The 21st International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC- 2018)

Performance Comparison of OFDM-QAM and

FBMC-QAM Filtered in Multi-User Massive
MIMO Channel Characterization
Chakree Teekapakvisit†, and Sarun Duangsuwan‡
Department of Engineering, Information Engineering
King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Prince of Chomphon Campus
17/1 Choomco, Pathio, Chomphon, Thailand 86000
†
t.chakree@gmail.com, ‡ sarun.du@kmitl.ac.th

Abstract—The current 4G standard or long-term evolution
(LTE) system is based on the use of orthogonal frequency division
multiplexing-quadrature amplitude modulation (OFDM-QAM)
for the downlink and uplink communications. OFDM is an
orthogonal block transmission scheme which, in the presence
of multi-path fading channels, plain orthogonal multicarrier
modulation formats are not able to maintain orthogonality due
to inter-symbol interference (ISI) among consecutive multicarrier
symbols. A new modulation format is a filter bank multicarrier
(FBMC). In this paper, we compare a performance of OFDM-
QAM and FBMC-QAM to filter the ISI problem at the receiver.
We evaluate the performance under the assumption of multi-
user massive MIMO channel as a simplicity. The experimental
results are depicted with eye-diagrams and the performance of bit
error rates (BERs). As the result, the FBMC-QAM is a potential
successor of the dominant OFDM-QAM where BER is acceptable
with no ISI and it is definitely a promising modulation to use in
5G signal processing.
Index Terms—ISI cancellation, OFDM-QAM filtered, FBMC-
QAM filtered, MU-massive MIMO channel characterization, 5G
signal processing.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Massive MIMO has been studied as a feature of the
foundational 5G system [1]-[3] and is a key role of the
smart connectivity in 2020. The massive MIMO is originally
introduced by Marzetta [4], in other word, it is large scale
antenna system or very large MIMO. Normally the massive
MIMO is synchronous with a regime where the number of
antennas up to infinity. In fact, massive MIMO can be used as
an smart antenna at higher frequency bands, as large numbers
of operational antennas with a small footprint [5]. These
large arrays can allow higher power consumption and can
compensate the effect of propagation loss.
One of the most important challenges in massive MIMO [6],
is no acquisition data to channel state information (CSI) at the
base station (BS) between the massive BS antenna and multi-
user (MU). The conventional MIMO system was used in LTE
4G standard, which used OFDM is based transmission system.
In multipath channels, the delay spread of radio signals causes
ISI if this delay spread cannot be neglected in comparison with
the symbol period. One problem of OFDM is a large side-
lobe of the rectangular-pulsed signal that can potentially lead
to high inter-carrier interference (ICI) and severe adjacent-
channel interference (ACI). To flexibly support multi-user
scenario, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing access
(OFDMA) is applied for OFDM based system [7]. In uplink,
however, a synchronization of multipath users that transmit
different subsets of subcarrier is difficult to achieve, resulting
in unacceptable ICI.
There are several works to resolve the drawback of OFDM,
the enhanced schemes such as time-domain windowing [7]-
[8], and active interference cancelation (AIC) [9]-[10], have
been proposed. On the other hand, the research community
has begun to explore other advanced multicarrier modulation
technique for using in 5G system, with FBMC the most
promising one.
The application of FBMC has been studied in [11], so-called
self-equalization property leading to a channel flattening effect
was reported through simulation. In [12], FBMC multi-tap
equalization was presented to improve the equalizing accuracy
compared to the 1-tap equalization per subcarrier at a higher
computational complexity. In addition, reported in [13] discuss
that a pilot contamination problem in massive MIMO can
be resolved by using blind equalization. This studies claim
that FBMC is an appropriate match for massive MIMO in
5G system. Recently, a linearly proposed FBMC (LP-FBMC)
system based on MIMO channel has been presented in [14].
The proposed is a singular value decomposition (SVD) as
a linear transformation where the overlapped FBMC data
without the interference free. It well-know that FBMC reduces
out-of-band emission (OOB). Therefore, in [14] BER show
that the conventional FBMC-QAM and conventional-OFDM
are inferior to their proposed between LP-FBMC and FBMC-
OQAM (offset quadrature amplitude modulation). They dis-
cuss that the conventional OFDM is worst BER performance
in the asynchronous multi-user uplink MIMO channel, but not
massive MIMO channel.
In this paper, we present a performance comparison of

978-1-5386-5757-7/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 616

 The 21st International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC- 2018)

OFDM-QAM and FBMC-QAM multicarrier filtered in multi-

user massive MIMO channel characterization. By the ana-
lyzed potential of ISI cancelation at the uplink, we simulate
a channel characterization as a frequency selective fading
channel under massive one hundred and twenty-eight antennas
at the BS receiver side and multi-user as ten and twenty
users of accessible. The performance results are discussed by
using BER regime to compare the efficiency of the successive
cancelation of ISI between OFDM-QAM and FBMC-QAM
filtered.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. The mas-
sive MIMO channel is mentioned in Section II. Section III Fig. 1. A digital implementation of FBMC based on PPN.
describes the comparison of OFDM-QAM and FBMC-QAM
filtered signal model. The performance evaluation presents in
Section IV and finally concluded in Section V respectively.
III. C OMPARISON OF OFDM-QAM AND FBMC-QAM
II. M ULTI -U SER M ASSIVE MIMO C HANNEL F ILTERED S IGNAL M ODEL
Consider a multi-user MIMO in the paper by Marzetta [4]. The OFDM scheme can be obtained as a rectangular pulse
Assume that K users and single cell at BS. Each user is with N̂ sub-channels and spacing as 1/T . The filter of
provided with a transmit-receive antenna, communicating to transmitter and receiver are assumed identical, with a real-
cell BS with time division duplex (TDD). BS is provided valued, symmetric and time-limit to [− (1+β)T
2 , (1+β)T
2 ], where
with M transmit antennas and N receive antennas, which β is obtained to the roll-off factor. Each (1 + β)T seconds,
are link to K users in cell simultaneously. We assume that the transmitter takes M̂ -QAM symbols {ap (n)}N̂−1 p=0 , and
multicarrier modulation is used for transmission data. The generates a waveform as
channel observed at the K users obtain receive antenna during
the downlink can be represented as X
N̂ −1 X
∞
2π
x(t) = ap (n)g(t − n(1 + β)T )ej T pt
(5)
X
K−1
p=0 n=−∞
yk = hTk,j xj + nk (1)
k=1 where g(t) denotes the transmitter filter.
where xj denotes the signal transmit vector of BS j, and nk is The channel is assumed identical.In sub-channel p at the
noise sample at receiver K users. The signals transmitted are receiver K users, the received signal is demodulated by using
constrained by E[kxj k2 ] ≤ Pj , where Pj is a transmit power the subcarrier frequency Tp offset fe (normalized with sub-
of BS j to send Sj = |ψj | as a downlink data stream per one channel spacing T1 ), then, filtered at the receiver v(t) (identical
active user. In addition, hTk,j denotes the channel gain between g(t)) and sampled at instant n(1 + β)T to get the received
the k user and transmit-receive antennas at the BS. symbol
With linear precoding, BS j forms its transmitted signal as 2π
(p−fe t)∗v(t)
X ãp (n) = {(x(t)e−j T }|t=n(1+β)T (6)
xj = vk,j uk (2) X
N −1

k∈ψj = ej2πn(1+β)fe (ap (n)Γ0 + am (n)Γm−p )

m=0,m6=p
where uk denotes mutually uncorrelated zero-mean symbols
with the average energy per-symbol for all k ∈ ψj . where ⋆ stands for the convolution, and
Regarding uplink transmission, one use of the channel Z (1+β)T
observed at the j BS array can be rewritten as 2 2π
Γp = ej2πpβn v 2 (t)e−j T (p+fe )t
dt (7)
XX − (1+β)T
yjul = hk,j uul ul
k + zj (3) 2

j∈ℑ k∈ψl For OFDM, Cyclic prefix (CP) is used to eliminate the ISI
where uul denotes the bearing signal stream transmitted from from the previous symbol, where the input signal with the
k
user terminal k, power constrained to E[kuul 2 insertion of CP can be expressed as
k k ] ≤ Pul for some
power level Pul , ψl is the set of indices of active users in cell
x = [xN −Lcp +1 (t), . . . , xN −1 (t), xN (t)] (8)
l, and zul
j is the additive noise. For decoding the stream of
user k, BS provides vk as a linear filter, rewritten as where Lcp represents the CP length of OFDM block transmis-
ykul = vH yjul (4) sion.
On the other hand, FBMC uses polyphase network (PNN)
where (·)H denotes the hermitian matrix. to filter ISI where the structure of digital implementation as

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Fig. 2. A comparison of between OFDM-QAM and FBMC-QAM channel model.

shown in Fig. 1. The z-transform of the n transmit filter can TABLE I

be expressed as L INK - LEVEL SIMULATION PARAMETERS

X
L−1 System bandwidth 10 MHz
gn (z) = gn (l)z −l (8) Number of N̂ subcarriers 1200
Subcarrier separation 10 kHz
l=0 Subframe length 1.0 ms
where gn (l) denotes the discrete-time transmit filters can be Data rate 10 Mbps
M̂ -QAM 16-QAM
obtained by sampling gn (t) with a sampling rate of Ts , as Symbol duration 66.67 µs
follows Cyclic Prefix (CP) 4.69 µs
Antenna configuration 128 elements at BS
gn (l) = gn (lTs ) = pT (l)e2πjn∆f l+jφn (8) K users 10 and 20
Number of j cells 1 single
The n polyphase decomposition is actually used by an Channel equalizer MMSE [13]
finite impulse response (FIR) filter. Based on discrete fourier
transform (DFT) modulator and PPN, the channel model of
FBMC-QAM is illustrated in Fig. 2. as well as of OFDM-
QAM.
IV. P ERFORMANCE E VALUATION
A. Link-level Simulation
In this following, we describe link-level simulation of our
investigation on the performance comparison of OFDM-QAM
and FBMC-QAM. The number of M transmit antennas and N
receive antennas are 128 elements, where K users as 10, and
20 respectively in MU-massive MIMO channel. We assume a
channel model as instantaneous Rayliegh fading model with
seven-paths exponentially decayed power delay profile (PDP)
in term of root mean square (r.m.s) delay spread value as 0.29
µs, where the path power decayed is relative to 2 dB and each
path and Rayleigh-faded with maximum Doppler frequency of Fig. 3. Performance of eye diagram under OFDM-QAM experimentally
filtered, where (a) K users = 10 and (b) K users = 20.
10 Hz. We provide that the impact of channel estimation is
also taken into account by using minimum mean square error
(MMSE) based equalizer. The table 1 shows the link-level
simulation parameters. from noise level when users more increased in the massive
MIMO channel. Likewise, the crossing point duration in time
B. Eye Pattern is started from 5 ms to 15 ms so that to analyze one-zero level.
We perform an eye diagram for understanding signal impair- We can see the eye diagram in Fig. 3 (a) both I-channel and Q-
ment at the BS receiver. By taking high-bandwidth instanta- channel, the one-level amplitude is 1.4 mV and -1.2 mV for the
neous of high-speed data rate, eye diagram demonstrates sum zero-level respectively. The eye height is calculated by the dis-
of logic one and logic zero transition measurement. To analyze tance between one-level and zero-level as 2.6 mV. In addition,
eye diagram parameters, the characteristic of one-zero level, the eye crossing percentage is calculated by using the follow-
eye amplitude and height, eye crossing, and signal-to-noise ing equation 100 ∗ [(crossing level − zero-level)/(eye height)],
ratio (SNR) is discussed. which is 46.15 percentage. Therefore, we can calculate the
In Fig. 3 shows the eye diagram of in-phase (I) channel and SNR level from eye pattern analyzer uses the following equa-
quadrature (Q) channel of OFDM-QAM modulation, where (a) tion 20∗log10 [(one-level−zero-level)/(one-level+zero-level)],
as K = 10 users and (b) K = 20 users. It can be seen that the which is 22.27 dB. In Fig. 3 (b), meanwhile, the one-level
logic one and zero level of OFDM-QAM pulses are affected amplitude is 0.8 mV and -1.2 mV for zero-level. Both I-

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Fig. 4. Performance of eye diagram under FBMC-QAM experimentally
filtered, where (a) K users = 10 and (b) K users = 20.
Fig. 5. BER performance of OFDM-QAM and FBMC-QAM filtered in MU-
massive MIMO channel characterization.
channel and Q-channel, it can show that the crossing percent-
age is about 39 of percentage, where SNR is equal to 13.97
dB at least. In Fig. 4 shows the eye diagram of I-channel
and Q-channel of FBMC-QAM modulation. Fig. 4 (a), the
calculation of eye crossing percentage is to 70 of percentage,
where one-level 1.4 mV and zero-level is 1.0 mV. However,
the percentage of eye crossing is at least to 68 percentage in
Fig. 4 (b) when increasing of K = 20 users accessibly. We
calculate the SNR level as 44 dB in Fig. 4 (a) and as well as
the SNR level in Fig. 4 (b) is about 38 dB , respectively.
The BER performance is depicted in Fig. 5, with an assum-
ing under instantaneous CSI. With K = 10 users, we observe
that the performance of FBMC filtered by using PNN is able
to cancel the effect of ISI as efficiency. On the other hand, the
performance of OFDM filtered by using CP is initialized by
ISI causing in the massive MIMO channel, likewise, compare
to FBMC at 22.27 dB of the SNR in OFDM. The performance
result of FBMC is able to recover the BER approximately as
50 percentages.
619
V. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, the comparison of OFDM-QAM and FBMC-
QAM filtering technique has been presented. Under the as-
sumption of the multi-user massive MIMO channel character-
ization, we simulate the channel model of the massive MIMO
with imperfect channel state information (iCSI). As the result,
the investigation both eye diagram and BER point out that
FBMC filtering is more suitable efficiency than the OFDM
filtering that because of the OFDM signal is vulnerable to
ISI, especially, in multi-user massive MIMO channel char-
acterization. To robust ISI, FBMC are achieved as a self-
equalization in the massive MIMO channel. Furthermore, in
case of downlink will be considered for the next.
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