ISSN (Online) 2581-9429

IJARSCT

International Journal of Advanced Research in Science, Communication and Technology (IJARSCT)

International Open-Access, Double-Blind, Peer-Reviewed, Refereed, Multidisciplinary Online Journal
Impact Factor: 7.53 Volume 4, Issue 2, January 2024

Evaluating the Impact of OFDM Parameters on the

Operation of the LTE System in Different Conditions
Sunil Parshar1, Ashish Gupta2, Anuradha Pathak3
Research Scholar, Department of Electronics & Communication1
Assistant Professor, Department of Electronics & Communication2,3
Nagaji Institution of Technology and Management, Gwalior, India

Abstract: These days we find an enormous growth in wireless communication technologies. The use of
OFDM in wireless systems has created a way to provide high data rates, less intercarrier interference(ICI),
and less intersymbol interference(ISI). OFDM has become the core of most 4G communication systems, a
Long Term Evolution (LTE) system. OFDM system divides the available signal spectrum into smaller
bandwidths and transmits them to the receiver without interference with each other by inserting the cyclic
prefix in between the signals. LTE uses OFDM for downlink, SC-FDMA for uplink and MIMO for enhanced
throughput. The OFDM uses inverse fast fourier transform(IFFT) and fast fourier transform(FFT) for
conversion of data. The system performance is measured by correlating the signal to noise ratio to bit error
rate. The system performance is evaluated to study the effect of various LTE design parameters by
simulating in MATLAB

Keywords: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM); Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT);
Fast Fourier Transform (FFT); Cyclic Prefix (CP); Bit Error Rate (BER); Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR).

I. INTRODUCTION
OFDM is a multicarrier modulation technique used in wideband digital communication because of its ability to cope
with severe channel conditions without complex equalization filters;e.g. attenuation of high frequencies in a long
copper wire, narrowband interference and frequency-selective fading due to multipath. Channel equalization is
simplified because OFDM may be viewed as using many slowly- modulated narrow band signals rather than one
rapidly- modulated wideband signal. The low symbol rate makes the use of a guard interval between symbols possible
affordable, making it to handle time-spreading and eliminate ISI and ICI[1-8].The aim of our paper is to give an idea
of what is an OFDM system, its main structure and the analysis of the obtained results of the simulations testing. This
OFDM system is able to support different M-QAM modulation schemes. Also this paper aims to study the effect of
the variation of different design parameters on OFDM systems with different digital modulation schemes. The next part
of this paper is organized as follows; section-II provides the related work, section-III introduces OFDM overview, LTE
and section-IV presents simulation results, and conclusions.

II. RELATED WORK

Moisés Serra [3] shows the design of an OFDM transmitter as a part of an OFDM demonstrator Hiperlan/2 based, Ma.
José Canet [4] shows implementation issues of a digital transmitter for an OFDM based WLAN systems and
benchmarks some optimized VHDL area results against System Generator results, Canet’s work is focused on the
solutions for the OFDM signal generation in base-band and in intermediate frequency (IF). Chris Dick [5] emphasizes
the suitability of high- level design tools when designing sophisticated systems, and the importance to design FPGA
systems rather than ASIC to one day accomplish the SDR “Software Defined Radio” concept and gives a high-level
overview of the FPGA implementation giving some deep to the synchronization, packet detection, preamble correlate
channel estimation and equalization; that is mainly at the OFDM receiver. Ludovico de Souza et al. [6] present a FPGA
implementation capable to support 802.11 wireless modems but just as a validating and prototyping stage for an ASIC.
Joaquin Garcia, Rene Cumplido [7] focuses on the FPGA suitability to support IF processing for the Std. IEEE 802.11a
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 ISSN (Online) 2581-9429
IJARSCT

International Journal of Advanced Research in Science, Communication and Technology (IJARSCT)

International Open-Access, Double-Blind, Peer-Reviewed, Refereed, Multidisciplinary Online Journal
Impact Factor: 7.53 Volume 4, Issue 2, January 2024

and the resource area and timing requirements either for rapid prototyping or to take advantage of re- configurability
in order to be able to support different standards. Y. Awad, L. H. Crockett and R. W. Stewart [8] investigate the
efficient FPGA implementation of an OFDM transceiver design for the IEEE 802.20 physical layer. Paul Guanming
Lin [9] demonstrates the concept and feasibility of an OFDM system, and investigates how its performance is changed
by varying some of its major parameters. This objective is met by developing a MATLAB program to simulate a basic
OFDM system. O. Grigoriadis, H. S. Kamath [8]use a MATLAB simulation of OFDM to see how the BER of a
transmission varies versus the SNR

III. OFDM OVERVIEW & LTE

OFDM is digital modulation scheme used in broadband wireless systems that encounter large delay spreads. OFDM
avoids temporal equalization with the help of a cyclic prefix technique with a small penalty in channel capacity. line
of sight propagation means the transmitter and receiver should be installed such that they are visible to each other.
Wherever Line-of-Sight (LoS) is not achievable then it results in multipath dispersion, which could limit the maximum
data rate. OFDM technology is the best suited to overcome these difficulties, allowing nearly arbitrary data rates on
dispersive channels. [1].

Fig.1 OFDM Subcarriers in Frequency Domain

Each subcarrier can be modulated independently as shown in Fig.3.1 The frequency spectra of the subcarriers overlap,
but the subcarrier signals are mutually orthogonal as shown in Fig. 3.1 [11].orthogonal means phase shift is maintained
in between the signals to avoid interference.

A. Advantages of OFDM
In general, OFDM systems have the following advantages: (i) better usage of t h e spectrum.; (ii) resistant to frequency
selective fading; (iii) Eliminates ISI (Inter-Symbol Interference) and ICI (Inter-Carrier Interference); (iv) can recover
lost symbols due to the frequency selectivity of channels; (v) channel equalization; (vi) computationally efficient [1].

B. Disadvantages of OFDM
OFDM systems have the following disadvantages:
(i) High synchronism accuracy;
(ii) Multipath propagation must be avoided in other orthogonality not be affected, and
(iii) high peak-to-average power ratio.

C. OFDM Transceiver

Fig. 2 OFDM block diagram

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 ISSN (Online) 2581-9429
IJARSCT

International Journal of Advanced Research in Science, Communication and Technology (IJARSCT)

International Open-Access, Double-Blind, Peer-Reviewed, Refereed, Multidisciplinary Online Journal
Impact Factor: 7.53 Volume 4, Issue 2, January 2024

D. OFDM Transmitter
The main components of OFDM transmitter are shown in Fig.3 [8]. The randomizer is used as random bit generator.
The first three blocks are used for data coding and interleaving. The coded bits will be mapped by the constellation
modulator using Gray codification, this way an + jbn values are obtained in the constellation of the modulator. The
serial to parallel converter converts the data bits from the serial form to the parallel form. The Inverse Fast Fourier
Transform (IFFT) transforms the signals from the frequency domain to the time domain; an IFFT converts a number of
complex data points, of length that is power of 2, into the same number of points but in the time domain. The number of
subcarriers determines how many sub-bands the available spectrum is split into [1, 2]. The Cyclic Prefix (CP) is a copy
of the last N samples from the IFFT, which are placed at the beginning of the OFDM frame to overcome ISI problem. It
is important to choose the minimum necessary CP to maximize the efficiency of the system [6].

E. OFDM Receiver
The main blocks of OFDM receiver are observed in Fig.3 [9]. The received signal goes through the cyclic prefix
removal and a serial-to-parallel converter [1]. After that, the signals are passed through an N-point fast Fourier
transform to convert the signal to frequency domain. The output of the FFT is formed from the first M samples of the
output. The demodulation can be made by DFT, or better, by FFT, that is it efficient implementation that can be used
reducing the time of processing and the used hardware [4]. FFT calculates DFT with a great reduction in the amount of
operations, leaving several existent redundancies in the direct calculation of DFT [3-5].

F. OFDM symbols

Fig. 4: OFDM symbol in frequency domain

OFDM symbols can be represented both in time domain as well as frequency domain. It consists of guard band,
subcarriers, etc. guard band is used to separate the subcarriers to avoid interference. In OFDM the guard band is called
the cyclic prefix. A cyclic prefix is a part of the last symbol used.

G. Long Term Evolution(LTE)

LTE is a 4G wireless standard used for mobile phones and data terminals for high speed communication. The
3GPP(third generation partnership project) developed this standard. LTE is employed in both indoor and outdoor
environments. LTE uses OFDM for downlink and SC-FDMA for uplink. LTE uses FDD,TDD and half duplex FDD
duplexing. LTE supports 1.4, 3,5,10,15,20MHz frequencies. The modulation 75Mbps,150 Mbps, 300Mbps etc.

IV. METHODOLOGY
A Modulations used The types of modulations used in both indoor and outdoor environments are PSK and QAM.
In this part the simulation of different OFDM systems with different M- QAM schemes using MATLAB Simulink tools
will be obtained. The effect of different parameters on the simulation of the OFDM system using MATLAB program is
discussed through the following experiments. After that the comparison between these systems will be illustrated and
then we can determine the best one of them.

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 ISSN (Online) 2581-9429
IJARSCT

International Journal of Advanced Research in Science, Communication and Technology (IJARSCT)

International Open-Access, Double-Blind, Peer-Reviewed, Refereed, Multidisciplinary Online Journal
Impact Factor: 7.53 Volume 4, Issue 2, January 2024

V. SIMULATION RESULTS
Indoor (16-QAM) OFDM Symbol Error Rate vs SNR

Symbol error rate

SNR [dB]
Outdoor(16-QAM)

Outdoor 32 QAM

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IJARSCT

International Journal of Advanced Research in Science, Communication and Technology (IJARSCT)

International Open-Access, Double-Blind, Peer-Reviewed, Refereed, Multidisciplinary Online Journal
Impact Factor: 7.53 Volume 4, Issue 2, January 2024

Indoor(16-PSK)

Indoor(32-PSK)

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Impact Factor: 7.53 Volume 4, Issue 2, January 2024

Outdoor(16-PSK)

Outdoor(32-PSK)

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All the above graphs are plotted for SNR Vs Symbol error rate. The signal to noise ratio indicates the signal power to
noise power ratio. More signal power means better efficiency of the system, more noise power indicates less fficiency.

A Experiment-1
The simulation results for the 16-points FFT and 32- points FFT were presented in the above figures for OFDM with
16-QAM, 32-QAM in both LTE indoor and outdoor systems. The result from this experiment is that the more
FFT/IFFT length, the more accurate and more practical use of OFDM system; i.e. more subcarriers can be used as
shown from the spectra of OFDM signals that are observed in the previous figures.
B Experiment-2
The simulation results for the 16-points FFT and 32- points FFT were presented in the above figures for OFDM with
PSK modulation in both indoor and outdoor LTE systems.

VI. CONCLUSION
The simulation results for OFDM system with different M- QAM and PSK schemes have been observed. There were
two experiments for that; in the two experiments the changing of FFT/IFFT length has been studied for LTE indoor and
outdoor systems. After that the comparison between different OFDM systems has been discussed and we get that the
optimum system is the OFDM system with 32-QAM for max SNR and min BER values.

REFERENCES
[1] S. J. Vaughan-Nichols, “OFDM: Back to the Wireless Future,”IEEE Computer, pp. 19–21, vol.35, issue 12, Dec.
2002.
[2] Steepest Ascent Ltd., The DSPedia (www.steepestascent. com), last access Nov. 2011.
[3] M. Serra, J. Ordiex, P. Marti and J. Carrabina, “OFDM Demonstrator: Transmitter” in Proc 7th International
OFDM Workshop 2002, Sep 200.
[4] Ma. J. Canet, F. Vicedo, J. Valls and V. Almenar, “Design of a Digital Front-End Transmitter For OFDM-WLAN
Systems
[5] Using FPGA”, Control, Communications and Signal Processing 2004, First International Symposium on,
pp: 503–506, 2004.
[6] C. Dick and F. Harris, “FPGA Implementation of an OFDM PHY” Signals, Systems and Computers, 2003.
Conference Record of the Thirty-Seventh Asilomar Conference, Vol.1, pp: 905–909, Nov. 2003.

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International Open-Access, Double-Blind, Peer-Reviewed, Refereed, Multidisciplinary Online Journal
Impact Factor: 7.53 Volume 4, Issue 2, January 2024

[7] L. de Souza, P. Ryan, J. Crawford, K. Wong, G. Zyner and T.McDermott, “Rapid Prototyping of 802.11 wireless
modems”, Solid-State Circuits Conference, 2001. Digest of Technical Papers. ISSCC 2001 IEEE International, pp: 339-
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[8] X. Wang, “OFDM and Its Application to 4G,” in 14th Annual

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