International conference on Signal Processing, Communication, Power and Embedded System (SCOPES)-2016

Implementation of OFDM and other Multicarrier

Modulations on SDR
Jatinder Pal Singh

Supreet Singh

Department of ECE, Baba Banda Singh Bahadur

Engineering College,Fatehgarh Sahib,Punjab, India
palsingh_j@yahoo.com

Department of ECE, Baba Banda Singh Bahadur

Engineering College, Fatehgarh Sahib, Punjab, India
supreet.e@gmail.com

AbstractOFDM has developed into a popular scheme for

wideband digital communication, used in different applications
such as digital television and audio broadcasting, Internet access,
wireless networks and 4G mobile communications etc. SDR has
become a universal platform for implementing any type of
waveform in software. During the transmission, some data is lost
due to transmission impairments. The loss in the signal can be
detected at the receiver side. We use Universal Software Radio
Peripheral (NI USRP-2920) as SDR to transmit and receive the
OFDM signal. MATLAB and LABVIEW software are used to
design the OFDM to encode the digital data into multicarrier
frequencies. Computer was used to generate and processing of
the signal with the help of MATLAB and LABVIEW software.
We implemented SLM and Clipping & Filtering technique to
reduce PAPR in OFDM of the transmitted signal using SDR.

I. INTRODUCTION
To communicate at long distances and to transmit our
information we use some modulation techniques, hardware
(modulator circuit, signal converter, transmitter, receiver and
antennas etc). There are many real-time problems that occur
during the transmission of the signal due to transmission
impairments.
OFDM is a multi-carrier modulation technique that is
extremely popular in new wireless networks of IEEE standard,
digital TV, audio broadcasting and 4G mobile
communications. The main advantage of OFDM over singlecarrier scheme is its ability to deal with severe channel
conditions without the requirement of difficult equalization
filters. By eliminating the ISI and improving SNR the long
distance communication quality is improved [1]. Conventional
designs of OFDM based cognitive radio systems mainly focus
on the system throughput. Since nowadays the energy
efficiency of wireless systems becomes more and more
important. In [2], authors discuss the energy optimization of
OFDM based cognitive radio systems using water filling aided
search method. There are numerous types of broadband
wireless air interfaces and its variants including single carriers,
orthogonal frequency division Multiple Access (OFDMA).
Others are Wideband Code Division Multiple Access
(WCDMA) a cellular 3G technology and Universal Mobile
Telecommunications System (UMTS) also called cellular 3G.
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) has

become a popular technique for transmission of signals over

radio waves [3]
In modulations, information is mapped on the changes in
frequency, amplitude, phase of a carrier signal. OFDM is a
combination of Multiplexing and Modulation. In [4], authors
discussed the BER analysis of clipping technique of OFDMFDMA signals.
Multiplexing deals with allocation of
available resource or bandwidth. OFDM is a multicarrier
modulation technique, which provides several carriers, within
the allocated bandwidth, to transmit the information from
source to destination. Every carrier may use one of the
numerous existing digital modulation techniques for example
BPSK, QPSK, QAM etc. In many latest and budding
broadband wireless and wire-line communication systems
OFDM is widely adopted because of its capacity to transmit a
high-speed data stream using multiple spectral-overlapped
lower-speed subcarriers. Orthogonal frequency division
multiplexing (OFDM) signals have a generic problem of high
peak to average power ratio (PAPR) which is defined as the
ratio of the peak power to the average power of the OFDM
signal. The drawback of the high PAPR is that the dynamic
range of the power amplifier and digital-to-analog converter
during the transmission and reception of the signal is higher.
As a result, the total cost of the transceiver increases, with
reduced efficiency [5].Software Defined Radio system is a
special type of very flexible radio in which operations and
components, originally implemented using dedicated hardware
are developed in terms of software modules [6].The USRP is
an SDR RF hardware design, that is used to build and test the
digital communication systems. The USRP is generally used
by researchers as a wireless prototype platform and for
teaching purpose. National Instruments has further developed
graphical programming software called LABVIEW, which is
use to design the system platform [7]. SDR employs a
reconfigurable hardware that may be programmed over-the-air
or software to function under different Wireless standards [8].
We focus principally on OFDM transceiver styles due to their
bandwidth scalability and their popularity in many next
generation wireless air interfaces. These concepts are critical
for the adoption of software defined radio in 21st century
broadband wireless networks. [9]. Using the SDR (software

defines radio) we transmit and receive that that signals. SDR

that we use is NI USRP-2920.
II. SDR (SOFTWARE DEFINE RADIO)
Now a days SDR is one of the most working signals
processing method at the transceiver. It is used to create the
variety of wave forms like frequency modulated, phase
modulated and used to perform various functions and we can
also switch between different ranges of frequencies [6]. Using
the SDR, it makes easier to implement all these abilities. We
can also use the SDR as a filter, modulator, mixer and
demodulator etc. With the help of SDR the production cost of
electronics components is reduced. The parameters of SDR
can be modified and reconfigured according to requirement
suited to different applications because it is a software based
platform. A Software Defined Radio (SDR) is a radio which
can tune to any frequency band, transmit and receive different
modulations and different physical parameters across a large
frequency spectrum by using a programmable hardware and
powerful software [10].

IV. ALGORITHM IMPLIMENTED AND RESULTS

During the designing of the system, we design of the
OFDM system in LabVIEW with the help of different
communication blocks and signal processing blocks and
MATLAB coding. Some blocks are available in the LabVIEW
software for the use but, some were designed according to the
need or requirement of the system in MATLAB. The system
was designed along with the transmitter and receiver of the
OFDM system. Figure shows the diagram of the transmitter of
the OFDM system:

III. USRP-2920
We use USRP (Universal Software Radio Peripheral) as a
SDR and the tunable radio frequency range of USRP
transceiver is 50 MHz to 2.2 GHz. There are many advantages
of USRP over commercial and dedicated SDR hardware like
low cost, easy programming easy hardware replacement etc. It
is used as the measuring instrument and connected with
computer via Gigabit Ethernet connectivity cable. The drivers
and software of USRP allows different kind of programming
environment such as MATLAB, C and C++ etc. Signal
processing and syntheses are done in USRP via NI LABVIEW
to develop and explore algorithms. To simulate or process the
live signal NI modulation toolkit and LABVIEW add-ons are
used.

Fig.1.NI USRP-2920 module

We are going to implement on OFDM and other

Multicarrier Modulations schemes by using LABVIEW
software and NI USRP-2920 hardware and software kit. We
will design the whole the system including transmitter and
receiver in LABVIEW software and transmit and receive the
signal using the NI USRP-2920 hardware. We transmit the
signal using RX1 & TX1 terminal of the USRP and receive at
the RX2 terminal of the USRP. Using this technique we will
try to reduce PAPR in OFDM and also monitor the spectrum
of the received signal.

Fig.2. Transmitter of OFDM system with USRP blocks

TABLE I.

PARAMETERS USED AT TRANSMITTER

Parameter at Transmitter
Bandwidth
Carrier frequency
Frame size
Total no. of frame
Subcarriers
Gain at transmitter
Transmission of signal

Value used
5MHz
910MHz
96 bit
100
64
9db
TX1 of USRP

In the front panel diagram of the OFDM system the

outgoing constellation graph of the 16 QAM is shown along
with which the FFT and the phase of the signal are shown. The
waveform graph shows the generated OFDM signal. In the
Tab control the different parameters of the transmitter are
shown. Fig. 3 shows the front panel of the transmitter.
Similarly, the block diagram of the receiver could be draw
according to the system requirements. Fig. 4 shows the block
diagram of the OFDM receiver.
TABLE II.

Parameter at Receiver
Bandwidth
Carrier frequency
Gain
Reception of signal

PARAMETERS USED AT RECEIVER

Value used
5MHz
910MHz
3db
RX2 of USRP

apply the SLM technique to reduce the PAPR. After PAPR

reduction we find the efficiency of the SLM to reduce the
PAPR. Fig. 6 shows the PAPR reduction in OFDM signal.
After the SLM technique we apply the CLIPPED and
FILTER technique to reduce the PAPR in OFDM and find the
efficiency it. Fig. 7 shows PAPR reduction graph by clipped
and filter technique in OFDM.

Fig.3. Front panel of the OFDM transmitter

Fig.6. SLM PAPR reduction technique

Fig.4. Block diagram of OFDM receiver with USRP blocks

In the front panel of the OFDM system receiver we

observed the resulted figures. Fig 5 shows the graph of FFT of
the received signal, theta, phase and the magnitude of the
received input signal with different subcarriers. It also shows
the equalized data and un-equalized data in the received
signal. In the control tab different parameters of the receiver
are shown,

After implementation of the both PAPR reduction

techniques, we compare efficiency of the both techniques. The
efficiency of the clipped and filter technique is more than the
SLM technique. So, according to the results the clipped and
filter technique reduces more PAPR than SLM technique. So
we take the clipped and filter signal for the transmission.

Fig.7. Clipped and Filter PAPR reduction technique

TABLE III.

Fig.5. Front panel of the OFDM

PAPR is one of the major problems in the OFDM

communication system. So we use to different technique to
reduce the PAPR in the OFDM system and compare them.
First we find the PAPR of the normal OFDM signal then we

COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT PAPR REDUCTION TECHNIQUE

Technique used
Normal OFDM
SLM OFDM implemented
Normal OFDM
Clipping and Filtering implemented

PAPR
17.2928
14.7824
15.4856
2.24966

V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE

With the help of SDR kit, the implementation of OFDM
system becomes very simple because it replaces all hardware
that is used in the traditional communication system with
software. The main focus was to implement the OFDM system
in LABVIEW and the PAPR reduction in OFDM system
through NI USRP-2920. We use the combination of the
MATLAB and LABVIEW to implement OFDM through
USRP-2920. From the results, the implementation of OFDM
system in SDR is easy with the help of LABVIEW software
and the MATLAB software. PAPR reduction in OFDM
system was implemented. We use SLM and Clipping and
Filtering methods to reduce the PAPR in OFDM system. In
the SLM method the PAPR reduction efficiency is less than
the Clipping and Filtering method. So we use the Clipping and
Filtering OFDM signal for the transmission.
SDR has a lot of potential for implementing the emerging
wireless applications. A lot of research is being done on the
SDR in different applications to make it available for
commercial use.
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