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Performance Analysis of OFDMA in LTE

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 International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology
E-ISSN 2277 – 4106, P-ISSN 2347 - 5161
®
©2014 INPRESSCO , All Rights Reserved
Available at http://inpressco.com/category/ijcet

Research Article
Performance Analysis of OFDMA in LTE
Alaa Deshar FarhoodȦ*, Neelesh AgarwalȦ,A.K. JaiswalȦ, Navendu NitinȦ and Maham Kamil NajiȦ
Ȧ
Dept. of Electronics & Communication Engineering, SHIATS Allahabad, and Technical Trainer in foundation of Technical Education in Iraq,
Baghdad

Accepted 05 May 2014, Available online 01 June 2014, Vol.4, No.3 (June 2014)

Abstract

The LTE employs OFDMA for downlink data transmission because Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access
(OFDMA) scheme offers high spectral efficiency and better resistance to fading environments. In OFDMA the data is
modulated using multiple number of sub-carriers that are orthogonal to each other because of which the problems
associated with other modulation schemes such as Inter Symbol Interference (ISI) and Inter Carrier Interference (ICI)
are reduced .In this paper the performance of OFDMA system in LTE is taken into account, Then, the main technologies
are explained, together with possible improvements, their associated challenges, and some approaches have been
considered .We also investigate the performance of OFDMA in LTE physical layer by considering different modulation
schemes (BPSK, QPSK, 16QAM and 64QAM) on the basis of PAPR, BER, power spectral density (PSD) and error
probability .

Keywords: OFDMA, LTE, BER, PAPR, PSD, BPSK, QPSK, 16QAM and 64 QAM

1. Introduction of the system, and are included in 3GPP Release 8.

OFDMA is a novel application in cellular communication
1
Wireless communication is enjoying a fast growth period (S. Haykin et al, 2001; W. Stallings et al, 2007; T.S.
in history which is coupled with technology improvements Rappaport et al 1996; M. Salehi et al 2001).Performance
that permit its widespread deployment. That is the cellular analysis of LTE in OFDMA for downlink transmission is
concept developed by Bell Laboratories. Mobile presented in this paper. A brief discussion of the basic
communication offers a full duplex communication using properties and advantages is thereafter discussed in the
a radio to connect portable device to a dedicated Base later part of this paper. This paper has been divided into
station, which is then connected to a switching network. six sections, section I gives a brief introduction about the
The first generation of mobile communication, known as evolution of wireless communication, section 2 and 3
Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS), was deployed introduces basic idea about LTE and OFDMA, section 4
in 1983. The second generation (2G) of mobile contains the channel environment required for OFDMA in
communication is known as Global System for Mobile LTE, section 5 discusses about the parameters taken in this
communication (GSM) which was deployed in the 1990s paper, section 6 gives the simulation result and then the
with 9.6 kbps data rate. The third Generation system (3G) conclusion of the paper.
standard deployed in 21st century improves the data
handling capacity with data rate of 64 kbps to 2 Mbps. A 2. LTE
collaborative group of standards organization and
telecommunication companies called Third Generation LTE stands for Long Term Evolution and it was started as
Partnership Project (3GPP) was formed for enhanced a project in 2004 by telecommunication body known as
versions to the 3G standard. The fourth generation (4G) of the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). LTE
wireless cellular systems has been a topic of interest for evolved from an earlier 3GPP system known as the
quite a long time, probably since the formal definition of Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS),
third generation (3G) systems. Motivated by the increasing which in turn evolved from the Global System for Mobile
demand for mobile broadband services with higher data Communications (GSM). The main goal of LTE is to
rates and Quality of Service (QoS), 3GPP introduced the provide a high data rate, low latency and packet optimized
Long Term Evolution (LTE) which are intended to define radio access technology supporting flexible bandwidth
both the radio access network (RAN) and the network core deployments. Same time its network architecture has been
designed with the goal to support packet-switched traffic
with seamless mobility and great quality of service.
*Corresponding author Alaa Deshar Farhood and Maham Kamil Naji For the Downlink, Orthogonal Frequency Division
are PG students; Neelesh Agarwal and, Navendu Nitin are working as Multiple Access (OFDMA) is considered for transmitting
Asst Prof, A.K. Jaiswal as Prof
1614 | International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.4, No.3 (June 2014)
Alaa Deshar Farhood et al Performance Analysis of OFDMA in LTE

Table1: Downlink OFDMA Modulation Parameters

Transmission BW(MHz) 1.25 2.5 5 10 15 20

Subframe duration 0.5ms
Sub carrier spacing 15kHz
Sampling frequency(MHz) 1.92 3.84 7.68 15.36 23.04 30.72
FFT size 128 256 512 1024 1536 2048
OFDM sym per slot(short/long 7/6
CP)
CP length(μsec/samples) Short (4.69/9)×6, (4.69/18)×6, (4.69/36)×6, (4.69/72)×6, (4.69/108)×6, (4.69/144)×6,
(5.21/10)×1 (5.21/20)×1 (5.21/40)×1 (5.21/80)×1 (5.21/120)×1 (5.21/160)×1

(16.67/32) (16.67/64) (16.67/128) (16.67/256) (16.67/384) (16.67/512)

Long

from Base Station (BS) while Single Carrier Frequency first converted into parallel bit streams then it is modulated
Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) is for the Uplink. on each subcarrier using conventional modulation
This work focuses on the Downlink access. The LTE schemes. OFDMA allows low data rate from many users
increases the system capacity and widens the spectrum and has shorter and constant delay. It has flexibility in
from existing technology up to 20MHz. It can be deployed deployment across different frequency bands by need of
in any bandwidth combination because of its flexible little modification to air interface. The effect of multipath
usage of spectrum (1.4 MHz to 20 MHz). It uses fading is reduced by using OFDMA because each user’s
Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division data is modulated over several orthogonal frequencies
Duplex (TDD) to suit all types of spectrum resources rather than a fixed frequency for entire connection period.
(Yapeng Wang et al, 2009). In addition, the OFDMA not only facilitate the capacity
In LTE, the frame duration of 10 ms is divided into sharing in available bandwidth but it also increases the
subframes of 1 ms duration. Two slots of 0.5 ms duration capacity for each user because of using several frequencies
each are formed out of a subframe. The Base Station (Ayoola A.A et al, 2013).The difference between OFDM
schedules transmissions every 1 ms and resource blocks and OFDMA is that OFDMA has the ability to
are formed from the subcarriers for allocation on the dynamically assign a subset of those subcarriers to
Downlink (Ayoola A.A et al, 2013). individual users, making this the multi-user version of
OFDM, using either Time Division Multiple Access
(TDMA) (separate time frames) or Frequency Division
Multiple Access (FDMA) (separate channels) for multiple
users. OFDMA simultaneously supports multiple users by
assigning them specific sub channels for intervals of time.
Point-to-point systems are OFDM, and do not support
OFDMA. Point-to-multipoint fixed and mobile systems
use OFDMA (W. Stallings et al, 2007; T.S. Rappaport et
al, 1996).
OFDMA technologies typically occupy nomadic, fixed
and one-way transmission standards, ranging from TV
transmission to Wi-Fi as well as fixed WiMAX and
newer multicast wireless systems like Qualcomm’s
Forward Link Only (FLO). OFDMA, however, adds true
mobility to the mix, forming the backbone of many of the
Figure 1: LTE frame structure
emerging technologies including LTE and mobile
WiMAX.
The total number of available subcarriers depends on the Due to high spectral efficiency and robust transmission
overall transmission bandwidth of the system. The LTE in presence of multipath fading, the OFDMA has been
specifications define parameters for system bandwidths
selected as basic modulation scheme for downlink in LTE
from 1.25 MHz to 20 MHz as shown in Table 2. A PRB is
systems. To overcome the effect of multi path fading
defined as consisting of 12 consecutive subcarriers for one
problem available in UMTS, LTE uses Orthogonal
slot (0.5 msec) in duration. A PRB is the smallest element Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) for the
of resource allocation assigned by the base station downlink - that is, from the base station to the terminal to
scheduler. transmit the data over many narrow band careers of 180
KHz each instead of spreading one signal over the
3. OFDMA complete 5MHz career (Laurent Boher et al, 2008). The
LTE physical layer specifications are designed to deal
OFDMA is a type of frequency division multiplexing with the bandwidths from 1.25MHz to 20MHz. The
(FDM) in which available frequency band is divided into modulation parameters for different transmission
number of orthogonal frequency subcarriers. The data is
bandwidth are shown in table 1

1615 | International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.4, No.3 (June 2014)
Alaa Deshar Farhood et al Performance Analysis of OFDMA in LTE

In downlink, the subcarriers are divided into resource IFFT of the mapped data is carried out to convert the data
blocks. This allows the system to split the subcarriers into into their corresponding time domain and the output signal
small parts, without mixing the data across the total are converted back to serial data called OFDM symbols.
number of subcarriers for a given bandwidth. The resource The IFFT block is followed by adding the cyclic extension
block consists of 12 subcarriers for a single time slot of (cyclic prefix, CP).
0.5ms duration. The structure of PRB is given in figure 2

Figure 2: Downlink Resource Grid

Each user is allocated a number of so-called resource

blocks in the time frequency grid. The more resource
blocks a user gets, and the higher the modulation used in
the resource elements, the higher the bit-rate. Which
resource blocks and how many the user gets at a given
point in time depend on advanced scheduling mechanisms
in the frequency and time dimensions. The scheduling
mechanisms in LTE are similar to those used in HSPA,
and enable optimal performance for different services in
different radio environments. There are different numbers
of resource blocks for different signal bandwidths in LTE
as shown in table 2 Figure 3: The Block Diagram of Transmitter and Receiver
in OFDMA-LTE
Table 2: Available Downlink Bandwidth is divided into
Physical Resource Block Cyclic Prefix Insertion: Since, wireless communications
systems are susceptible to multi-path channel reflections; a
Bandwidth(MHz) 1.25 2.5 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 cyclic prefix is added to reduce ISI. A cyclic prefix is a
Sub carrier 15 repetition of the first section of a symbol that is appended
Bandwidth(KHz)
Physical resource block 180
to the end of the symbol. In addition, it is important
(PRB) bandwidth (kHz) because it enables multi-path representations of the
Number of available 0 12 25 50 75 100 original signal to fade so that they do not interfere with the
PRBs subsequent symbol (Erik Dahlman et al, 2011).

4. Design Analysis

The details of OFDMA transmitter and receiver structure

are presented in the block diagram below. We note that the
OFDM systems basically involve the blocks shown in
figure 3.
In Serial to Parallel Conversion of OFDM system, each
channel can be broken into various sub-carriers. The use
of sub-carriers makes optimal use out of the frequency
Figure 4: OFDM symbol with cyclic prefix
spectrum but also requires additional processing by the
transmitter and receiver. This additional processing is
The motivation for adding the cyclic extension is to avoid
necessary to convert a serial bitstream into several parallel
inter-symbol interference (ISI). When the transmitter adds
bitstream to be divided among the individual carriers. In
a cyclic extension longer than the channel impulse
the downlink of OFDMA systems, the high bit-rate data
response, the effect of the previous symbol can be avoided
stream passes through modulator, where adaptive
by removing the cyclic extension at the receiver.
modulation schemes such as BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, 64-
QAM is applied. Modulated data is converted from serial
Parallel to Serial Conversion: once the cyclic prefix has
to parallel and mapped to different subcarriers.
been added to the sub-carrier channels, they must be
1616 | International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.4, No.3 (June 2014)
Alaa Deshar Farhood et al Performance Analysis of OFDMA in LTE

transmitted as one signal. Thus, the parallel to serial A. PAPR (Peak to Average Power Ratio): Power saving in
conversion stage is the process of summing all sub-carriers transmission is an extensive issue for the multiple access
and combining them into one signal. As a result, all sub- techniques used in LTE, therefore is considered an
carriers are generated perfectly simultaneously. important transmission factor PAPR for OFDMA. The
PAPR is calculated by representing a CCDF
Rayleigh fading: This is a reasonable statistical fading (Complementary Cumulative Distribution Function) of
model for multipath situation in the absences of LOS PAPR. The CCDF of PAPR is the probability that the
component (Sai Krishna Borra et al, 2013). PAPR is higher than a certain PAPR value PAPR0 (Pr
{PAPR>PAPR0}). It is an important measure that is
AWGN Channel: Practically there are some losses in the widely used for the complete description of the power
system as compared to theoretical values; therefore we use characteristics of signals (H.G. Myung et al, 2006).
the Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel,
which is commonly used to simulate the background noise B. BER: The bit error rate is the number of bit errors
of the channel (Sai Krishna Borra et al, 2013). divided by the total number of transferred bits during a
studied time interval. BER is a unit less performance
At receiver, the CP is removed first and then subcarriers measure.
are converted from parallel to serial sequence. The FFT
stage further converts the OFDM symbols in to frequency BER = Error Bits / Number of Transmitted Bits
domain followed by equalizer and demodulation as shown
in figure C. SNR: The SNR is the ratio of bit energy (Eb) to the
We use following adaptive modulation schemes to noise power spectral density (N0) and it is expressed in
analyse the Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR), dB.
Bit Error Rate (BER), Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), Error
Probability (Pe) and Power Spectral Density SNR = Eb / N0
(PSD) for OFDMA (M. Salehi et al, 2001)
 Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) D.BER vs. SNR Process: For any modulation scheme, the
 Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) BER is expressed in terms of SNR. BER is measured by
 16-Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (16-QAM) comparing the transmitted signal with received signal, and
 64-Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (64-QAM) compute the error counts over total number of bits
transmitted.
Advantages of OFDMA
E. Probability of error (Pe): The probability of error or
 The primary advantage of OFDMA over single-carrier error probability (Pe) is the rate of errors occurs in the
schemes is its ability to cope with severe channel received signal. For coherent detection, the symbol error
conditions without complex equalization filters. probability of M-ary PSK and M-ary QAM in the AWGN
 Channel equalization is simplified because OFDMA channel is determined by following expression;
may be viewed as using many slowly-modulated
narrowband signals rather than one rapidly-modulated ( ) [√ ]
√
wideband signal.
Where,
 The low symbol rate makes the use of a guard interval
N0 = Noise density in AWGN
between symbols affordable, making it possible to
Eav = Average value of transmitted symbol energy in M-
eliminate inter symbol interference (ISI).
ary QAM
 This mechanism also facilitates the design of single
frequency networks (SFNs), where several adjacent F. Power Spectral density (PSD): In regard to
transmitters send the same signal simultaneously at communication, PSD for any signal is very helpful since,
the same frequency, as the signals from multiple the integral of the PSD over a given frequency band
distant transmitters may be combined constructively, computes the average power in the signal over that
rather than interfering as would typically occur in a frequency band. PSD gives you the strength of a signal
traditional single-carrier system. over a period of time. it is nothing but different ways of
computing the sum of FFT of a signal. The PSD of a
Disadvantages of OFDMA signal x(t )is given by
 High peak-to-average ratio
 Sensitive to frequency offset, hence to Doppler-shift ∫
as well.
G. Adaptive modulation and coding (AMC): It is a term
5. Performance Calculation used in wireless communications to denote the matching
of the modulation, coding and other signal and protocol
Using various mathematical Parameters of multiple access parameters to the conditions on the radio link. Adaptive
technique, the performance analysis of OFDMA is modulation systems improve rate of transmission, and/or
observed in this section bit error rates, by exploiting the channel information that
1617 | International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.4, No.3 (June 2014)
Alaa Deshar Farhood et al Performance Analysis of OFDMA in LTE

is present at the transmitter. Especially over fading

channels which model wireless propagation environments,
adaptive modulation systems exhibit great performance
enhancements compared to systems that do not exploit
channel knowledge at the transmitter (Essam Sourour et
al, 2011).

6. Simulation Result

The simulation was carried out using MATLAB and the

following results are obtained:

Figure 8: Graph showing the relation between PAPR and

Pr in 64 QAM

Figure 5: Graph showing the relation between PAPR and

Pr in BPSK Modulation
Figure 9: The relation between SNR and Pe for different
modulation type

Figure 6: Graph showing the relation between PAPR and

Figure 10: The relation between SNR and BER for
Pr in QPSK Modulation
different modulation types

Figure 7: Graph showing the relation between PAPR and

Pr in 16 QAM Modulations Figure 11: The relation between Sampling rate
(2×Bandwidth) and PSD
1618 | International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.4, No.3 (June 2014)
 Alaa Deshar Farhood et al Performance Analysis of OFDMA in LTE

Figure (5, 6, 7 and 8) shows that for OFDMA the PAPR References
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1619 | International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.4, No.3 (June 2014)

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