TN 424: MULTI-CARRIER MODULATION

FROM MARCH -JUNE 2018

BY
DR. KILAVO H
Email: sirkilavo@gmail.com
Mob: 0714247935
Room BG7
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 Synchronization
❖ Reliable receiver synchronization is one of the most
important issues in multi-carrier communication
systems, and is especially demanding in fading channels
when coherent detection of high-order modulation
schemes is employed.

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 Synchronization

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Figure 1: General block diagram of a multi-carrier synchronization unit
 Synchronization
❖ The performance of any synchronization and channel
estimation algorithm is determined by the following
parameters:
 Minimum SNR under which the operation of
synchronization is guaranteed,
 Acquisition time and acquisition range (e.g., maximum
tolerable deviation range of timing offset, local oscillator
frequency),
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 Synchronization
 Overhead in terms of reduced data rate or power excess,
 Complexity, regarding implementation aspects, and
 Robustness and accuracy in the presence of multipath
and interference disturbances.

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 Synchronization
❖ The synchronization algorithms employed for multi-
carrier demodulation are based either on the analysis of
the received signal (non-pilot aided, i.e., blind
synchronization)
❖ or on the processing of special dedicated data time
and/or frequency multiplexed with the transmitted data,
i.e., pilot-aided synchronization.

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 Data-aided Synchronization
❖ In data-aided synchronization systems, a preamble is
transmitted along with the data-bearing signal in a
time-multiplexed manner on a periodic basis.
❖ The preamble contains information about the carrier
and symbol timing, which is extracted by appropriate
processing of the channel output at the receiver.
❖ Such an approach is commonly used in digital satellite
and wireless communications
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 Data-aided Synchronization
❖ The motivation is to minimize the time required to
synchronize the receiver to the transmitter.
❖ Its limitations are two-fold:
(1) reduced data-throughput efficiency that results from
assigning a certain portion of each transmitted frame
to the preamble; and
(2) Reduced power efficiency by allocating a certain
fraction of the transmitted power to the transmission
of the preamble. 8
 Nondata-aided Synchronization
❖ In this approach, the use of a preamble is avoided, and
the receiver has the task of establishing synchronization
by extracting the necessary information from the
modulated signal.
❖ Both throughput and power efficiency are thereby
improved but at the expense of an increase in the time
taken to establish synchronization.

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 Nondata-aided Synchronization
❖ In this chapter we consider only nondata-aided
synchronization schemes where we may identify two
approaches for solving the synchronization problem:
1. The classical approach based on the phase-locked loop
(PLL), and
2. The algorithmic (modern) approach that resorts to the
maximum likelihood (ML) estimation.

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 Synchronization
❖ For instance, in non-pilot aided synchronization some of
these algorithms exploit the intrinsic redundancy
present in the guard time (cyclic extension) of each
OFDM symbol.
❖ Maximum likelihood estimation of parameters can also
be applied, exploiting the guard-time redundancy or
using some dedicated transmitted reference symbols.

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 Synchronization
❖ As shown in Figure 1, there are three main
synchronization tasks around the FFT:
i) timing recovery,
ii) carrier frequency recovery and
iii) carrier phase recovery.
❖ In this part, we concentrate on the first two items, since
the carrier phase recovery is closely related to the
channel estimation.
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 Synchronization
❖ Hence, the two main synchronization parameters that
have to be estimated are:
i) time-positioning of the FFT window including the
sampling rate adjustment that can be controlled in a
two-stage process, coarse- and fine-timing control
ii) the possible large frequency difference between the
receiver and transmitter local oscillators that has to
be corrected to a very high accuracy.
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 Synchronization
❖ An example of an OFDM frame is depicted in Figure 2,
where each frame consists of a so called null symbol
(without signal power) transmitted at the frame
beginning, followed by some known reference symbols
and data symbols.
❖ Furthermore, within data symbols some reference
pilots are scattered in time and frequency.

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 Synchronization
❖ The null symbol may serve two important purposes:
 Interference and noise estimation, and
 coarse timing control
❖ The coarse timing control may use the null symbol as a
mean of quickly establishing frame synchronization
prior to fine time synchronization.

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 Synchronization

Figure 2: Example of an OFDM frame

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 Carrier synchronization
❖ Carrier synchronization
 Receiver needs estimate and compensate for frequency
and phase differences between a received signal’s
carrier wave and the receiver’s local oscillator for the
purpose of coherent demodulation, no matter it is
analog or digital communication systems

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 ❖Symbol/bit synchronization
❖ Symbol/bit synchronization
 In digital systems, the output of the receiving filter (i.e.
matched filter) must be sampled at the symbol rate and
at the precise sampling time instants.
 Hence, we require a clock signal.
 The process of extracting such a clock signal at the
receiver is called symbol/bit synchronization

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 Frame synchronization
❖ Frame synchronization
 In frame-based digital systems, receiver also needs to
estimate the starting/stopping time of a data frame.
 The process of extracting such a clock signal is called
frame synchronization.

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 Effects of Synchronization Errors
❖ Large timing and frequency errors in multi-carrier
systems cause an increase of ISI and ICI, resulting in
high performance degradations.
❖ The joint estimation of frequency and timing error
using guard time may be sensitive in environments with
several long echoes.
❖ In the following section, we will examine some
approaches for time and frequency synchronization
which are used in several implementations.
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 1.2: Time Synchronization
❖ The main objective of time synchronization for OFDM
systems is to know when a received OFDM symbol
starts.
❖ By using the guard time the timing requirements can be
relaxed.
❖ A time offset, not exceeding the guard time, gives rise to
a phase rotation of the sub-carriers.

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 1.2: Time Synchronization
❖ This phase rotation is larger on the edge of the
frequency band.
❖ If a timing error is small enough to keep the channel
impulse response within the guard time, the
orthogonality is maintained and a symbol timing delay
can be viewed as a phase shift introduced by the
channel.

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 1.2: Time Synchronization
❖ This phase shift can be estimated by the channel
estimator and corrected by the channel equalizer.
❖ However, if a time shift is larger than the guard time,
ISI and ICI occur and signal orthogonality is lost.
❖ Basically the task of the time synchronization is to
estimate the two main functions:

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 1.2: Time Synchronization
❖ FFT window positioning (OFDM symbol/frame
synchronization) and sampling rate estimation for A/D
conversion controlling.
❖ The operation of time synchronization can be carried
out in two steps: Coarse and fine symbol timing.

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 1.2.1: Coarse symbol timing
❖ Different methods, depending on the transmission signal
characteristics, can be used for coarse timing estimation
 Null Symbol Detection
 Two Identical Half Reference Symbols
 Guard Time Exploitation

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 1.2.1.1: Null Symbol Detection
❖ A null symbol, containing no power, is transmitted at
the beginning of each OFDM frame (see Figure 3).
❖ By performing a simple power detection at the receiver
side before the FFT operation, the beginning of the
frame can be detected.
❖ That is, the receiver locates the null symbol by
searching for a dip in the power of the received signal.

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 1.2.1.1: Null Symbol Detection

Figure 3: Coarse time synchronization based on null symbol detection

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 1.2.1.1: Null Symbol Detection
❖ This can be achieved, for instance, by using a flywheel
algorithm to guard against occasional failures to detect
the null symbol once in lock .
❖ The basic function of this algorithm is that, when the
receiver is out of lock, it searches continuously for the
null symbols, whereas when in lock it searches for the
symbol only at the expected null symbols.
❖ The null symbol detection gives only a coarse timing
information
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1.2.1.2: Two Identical Half Reference Symbols
❖ In a timing synchronization is proposed that searches
for a training symbol with two identical halves in the
time domain, which can be sent at the beginning of an
OFDM frame (see Figure 4).
❖ At the receiver side, these two identical time domain
sequences may only be phase shifted φ = πTsferror due to
the carrier frequency offset.

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1.2.1.2: Two Identical Half Reference Symbols

Figure 4: Time synchronization based on two identical half reference symbols

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1.2.1.2: Two Identical Half Reference Symbols
❖ The two halves of the training symbol are made
identical by transmitting a PN sequence on the even
frequencies, while zeros are used on the odd
frequencies.

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 1.2.1.3: Guard Time Exploitation
 Each OFDM symbol is extended by a cyclic repetition of
the transmitted data (see Figure 5).
 As the guard interval is just a duplication of a useful
part of the OFDM symbol, a correlation of the part
containing the cyclic extension (guard interval) with the
given OFDM symbol enables a fast time
synchronization.

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 1.2.1.3: Guard Time Exploitation

Figure 5: Time synchronization based on guard time correlation properties

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 1.2.1.3: Guard Time Exploitation
❖ The sampling rate can also be estimated based on this
correlation method.
❖ The presence of strong noise or long echoes may prevent
accurate symbol timing.
❖ However, the noise effect can be reduced by integration
(filtering) on several peaks obtained from subsequent
estimates.
❖ As far as echoes are concerned, if the guard time is
chosen long enough to absorb all echoes, this technique
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can still be reliable.
 1.2.3: Fine Symbol Timing
❖ For fine time synchronization, several methods based on
transmitted reference symbols can be used.
❖ One straightforward solution applies the estimation of
the channel impulse response.
❖ The received signal without noise r(t) = s(t) ⊗ h(t) is the
convolution of the transmit signal s(t) and the channel
impulse response h(t).
❖ In the frequency domain after FFT processing we
obtain R(f ) = S(f )H(f ).
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 1.2.3: Fine Symbol Timing
❖ By transmitting special reference symbols S(f ) is a
priori known by the receiver.
❖ Hence, after dividing R(f ) by S(f ) and IFFT
processing, the channel impulse response h(t) is
obtained and an accurate timing information can be
derived.

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 1.2.3: Fine Symbol Timing

Figure 6: Fine time synchronization based on channel impulse response estimation

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 1.3: Frequency Synchronization
❖ Another fundamental function of an OFDM receiver is
the carrier frequency synchronization.
❖ Frequency offsets are introduced by differences in
oscillator frequencies in the transmitter and receiver,
Doppler shifts and phase noise.
❖ As we have seen earlier, the frequency offset leads to a
reduction of the signal amplitude since the sinc
functions are shifted and no longer sampled at the peak
and to a loss of orthogonality between sub-carriers.
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 1.3: Frequency Synchronization
❖ This loss introduces ICI which results in a degradation
of the global system performance.
❖ In the previous sections we have seen that in order to
avoid severe SNR degradation, the frequency
synchronization accuracy should be better than 2%.
❖ Note that a multi-carrier system is much more sensitive
to a frequency offset than a single carrier system.

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 1.3: Frequency Synchronization
❖ As shown in Figure 1, the frequency error in an OFDM
system is often corrected by a tracking loop with a
frequency detector to estimate the frequency offset.
❖ Depending on the characteristics of the transmitted
signal (pilot-based or not) several algorithms for
frequency detection and synchronization can be
applied:

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 1.3: Frequency Synchronization
— algorithms based on the analysis of special
synchronization symbols embedded in the OFDM frame,
— algorithms based on the analysis of the received data at
the output of the FFT (non-pilot aided) , and
— algorithms based on the analysis of guard time
redundancy.
❖ Like the time synchronization, the frequency
synchronization can be performed in two steps: coarse
and fine frequency synchronization.
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 3. Automatic Gain Control (AGC)
❖ In order to maximize the input signal dynamic by
avoiding saturation, the variation of the received signal
field strength before FFT operation or before A/D
conversion can be adjusted by an AGC function.
❖ Two kinds of AGC can be implemented:

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 3. Automatic Gain Control (AGC)
— Controlling the time domain signal before A/D
conversion:
❖ First, in the digital domain, the average received power
is computed by filtering.
❖ Then, the output signal is converted to analog (e.g., by a
sigma-delta modulator) that controls the signal
attenuation before the A/D conversion.

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 3. Automatic Gain Control (AGC)
— Controlling the time domain signal before FFT:
❖ In the frequency domain the output of the FFT signal is
analyzed and the result is used to control the signal
before the FFT.

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