration [24].
The channel model is

h1(t) =h1(t+T)= h1=a1ej1

h2(t) =h2(t+T)= h2=a2ej2

At the receiver of the Alamouti scheme, the signals are respectively received at
times t and t+T, where

r1= h1x1+h2x2+n1

r2= -h1x2*+h2x1*+n2

Here r1, r2 are the received signals and n1, n2 are the complex random variables representing
the noise and interference. The received symbols are then combined and processed by the
decoder. The receivers obtain the signals s1, s2 through the following matrix after computing
the estimates of the complex channel gains, that is,

s1=h1*r1+h2r2*
s2=h2*r1-h1r2*

Figure 4.3 denotes the performance of BPSK signals using Two-TransmitterOne-

Receiver Alamouti scheme in slow, Rayleigh fading channel with additive white Gaussian
noise. As we can see, the result is equivalent with the 1 transmitter 2 receiver MRRC
(Maximum ratio receiver combining) scheme.
 24

Figure 4.3. Performance of Alamouti Code Two-Branch Transmit

Diversity with One Receiver.

4.2.2 Two-Transmitter-Two-Receiver Alamouti

Scheme
When there are two transmitters and two receivers, Alamouti scheme can still solve
the problems. In this case, the transmission sequence will subject to minor change from the
two transmitters and one receiver Alamouti scheme.

The transmitting signals at the transmitting antennas are shown as the following::

Time Antenna1 Antenna2

T X1 x2

t+T -x2* x1*

Where symbols x1 and x2 are sent with the first beam at time t, while -x2*and x1*
(* stands for complex conjugate) are transmitted through the second beam at time t+T,
where T is the symbol duration.
 25

The receiving signals at the receiving antennas are shown in the following format::

Time Antenna1 Antenna2

T R1 r2

t+T R3 r4
There exist four communication channels between the two transmitter antennas and
two receiver antennas, which are defined as h1, h2, h3, h4, respectively. The relationship
between the receiving and transmitting signals can be represented as:

r1=h1x1+h2x2+n1

r2=-h1x2*+h2x1*+n2
r3=h3x1+h4x2+n3
r4=-h3x2*+h4x1*+n3

Where x1, x2 represent the transmitted signals, r1 , r2 , r3, r4 are the received signals and n1
n2 n3 n4 are complex random variables representing the noise and interference. The
receivers then obtain the signals s1, s2 after computing the estimates of the complex channel
gains, that is,

s1=h1*r1+h2r2*+ h3*r3+h4r4
s2=h2*r1-h1r2*+ h4*r3-h3r4*

In this case, the results of this scheme are equivalent to those obtained by the 4-branch
(MRRC) scheme, which is going to be discussed in Section 3.4. Figure 4.4 denotes
performance of BPSK signals using Two Transmitters with Two Receivers Alamouti
scheme in slow, Rayleigh fading channel with additive white Gaussian noise. As we can
see, the result is equivalent to the one obtained with the 1 transmitter 4 receiver MRRC
scheme [25].

4.3 BEAMFORMING TECHNIQUE

In Beamforming transmission scheme, usually the channel state information need to
be known at the transmitter, so we use the known channel information to code the
transmitting signals.. Then at the receiver side, the equalization process is greatly
simplified. The structure of Beamforming is clearly shown in Figure 4.5.
 26

Figure 4.4. Performance of Alamouti scheme Two-Branch Transmit

Diversity with Two Receivers, the diversity is equal to One-Branch
Transmit Diversity with four Receivers. 4th order diversity is obtained
here.

Figure 4.5. Structure of two transmit antenna and one

receive antenna Beamforming scheme.
 27

For example, in a one-transmittertwo-receiver Beamforming scheme, assuming that

the transmitted signal as x, the first channel as h1 and the second channel as h2 where

h1= a1ej1
h2= a2ej2

Therefore the signal transmitted by the first transmitting antenna is xh1* and the signal
transmitted by the second transmitting antenna is, xh2.*
After going through the channels, signals that are received by the receivers could be
represented as:
r1= xh1*h1+n1= a12x+n1

r2= xh2*h2+n2= a22x+n2

Where r1, r2 are the received signals and n1, n2 are complex random variables representing
the noise and interference.
The combining scheme for two-branch Beamforming is:

Then after equalizing the a12+ a22 coefficient, we can get the final signal after decision
making.

The benefits of MIMO Beamforming is that the power gain and array gain get
increased and that the co-channel inter-cell interference are reduced; also the diversity gain
get increased, because Beamforming can combat the fading effects of the channel. With
Per- subcarrier Beamforming reducing spectral nulls, the multipath effect mitigates.
In Figure 4.6 the performance of BPSK signals using One Transmit antenna and One
Receive antenna Beamforming scheme, Two Transmit antenna and One Receive antenna
Beamforming scheme, Four Transmit antenna and One Receive antenna Beamforming
scheme, in slow, Rayleigh fading channel with additive white Gaussian noise are illustrated.
As we can see, the performance of Beamforming scheme is not as good as MRRC scheme.
 28

Figure 4.6. Performance of Beamforming scheme between 1 transmitter and 1

receiver, 2 transmitters and 1 receiver, 4 transmitters and 1 receiver.

4.4 MAXIMAL-RATIO RECEIVER COMBINING (MRRC)

Maximal-ratio combining is a diversity technique over fading channels. While it is

slightly more complex than Selection Diversity, the performance is especially good in the
case of independent fading channels.
MRRC selects all the branches and gets the average square value of each branch to
decrease Rayleigh fading. The basic structure of Maximal-ratio Receiver Combining
scheme is illustrated in Figure 4.7.
Let us first consider a one-transmitter-two-receiver MRRC model. At a given time, a
signal x is sent from the transmitter. The channel between the transmit antenna and the
 29

Figure 4.7. Basic structure of Maximal-ratio Receiver

Combining.

receive antenna one is denoted by h1 and between the transmit antenna and the receive
antenna two is denoted by h2 where

h1= a1ej1

h2= a2ej2

Considering the noise and interference added at the two receivers, the resulting
received signals could be written as:
r1=h1x+n1

r2=h2x+n2

Where r1, r2 are the received signals and n1, n2 are complex random variables representing
the noise and interference.
The receiver combining scheme for a two-branch MRRC is as following:

S=h1*r1+ h2*r2

= h1*(h1x+n1) + h2*(h2x+n2)
= (a12+ a22) x+ h1*n1 +h2*n2
Then after equalizing the a122+ a22 coefficient, we can get the final signal after decision
making.
Figure 4.8 illustrates the performance of BPSK signals using One Transmit antenna
with One Receive antenna MRRC scheme, One Transmit antenna with Two Receive
antenna MRRC scheme, One Transmit antenna with Four Receive antenna MRRC scheme,
 30

Figure 4.8. Performance of Max Ratio Combining when the number of the
receiving antenna are 1,2 and 4.

in slow, Rayleigh fading channel with additive white Gaussian noise.

 31

CHAPTER 5

CHANNEL ESTIMATION

The discussions and investigations in Chapter 4 are based on the fact that the channel
state information is known either by transmitter or receiver, which is not always true in
reality. In this chapter, we will discuss the channel estimation technique when the channel
information is not available. We then study the performance of the communication schemes
discussed in Chapter 3 with channel estimation technique. Channel information detector will
be introduced. Some popular detection algorithms and the modulation result in OFDM
MIMO will also be discussed in this chapter.
A known sequence of bits is generally used in channel estimation. The bit-sequence is
unique for a certain transmitter and is repeated in every transmission burst. Thus, the channel
estimator is able to estimate channel impulse response for each burst separately by exploiting
the known transmitted bits and the corresponding received samples.
Dynamic estimation of channel is necessary before the demodulation of OFDM
signals since the radio channel is frequency selective and time-varying for wideband mobile
communication systems. In this chapter, binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) modulation in a
Rayleigh fading and Doppler fading channel will be applied in Matlab simulations to
illustrate and compare the performance difference of each communication scheme, using the
above- mentioned channel estimation techniques.

5.1 SINGLE CHANNEL ESTIMATION

Consider the selection diversity scheme with single transmit antenna and single
receiver antenna. If channel state information is unknown, a known preamble sequence will
be sent first, the obtained preamble sequence is then demodulated and compared with the
original one to obtain the channel state information. Figure 5.1 shows us this process.
Now consider the one-transmitter-two-receiver-selection diversity model with
unknown channel state. In this case, a preamble sequence p is sent from transmitter to the
both receivers. The channel between the transmitter antenna and the receiver antenna 1 is
 32

Figure 5.1. Basic structure of Single Channel Estimation.

denoted as h1 and between the transmit antenna and the receive antenna 2 is denoted as h2
where

h1= a1ej1

h2= a2ej2

After convolving with the channel, noise and interference are added to the preamble
symbols. The resulting received preamble signals are
p-received1= h1p+n1
p-received2= h2p+n2
Where p-received1, p-received2 are the received preamble signals and n1, n2 are
complex random variables representing the noise and interference.
Since the receiver has already known the preamble sequence p, the channel can be
estimated as following:
estimated-h1= p-received1/ p estimated-h2= p-received1/ p
Then at a given time, a signal x is sent from the transmitter after is channel estimation is
completed. After convolving with the channel, noise and interference are added to the
symbols. The resulting received baseband signals are
r1=h1x+n3
r2=h2x+n4
Where r1, r2 are the received signals and n3, n4 are complex random variables representing the
noise and interference.
 33

Consider the estimated channel state information estimated-h1 and estimated-h2,

The final signals after decision making are

S= estimated-h1 *r1+ estimated-h2*r2
= estimated-h1*(h1x+n1) + estimated-h2*(h2x+n2)

= (a12+ a22)x+ estimated-h1*n1+ estimated-h2*n2

Then after equalizing, we can get the final signal after decision making.
As we can see in the Figure 5.2, we simply simulate the performance of BPSK signals
using One Transmit antenna with One Receive antenna selection diversity scheme, Two
Transmit antenna with Two Receive antenna selection diversity scheme, One Transmit
antenna with Four Receive antenna selection diversity scheme, through slow, Rayleigh
fading channel with additive white Gaussian noise. And also in the same figure, we simulate
the performance of BPSK signals with preamble using One Transmit antenna with One
Receive antenna selection diversity scheme, Two Transmit antenna with Two Receive
antenna selection diversity scheme, One Transmit antenna with Four Receive antenna
selection diversity scheme, in slow, Rayleigh fading channel with additive white Gaussian
noise. Apparently, the performance is much worse when BPSK signals begin having
preambles because the channel statement information is unknown.
In the same condition with one transmit antenna and one receive antenna, we also
simulate the performance when Eb/N0 of the preamble sequences are changed to 0dB, 5 dB,
10dB, which can be seen in the following figure, and here is what we find out: when the
energy noise ratio is higher, the preamble sequence received by the receive antenna are more
accurate and the channel state information is estimated better, therefore the performance is
getting better. The result is clearly illustrated in Figure 5.3.

5.2 JOINT CHANNEL ESTIMATION

In this section, a different channel estimation technique called joint channel
estimation will be discussed. Consider the two-transmitter-one-receiver configuration, two
preamble sequences are needed to estimate the communication channels. Assuming that the
same preamble sequences are sent from the two transmitter antennas, the two channels can
then be estimated at the same time. This channel estimation scheme is called joint channel
estimation. Assuming that 64 symbols in the preamble sequences are sent from the transmit
 34

Figure 5.2. Performance about 1 transmitter 1, 2 and 4 receiver selection

diversity scheme and 1 transmitter 1, 2 and 4 receiver selection diversity
scheme with preamble.
 35

Figure 5.3. Performance of single transmitter and single receiver when the rate
between energy and noise of the preamble is 0dB, 5dB and 10dB.
 36

antennas, namely, p(1), p(2), p(3), p(4), p(5)p(64) , which can be splitted into two parts: odd
part and even part:

Then 0 will be inserted in the rest even and odd part of these two sequences, so
the preamble sequences become
p(1), 0, p(3), 0, p(5)p(63), 0 and 0, p(2), 0, p(4), 0, p(6)0, p(64).

Then these two preamble sequences will be individually transmitted through the channel
and be estimated at the same time to increase the efficiency. The procedure is shown at
Figure 5.4.

Figure 5.4. Basic structure of Joint Channel Estimation.

Let us consider applying the joint channel estimation technique in the Beamforming
scheme.. Here preamble sequence p is separated into two parts: p1 and p2, where p1 is sent
from the first transmitter to the receiver, p2 is sent from the second transmitter to the receiver.
The channel between the transmit antenna one and the receive antenna is denoted as
h1 and between the transmit antenna two and the receive antenna is denoted as h2 where

h1= a1ej1
h2= a2ej2

After convolving with the channel, noise and interference are added to the preamble
symbols. The resulting received preamble signals are
p-received1= h1p1+n1

p-received2= h2p2+n2
 37

Where p-received1, p-received2 are the received preamble signals and n1, n2 are
complex random variables representing the noise and interference.
Since the receiver has already known the preamble sequence p, the channel can be
estimated as following:
estimated-h1=odd- p-received1/odd- p1
estimated-h2= even-p-received2/even- p2
Where odd- p-received1 is the odd part of p-received1, even-p-received1 is the even
part of p-received2, odd- p1 is the odd part of p1, even- p2 is the even part of p. After being
resampled, estimated-h1 and estimated-h2 will turn from 32 to 64, which can be denoted as
resample- h1 ,resample- h2.
Then at a given time, a signal x is sent from the transmitter after is channel estimation
is completed. After convolving with the channel, noise and interference are added to the
symbols. The resulting received baseband signals are
r1=h3x+n3
r2=h4x+n4
Where r1, r2 are the received signals, h3, h4 are channel information and n3, n4 are
complex random variables representing the noise and interference.
Consider the estimated channel state information resample-h1 and ressample-h2,
The final signal after decision making is

= resample-h1 *r1+ resample-h2,*r2

= resample-h1 *(h1x+n1) + ressample-h2,*(h2x+n2)
= (a12+ a22)x+ resample-h1 *n1+ ressample-h2*n2
The extracted preamble sequences are denoted as the following with the. Odd
extracted preambles are on left and even extracted preamble are on right.

In the Figure 5.5, we compared the performance between one transmit antenna one
receive antenna using single channel estimation and two transmit antennas one receive
antenna using joint channel estimation through slow, Rayleigh fading channel with additive
 38

Figure 5.5. Joint channel estimation in two transmit antennas one receive
antenna compare to single channel estimation 1 transmit antenna and 1
receive antenna.

white Gaussian noise.

As we can see from the figure, when Eb/N0 are low, one transmit antenna and one
receive antenna using single channel estimation is better than two transmit antennas one
receive antenna using joint channel estimation; when Eb/N0 are high, two transmit antennas
one receive antenna using joint channel estimation is better. When Eb/N0 are lower, since
little signal information is received and the two branches transmission system has two
transmit antennas, apparently, the signals sent by the two branches transmit antennas are
more accurate, at this time, the bit error rate is lower, therefore, the performance of joint
channel estimation two transmit antennas one receive antenna system is better. And when
Eb/N0 is getting higher, the performance is much more dependent on the channel state
information estimation, since most signal information are clearly received and the channel
information are much better estimated in the single channel estimation system, therefore, at
 39

this time, the performance of singlet channel estimation one transmit antenna one receive
antenna system is better.
 40

CHAPTER 6

SINGLE FFT (FAST FOURIER TRANSFORM)

RECEIVER COMBINING SCHEME

In the previous chapters, we discussed several OFDM MIMO transmission schemes

and channel estimation methods. In those schemes the number of the FFT (fast Fourier
transform) structure is the same as the number of channels, which is complex and costly.
To address this issue, we investigate using only one FFT structure at the receive antenna
side to deal with many-channel communications, which requires at the receiver the best
channel or channel combination to be chosen in frequency domain instead of in time domain
as we did in pervious chapters.
The goal is to find the receive signals that best resembles the transmitted signal in
frequency domain. This is done by finding the optimum threshold to find the channel with
the minimum distortion and degradation on the signal. One of the solutions is to compare
the magnitude of sum of all the subcarriers in each channel then find the largest one as the
best channel since it has the maximum energy. Simulations (as we shall see later) show that
the new scheme can achieve excellent diversity gains and bit error performance. The new
scheme also has obvious advantages on its simplicity and flexibility. Figure 6.1 shows the
basic structure of 1-FFT transmission.

Figure 6.1. Two transmitters and one receiver scheme with one FFT.
 41

6.1 SINGLE FFT RECEIVER COMBINING SCHEME

WITHOUT CHANNEL ESTIMATION
In this section, we are elaborate on how to find the optimum channel by using one
FFT structure at the receiver antenna. When multiple FFT structures are used as in previous
chapters, subcarriers with the highest energy at each channel are found in frequency domain.
However, when only one FFT block is used, we are forced to find the optimum channel in
time domain and then transform the selected channel to frequency domain. One of the
general solutions is to sum up all the subcarriers at each channel and select the one with the
largest magnitude (energy), which presumably provides the largest signal/noise ratio. In the
following context we will explore this idea and demonstrate several viable schemes. The
performance difference of these schemes will also be discussed. Again, we divide our
discussions into two parts: channel information known and unknown.

6.1.1 Single FFT Receiver Combining Scheme with

Known Channel Information
In the following simulation example, we consider one-transmitter two-receiver
transmission model with known channel state information.
In this case, the transmitting symbol is denoted as x, the channel between the transmit
antenna and the receive antenna one is denoted as h1 and the one between the transmit
antenna and the receive antenna two is denoted as h2 where
h1= a1ej1

h2= a2ej2
After convolving with the channel, noise and interference are added to the
transmitting symbols. The resulting received preamble signals are
r1= h1x+n1
r2= h2 x+n2
Where r1, r2 are the received signals and n1, n2 are complex random variables
representing the noise and interference.
Assuming that 64 subcarriers are used in each channel, which are denoted as
 42

h1 = [h10, h11 ,h12 h163,h164 ]

h2= [h20 ,h21 ,h22 h263,h264 ]
We define the received time main signals are
r1 = [r10, r11 ,r12 r163,r164 ]
r2= [r20 ,r21 ,r22 r263,r264 ]
Sum up the absolute value of the subcarriers
sum1= abs(h10)+ abs(h11)+ abs(h12)+ abs(h163)+ abs(h164)
sum2= abs(h20)+ abs(h21)+ abs(h22)+ abs(h263)+ abs(h264)
Compare the sum and find the largest magnitude which is
Maximum (sum1, sum2)
So if sum1= maximum (sum1, sum2)
Then choose h1 as channel information, the final signal after decision making are
S= r1/h= (h1x+n1)/ h1
=x+ n1/ h1
If sum2= max(sum1,sum2)
Then choose h2 as channel information, the final signal after decision making are
S= r2/h= (h2x+n2)/ h2
=x+ n2/ h2
We then apply the above scheme to the cases of 1 transmitter with 1 receiver, 2
receivers, 3 receivers, 4 receivers, the results of which are shown in Figure 6.2. It is
demonstrated that even with 1-FFT block at the receiver, spatial diversity scheme still shows
the improved performance.
A minor variation to previous scheme is to sum the square value of all the 64
subcarriers at the same channel for all channels and select the one with largest sum-up value.
We apply this scheme to the same example of Figure 6.3, the results of which are shown in
Figure 6.4. Again, it is confirmed that spatial diversity showing improved performance even
in one FFT structure configuration. For example, in a two-channel communication system,
the weight of each channel is defined as
W1= sum1/( sum1+sum2)
W2= sum2/( sum1+sum2)
 43

Figure 6.2. Performance about single FFT combining sum abs 1Transmit antenna
1,2,3,4 Receive antenna.
 44

Figure 6.3. Performance about single FFT combining sum square 1Transmit antenna
1,2,4 Receive antenna.
 45

Figure 6.4. Performance comparison of single FFT combing sum abs, sum square
and sum square with weight.
 46

The final signal after decision-making is therefore

S= (W1* r1+ W2* r2)/ (W1* h1+ W2* h2)
=( sum1/( sum1+sum2)* r1+ sum2/( sum1+sum2)* r2)/ (sum1/( sum1+sum2)* h1+
sum2/( sum1+sum2)* h2)
= (sum1* r1+ sum2* r2)/ (sum1* h1+ sum2* h2)
=( sum1*(h1x+n1) + sum2*(h2x+n2))/ (sum1* h1+ sum2* h2)
( sum1*h1x+ sum1*n1 + sum2*h2x+ sum2*n2) / (sum1* h1+ sum2* h2)
=(sum1* h1+ sum2* h2) *x /(sum1* h1+ sum2* h2)+ (sum1*n1 + sum2*n2) / (sum1*
h1+ sum2*h2)
=x+ (sum1*n1 + sum2*n2) / (sum1* h1+ sum2* h2)
In Figure 6.4, we compare the performance of the above three decision-making
schemes, namely, sum of absolute receiver-signal magnitude, sum of square of receiver-
signal and weighted sum of all receiver-signal, in a 1-transmitter-4-reciever system. It is
clearly demonstrated that weighted-sum scheme show the best performance.
We also compare our new scheme to the selection diversity and MRRC. In Figure 6.5
performance comparison of MRRC and square-sum weight is shown. In Figure 6.6 we show
the performance comparison of Selection diversity and square-sum with weight. As we can
see, the performance degrades with one FFT structure, which is not surprising. It is a trade of
between system performance and complexity and cost.

6.1.2 Single FFT Receiver Combining Scheme In

Unknown Channel Condition
Again, in the unknown channel condition, preamble has to be introduced for channel
estimation. Consider the one-transmitter-two-receiver model and assume the channel
between the transmit antenna and the receive antenna one as h1 and between the transmit
antenna and the receive antenna two as h2, where
h1= a1ej1

h2= a2ej2
 47

Figure 6.5. Performance comparison between sum square single FFT combing
with weight and MRRC.
 48

Figure 6.6. Performance comparison between 1 transmit antenna 1,2,4 receive

antenna single FFT combining Sum square with weight and Selection diversity.

After convolving with the channel, noise and interference are added to the preamble
symbols. The resulting received preamble signals are
p-received1= h1p+n1

p-received2= h2p+n2
Where p-received1, p-received2 are the two received preamble signals and n1, n2 are complex
random variables representing the noise and interference.
The channel can be estimated as following based on the received preamble signals
and the know preambles:estimated-h1= p-received1/ p estimated-h2= p-received1/ p.
On the other hand, the received signals when transmitting a general signal x are
r1=h1x+n3
 49

r2=h2x+n4
Where n3, n4 denote noise and interference.
The signal estimation of the originally transmitted signal could then be defined during
the following process:
S= (W1* r1+ W2* r2)/ (W1* h1+ W2* h2)
=( sum1/( sum1+sum2)* r1+ sum2/( sum1+sum2)* r2)/ (sum1/( sum1+sum2)* h1+ sum2/(
sum1+sum2)* h2)
= (sum1* r1+ sum2* r2)/ (sum1* h1+ sum2* h2)
=( sum1*( estimated-h1x+n1) + sum2*( estimated-h2x+n2))/ (sum1* h1+ sum2* h2)
=( sum1* estimated-h1x+ sum1*n1 + sum2* estimated-h2x+ sum2*n2) / (sum1* h1+ sum2* h2)
=(sum1* estimated-h1+ sum2* estimated-h2) *x /(sum1* h1+ sum2* h2)+ (sum1*n1 +
sum2*n2)/ (sum1* h1+ sum2* h2)
Where W1 and W2 are the channel weight as defined in the previous section, note that
the sum1 and sum2 in the formula can be both magnitude-sum or square-sum We apply the
above signal estimation scheme in the 1 transmitter 1 receiver, 2 receivers and 4 receivers
with square- sum weight principle, the results of which are shown in Figure 6.7.

6.2 CONVOLUTIONAL CODING AND VITERBI DECODING

In communication technology, forward error correction (FEC) technique is often used
to improve the channel capacity by adding specifically designed redundant information to the
data being transmitted through the channel. The process of adding this redundant information
is known as channel coding. There are two major types of channel coding: convolutional
coding and block coding. Convolutional coding operates on serial data, not static block and it
has memory that uses previous bits to encode or decode following bits. Block coding
operates on relatively large message blocks. It is denoted by (n,k,L), where L is code memory
depth [26]. The basic process of convolutional encoder is illustrated in Figure 6.8: the input
signal is k-bit long, output signal is n-bit long after encoder whose memory length is L.
The Viterbi Decoder block decodes the signal using the Viterbi algorithm, which
iswidely applied in wireless communications and in 1964 it was developed by Andrew J.
Viterbi, a founder of Qualcomm Corporation. Viterbi decoding is one of the two types of
decoding algorithms used with convolutional encoding; the other type is sequential decoding.
 50

Figure 6.7. Performance Comparison of 1Transmit antenna 1,2,4 Receive

antenna single FFT combining sum square with weight and preamble.

Figure 6.8. Convolutional code: k bits input, n bits

output and L memory depth.

Viterbi decoding has the advantage that it has a fixed decoding time, which is well suited to
hardware decoder implementation. Viterbi decoding eliminates least likely trellis path at each
transmission stage and reduces decoding complexity with early rejection of unlike path [27].
So it is more efficient than Maximal Likelihood via concentrating on survival paths of the
trellis.
 51

Convolutional encoding and viterbi decoding is an effective method to improve bit

error performance of the whole wireless system. The following two figures depicts the
performance improvement after using encoding and decoding in the transmission process,
which shows that after coding ,SNR increases by 3 dB. Figure 6.9 compares the performance
of 1-FFT receiver combining with and without coding using abs-sum in a 1-transmitter-1-
receiver configuration Figure 6.10 compares the performance of 1-FFT combining scheme
with and without coding using square-sum in the 1-transmitter-1-receiver, 2 receivers, 4
receivers configuration respectively.

Figure 6.9. Performance comparison between single FFT combining sum abs with
coding and without coding.
 52

Figure 6.10. performance comparison between single FFT combining

sum square with coding and without coding.

Also we can find better performance when weight is added. Figure 6.11 compares the
performance of 1-FFT combining scheme using weighted square-sum technique in the 1
transmitter and 1 receiver, 2 receivers, 4 receivers configurations respectively, with and
without coding. In this set of simulation, we assume known channel condition.
We conduct the same simulation in the unknown channel condition. In this case,
channel estimation is conducted based on sending known preambles. Simulation results are
shown in Figure 6.12. We note that when convolutional encoder and Viterbi decoder are
introduced, the performance increases by more than 5dB.
Finally, as a reference, we also compare MRRC to the single FFT combining scheme
using coding + square-sum weight + preamble. The performance is shown in Figure 6.13. It
is also illustrated in Figure 6.14 about the performance comparison of selection diversity with
the single FFT combining scheme using coding + square-sum weight + preamble. As we can
see, the performance degrades when using single FFT structure, which is, again, the trade-off
 53

Figure 6.11. Performance comparison between single FFT combining sum square
plus weight with coding and without coding.

between transmission fidelity and system complexity and cost.

To summarize, we demonstrate in this chapter the feasibility of using one FFT
structure in a MIMO OFDM communication system. Reasonable transmission performance
(BER) was obtained. We investigated and designed the scheme for channel selection and
signal estimation in time domain for the implementation of one FFT structure. We also notice
the one FFT structure is, in general, has degraded performance than multi-FFT structure
schemes, such as MRRC and selection diversity schemes, which is simply a trade-off
between transmission quality and system complexity and cost. Further research can focus on
the possibility of improving the channel selection and signal estimation scheme in one FFT
structure to approach the performance of the multi-FFT structures.
 54

Figure 6.12. Performance comparison between single FFT combining sum square
with weight, preamble plus coding and sum square with weight and preamble.
 55

Figure 6.13. Performance comparison between single FFT combining sum square
with weight, preamble plus coding and MRRC with preamble and coding.
 56

Figure 6.14. Performance comparisons between sum square with weight, preamble
plus coding and selection diversity with preamble and preamble.
 57

CHAPTER 7

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK

In this thesis, we focused on investigating OFDM MIMO communication systems.

Different OFDM MIMO schemes were explored. We discussed standard multi-FFT structure
schemes and then researched on the feasibility of using one-FFT structure for OFDM MIMO
system in order to reduce the system complexity and cost.
In OFDM MIMO transmission system, there are a lot of different schemes that can be
applied. Beamforming, MRRC and selection diversity are generally used in MISO and
SIMO; while in second order transmission system, Alamouti scheme is often introduced. All
these above schemes are under the environments that need consider multipath effect and
Doppler effects. Chapter Four discusses all these schemes in detail. In the unknown channel
condition, preamble is applied to the transmission system in order to estimate the channel
information. There are two ways to estimate channel information: single channel estimate
and joint channel estimate, which is described in Chapter four. In Chapter Six, major
contribution of this thesis work is described, that is, to use only single FFT structure at the
receiver to reduce the system complexity and cost. Since the subcarriers are in frequency
domain, using only single FFT to decode all the subcarriers require new signal
estimation/equalization technique. We used the best channel identification as such technique.
The basic idea is to add all the subcarrier together to get the branch of largest magnitude as
the optimal channel, leveraging the receiver signals signal-to- noise ratio. As improvement
to this basic idea, channel weighting and coding are used to further minimize the bit error rate
(BER). We performed complete sets of simulations and the results are illustrated to
demonstrate the merits of the proposed schemes.
Given the work finished in this thesis, there are still a lot of opportunities for future
research on OFDM MIMO that related to this thesis. We list below several topics that might
be interesting.
Explore the possibility of further improving or designing new signal
estimation/equalization method for signal FFT combining structure OFDM MIMO
system based on the current method in this thesis. For example, we may design new
 58

space -time trellis according to the characteristic of the channel to improve the signal
estimation process.
Research on the possibility of further reducing MIMO system complexity and
developing corresponding coding and decoding schemes, without significantly impact
the system performance.
Design some pre-coding/framing mechanism which can be employed to translate a
MISO or SIMO system into a mathematically equivalent SISO channel, furthermore
to translate a MIMO channel into a mathematically equivalent SiMO or MOSI
channel.
Explore more channel estimation methods to get better and more accurate channel
state information, these methods may include coherent detection, equalization or
pilot-symbol-aided estimation.
 59

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