Comparative study of 5G waveform

candidates for below 6GHz air interface

Dimitri Kt
enas
R. Gerzaguet & D. Ktenas & N. Cassiau & J-B. Dore
CEA-Leti
01/28/2016

Table of Contents
1. Context and issues
2. Waveforms
2.1 CP-OFDM & SC-FDMA
2.2 Filter bank multicarrier (FBMC)
2.3 Universal Filtered Multicarrier (UFMC)
2.4 Generalized Frequency Division Multiplexing
(GFDM)
3. Comparizon between waveforms
4. Multi-user access scenario
5. Conclusion

5G Context
I

4G massively rolled out but will soon reaches its limits

RAN 5G Workshop 09/15 : New non backward compatible Radio Access

Technology as part of 5G

Aggregation of non contiguous network is considered

I

Sporadic access & MTC

I
I

Spectrum agility : need to study alternative multicarrier waveforms

Strong traffic overhead (fast dormancy)

Massive number of devices : Use relaxed synchronism

Several candidates have been independently introduced in the past few years
I

Classic CP-OFDM shows its limits : Spectral efficiency, frequency leakage, need
of tight synchronisation
We propose a comparative study of 5G waveform candidates for below
6GHz air interface

ETSI presentation

Dimitri Kt
enas

01/28/2016

3 - 16

Context and objectives

Considering several candidates for 5G physical layer
I

Baseline for comparison : OFDM and SC-FDMA

Filter bank multicarrier (FBMC) [3]

Universal Filtered Multicarrier : UFMC (or UF-OFDM) [9]

Generalized Frequency Division Multiplexing (GFDM) [6]

A fair comparison between waveforms in literature is lacking

Considering several metrics for comparison
I

Spectral Efficiency (SE)

Peak To Average Power Ratio (PAPR)

Power spectral Density (PSD)

Also consider the asynchronous multi-user scenario [1, 11]

ETSI presentation

Dimitri Kt
enas

01/28/2016

4 - 16

CP-OFDM & SC-FDMA

Modulated
data
stream
ak

Serial
to
parallel

DFT
& pilot
insertion

IFFT

Parallel
to
Serial

CP
Insertion

Baseband
to RF

Channel

x(n)

modulated
decoded
stream

Parallel
to
serial

IDFT

CHEST
&
Equa.

FFT

Serial
to
Parallel

CP
removal

RF to
baseband

OFDM & SC-FDMA (additional stages in dash) transceiver scheme

I

I
I

Multicarrier modulations, serves as physical layers for 3GPP-LTE or

802.11.a/g/n
Efficient implementation (IFFT/FFT), simple equalization schemes
Spectral efficiency loss due to Cyclic Prefix (CP) insertion to handle
multipath channel
For SC-FDMA : DFT/IDFT precoding stages to reduce PAPR (3GPP-LTE
uplink : DFT-spread OFDM)

ETSI presentation

Dimitri Kt
enas

01/28/2016

5 - 16

Filter bank multicarrier (FBMC)

I

Set of parallel data through bank of modulated filters

Good spectral location,

orthogonality and spectral
efficiency kept with OQAM
modulation

S
/
P

Modulated
data stream

Spreading
Frequency
filtering

OQAM
modulation

IFFT

Overlap
and sum

FBMC Tx stage

Prototype filter in frequency

domain (FS) [2]
I
I

Overlapping factor K
Filter defined in frequency
domain (K=4)
H0 = 1
H1

H2

H3

ETSI presentation

H1 = 0.971960

2
H2 =
2
q
H3 = 1 H12

CP-OFDM (top) and FBMC

(bottom) frames

Dimitri Kt
enas

01/28/2016

6 - 16

Universal Filtered Multicarrier (UFMC)

I

Derivative of OFDM where

a group of subcarriers (RB)
is filtered with a
Dolph-Chebyshev filter with
length L and attenuation
factor [9]
B subbands are generated
and combined

Modulated
data
stream

Modulated
data
stream

Modulated
data
stream

a1k

a2k

aBk

Serial
to
parallel

Filter
F2k with
length L

IDFT
spreader
& PS

x2k
+

Serial
to
parallel

Frequency
Domain
processing
(subcarrier
equ.)

xk

Baseband
to RF

Filter
FBk with
length L

IDFT
spreader
& PS

xBk

Possibility to add a
windowing process on the
Rx side (asynchronous
multi-user scenario)

Filter
F1k with
length L

IDFT
spreader
& PS

x1k

On Rx side, Zero padding is

applied before a 2N FFT

ETSI presentation

Serial
to
parallel

2 NF F T
points
FFT

Channel

Windowing
& Serial
to parallel

RF to
baseband

Zero padding

UFMC transceiver
Dimitri Kt
enas

01/28/2016

7 - 16

Generalized Frequency Division Multiplexing (GFDM)

I

Based on time-frequency
filtering of data blocks of size
P M

Shaping filter : Root Raised

Cosine filter (RRC)

Non orthogonal waveform :

interference in time and
frequency domains

Modulated
data
stream

ak

Reshaping
in block
KM

Time
Frequency
filtering

CP
Insertion
& windowing

Parallel
to
Serial

Baseband
to RF

x(n)
Channel

modulated
decoded
stream

Parallel
to
serial

Rx stage
ZF - MF

Serial
to
Parallel

CP
removal

RF to
baseband

a
k

GFDM transceiver

A CP is added at each
symbols (P subsymbols)

On Rx side, different architectures :

MF, ZF, MMSE [7]

Possibility to add a
windowing process to reduce
the ACL

With MF, need to add Interference

Cancellation (IC) scheme

Parametrized by P, M and
roll-off factor

With ZF, no self-interference but

noise enhancement

ETSI presentation

Dimitri Kt
enas

01/28/2016

8 - 16

Simulation parameters & Spectral Efficiency

Overall parameters
FFT size
NF F T
1024
Bit per Symbol
m
2
Resource block size
NRB
12
1
NRe
3 for User 1
Number of active RBs
2
NRe
9 for User 2
Sampling frequency
Fe
15.36 MHz
OFDM and SC-FDMA parameters
Cyclic prefix
NCP
72 samples
UFMC parameters
Filter length
L
73
Stop band attenuation
40 dB
GFDM parameters
Number of subsymbols
P
15
FFT size
M
1024
Roll Off factor

0.1
FBMC parameters
Spreading factor
K
4
Asynchronous access parameters
Guard carriers
[0, 1, 2, 5]
Timing Offset
[-0.25 :0.25]
Carrier Frequency Offset
0 ; 10%

ETSI presentation

We consider 2 users for

asynchronous multi-user access
scheme [1]
I
I

3 RBs for user 1 (12 carriers)

9 RBs for user 2 (36 carriers)

Same FFT size for all users : 1024

Parameters are based on LTE

10MHz

Length of UFMC filter has been set

to have same Spectral Efficiency for
UFMC and OFDM : L = NCP + 1

Dimitri Kt
enas

01/28/2016

9 - 16

Power Spectral Density

0

Power Spectral Density of waveforms :

OFDM : high ACL due to

sinc in freq. domain
UFMC has lower ACL than
GFDM (circular convolution)

20
Power Spectral density [dBc/Hz]

OFDM
UFMC
FBMC
wGFDM
GFDM

10

30

40

50

60

GFDM with windowing :

Better OOB than GFDM and
comparable to UFMC
Best frequency location is
obtained with FBMC

ETSI presentation

70

80
1

0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

Frequency [MHz]

Power spectral density of waveforms

I

2 users of 3 RBs with 1 RB of guard

carriers to better stress ACL impact

Dimitri Kt
enas

01/28/2016

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Spectral Efficiency
Spectral Efficiency for 5G candidates

Spectral Efficiency for each

waveform [bit/s/Hz]

OF DM =
U F M C =
GF DM =

mNF F T
NF F T +NCP
mNF F T
NF F T +L1
mP M
P M +NCP

1.8
Spectral efficiency [b/s/Hz] for m= 2

1.6

1.4

1.2

0.8
OFDM
FBMC
GFDM
UFMC

0.6

F BM C =

mS
S+K 12

UFMC and OFDM have same

SE
GFDM SE depends on size
block
ETSI presentation

0.4

10

12

14

16

18

20

22

24

26

28

30

Duration of a burst [ms]

Comparaison between SE of waveforms

FBMC SE depends on burst duration : If burst

duration > 3ms, better SE than UFMC and
OFDM
Dimitri Kt
enas

01/28/2016

11 - 16

Peak to Average Ratio

PAPR computed on a 3ms burst :

PAPR for 5G waveforms : Burst = 3 ms

100

We compute
Complementary Cumulative
Density Probability
Function (CCDF)

Low PAPR only obtained

with SC-FDMA

All multicarrier modulations

have a comparable PAPR
(gap around 0.5 dB)

101
CCDF of PAPR

PAPR =

ETSI presentation

OFDM
UFMC
SC-FDMA
FBMC
GFDM

max[|y[k]|2 ]
E[|y[k]|2 ]

102

103

3.5

4.5

5.5

6.5

7.5

8.5

9.5

10

10.5

PAPR [dB]

PAPR measured on 3ms burst

Dimitri Kt
enas

01/28/2016

12 - 16

11

Multi-user access scenario

Comparison in a multi-user asynchronous access scenario between 2 users [1]
I First user is perfectly synchronised and second user interferes with the first
one (due to time delay error and CFO)
I Performance measured in terms of Mean Squared Error (MSE), with different
number of guard carriers (0, 1, 2 and 5)
Frequency
PSD

User 2 : coarse
sync : CFO and
timing offset

User 1 : perfectly sync

User 1

GC

User 2

CFO
Timing Offset
Time

Frequency

Several 5G candidates with specific parametrisation (best case) :

1.
2.
3.
4.

CP-OFDM (SC-FDMA has the same MSE)

UFMC with windowing approach [10]
GFDM with windowing [8] ; with MF receiver and IC [4]
And FBMC

ETSI presentation

Dimitri Kt
enas

01/28/2016

13 - 16

Multi-user access scenario : No CFO

At least one GC inserted :

FBMC has the best
performance : no interference
(Phydyas filter + OQAM
[5]) !

ETSI presentation

20
MSE [dB]

20

40

40

60

60

No GC, Small delay value :

UFMC with windowing has
good performance
wGFDM > wUFMC if at
least one GC

Guard carrier = 1

0.2 0.1

0.1

0.2 0.1

0.2

Time delay error (n/nFFT)

0.1

0.2

Time delay error (n/nFFT)

Guard carrier = 2

Guard carrier = 5

20

20
MSE [dB]

No GC, GFDM with

windowing has better
performance

Guard carrier = 0

MSE [dB]

0 < Delay error NCP : no

interference for OFDM

MSE [dB]

40

60

40

60
0.2 0.1

0.1

0.2

Time delay error (n/nFFT)

0.2 0.1

0.1

0.2

Time delay error (n/nFFT)

OFDM
FBMC
wUFMC
wGFDM

Dimitri Kt
enas

01/28/2016

14 - 16

Multi-user access scenario : 10% CFO

Guard carrier = 0

20
MSE [dB]

MSE [dB]

20

No GC, wGFDM has same

performance as FBMC

40

60

At least one GC inserted :

FBMC has the best
performance : no interference
(Phydyas filter + OQAM) !
ETSI presentation

0.1

0.2 0.1

0.2

Time delay error (n/nFFT)

0.1

0.2

Time delay error (n/nFFT)

Guard carrier = 2

Guard carrier = 5

20

20

40

40

60

60
0.2 0.1

40

60
0.2 0.1

No GC, Small delay value :

UFMC with windowing has
the best performance
wGFDM > wUFMC if at
least one GC is inserted but
impact of CFO

Guard carrier = 1

MSE [dB]

CFO breaks OFDM

orthogonality and lowers
performance for all waveforms

MSE [dB]

0.1

0.2

Time delay error (n/nFFT)

0.2 0.1

0.1

0.2

Time delay error (n/nFFT)

OFDM
FBMC
wUFMC
wGFDM

Dimitri Kt
enas

01/28/2016

15 - 16

Conclusion
Fair comparison for several representative criteria :
CP-OFDM

Spectral Efficiency, PAPR,

PSD comparison

Mean Square Error in

multi-user access scenario

Comparison between 5G waveform candidates that outperform

CP-OFDM :
I

UFMC offers LTE backward

compatibility

GFDM and FBMC go

further
BUT still open questions :
short packet, MIMO, . . .

ETSI presentation

Complexity

SC-FDMA

UFMC

GFDM

Spectral Efficiency
5
4,5
4
3,5
3
2,5
2
1,5
1
0,5
0

FBMC

Spectral Efficiency Short

Packet

MUAC (1 GC)

ACLR

MUAC (no GC)

PAPR

Comparison between waveforms

Dimitri Kt
enas

01/28/2016

16 - 16

References I
[1]

5G-Now. Deliverable D3.2 : 5G waveform candidate selection. Technical report, 5G Now

(5th Generation Non-Orthogonal Waveforms for Asynchronous Signalling), 2015.

[2]

M. Bellanger. FS-FBMC : An alternative scheme for filter bank based multicarrier

transmission. In 5th International Symposium on Communications Control and Signal
Processing (ISCCSP), pages 14, May 2012.

[3]

M. Bellanger and al. FBMC physical layer : a primer, 06 2010.

[4]

R. Datta, N. Michailow, M. Lentmaier, and G. Fettweis. GFDM interference cancellation for

flexible cognitive radio PHY design. In Proc. IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC
Fall), pages 15, Sept 2012.

[5]

J.-B. Dore, V. Berg, N. Cassiau, and D. Ktenas. FBMC receiver for multi-user asynchronous
transmission on fragmented spectrum. EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing,
2014(1) :41, 2014.

[6]

G. Fettweis, M. Krondorf, and S. Bittner. GFDM - generalized frequency division

multiplexing. In Proc. IEEE 69th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC), pages 14, April
2009.

ETSI presentation

Dimitri Kt
enas

01/28/2016

17 - 16

References II
[7]

N. Michailow, S. Krone, M. Lentmaier, and G. Fettweis. Bit error rate performance of

generalized frequency division multiplexing. In Proc. IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference
(VTC Fall), pages 15, Sept 2012.

[8]

N. Michailow, M. Matthe, I. Gaspar, A. Caldevilla, L. Mendes, A. Festag, and G. Fettweis.

Generalized frequency division multiplexing for 5th generation cellular networks. IEEE
Transactions on communications,, 62(9) :30453061, Sept 2014.

[9]

V. Vakilian, T. Wild, F. Schaich, S. ten Brink, and J.-F. Frigon. Universal-filtered

multi-carrier technique for wireless systems beyond LTE. In Proc. IEEE Globecom
Workshops (GC Wkshps), pages 223228, Dec 2013.

[10] T. Wild, F. Schaich, and Y. Chen. 5G air interface design based on universal filtered
(UF-)OFDM. In 19th International Conference on Digital Signal Processing (DSP), pages
699704, Aug 2014.
[11] G. Wunder, P. Jung, M. Kasparick, T. Wild, F. Schaich, Y. Chen, S. Brink, I. Gaspar,
N. Michailow, A. Festag, L. Mendes, N. Cassiau, D. Ktenas, M. Dryjanski, S. Pietrzyk,
B. Eged, P. Vago, and F. Wiedmann. 5GNOW : non-orthogonal, asynchronous waveforms for
future mobile applications. Communications Magazine, IEEE, 52(2) :97105, February 2014.
ETSI presentation

Dimitri Kt
enas

01/28/2016

18 - 16