I Multi-CarrierSpread-Spectrum and Related Topics 1

A Comparison of an OFDM System and a Single Carrier

System Using Frequency Domain Equalization
HARALD
WITSCHNIG,
ALOEKOPPLER, ANDREAS
SPRINGER,
ROBERTWEIGEL
ICE, University of Linz. Altenbergerstral3e69, A4040 Linz, Austria
(h.witschnig.a.koppler,a.springer,r.weigel]@ icie.jku.at
MARIOHUEMER
Infineon Technologies AG, Freistadtersuak 315 ,A4040 Linz, Austria
mario.huemer@fk-hagenbarg.at

Abstract. In this work we compare an OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) system and a SC/FDE
(Single Carrier System with Frequency Domain Equalization) system in terms of their BER performance, channel esti-
mation techniques, bandwidth-efficiency and other design parameters. In both systems an estimation of the channel
transfer function is needed for equalization purposes. Different frequency domain based channel estimation techniques
for both systems are presented and compared. BER-simulations have been performed for channel-coded data in typicd
indoor multipath environments. The parameters of both systems are adapted to the Hiperlad and IEEE 802.1la stan-
dards. It will be pointed out that OFDM shows slight advantages when taking the BER performance into account, while
the SC/FDE system exhibits advantages in terms of signal processing complexity. Finally a combination of OFDM and
SC/FDE is described that exhibits significant advantages.

1 INTRODUCTION Widespread familiarization and trust for Ethernet

The wireless communications market is undergoing a
tremendous growth - consumers are looking to wireless
data transceivers to convey all types of information. From
third generation (3G) cell phones to wireless local area
networks (WLANs), the convergence of voice, data and
video is driving the demand for wireless terminals, capa-
ble of transmitting data farther, faster and more effi-
ciently. WLAN technology, which was originally in-
tended as an alternative to wired networks in offices, is
increasingly being promoted as a way to provide wireless
Internet access in public places. In the WLAN industry,
the past few years have seen a migration from 1 and 2
Mbitk radios to the recent proliferation of 11 Mbitls de-
vices, while future WAN standards (802.1 la and Hiper-
LAND) are set to achieve data rates of up to 54 Mbitls
[I].
The following reasons are seen as W A N market
drivers [2]:
Changes in work practices drive the demand for
more flexible access to corporate computer appli-
cations.
The explosion in demand for laptop, palmtop and
PDA devices.
standard technology.
Facilitated installation of the network equipment
(no wires).
0 Declining price of WLAN hardware.
0 Introduction of 11 Mbitk and even 54 Mbitk
WLANs.
One of the most challenging problems in high data rate
wireless transmission is to overcome the time dispersion
caused by multipath propagation. Mobile radio channels
in indoor or micro cellular environments can exhibit large
relative time dispersions, i.e. intersymbol interference
(ISI) smears each individual data symbol over several
subsequent symbols. The root mean square (RMS) delay
spread of indoor multipath channels can range from 20-
5011sin small home and office. environments, to 50- lOOns
in large office buildings and 100-200ns in factory envi-
ronments 131. The solution to the IS1 problem in single
camer systems is the use of an equalizer. The common
problem with conventional time domain equalizer struc-
tures is the fact that the computational complexity grows
at least quadratically with the bit rate [4].

Vol. 13. No. 5, September-October 7002 519

H. Witschnig, M. Huerner, A. Koppler, A. Springer, R. Weigel
A completely different approach to overcome the prob-
lems of time dispersion is the use of OFDM [51- [9].In
OFDM systems IS1 is eliminated almost completely by
introducing a guard time between consecutive symbols
while inter camer interference (ICI) is impeded by
choosing the subcarriers to be orthogonal. Equalization
reduces to simple complex multiplication operations in the
frequency domain. The equalization complexity of the
FFI' based OFDM concept grows slightly faster than line-
arly with the bit rate. Consequently, in terms of complex-
ity, OFDM is more attractive than conventional single
carrier systems if the bandwidth-delay-spread-product ex-
ceeds a certain value.
A promising but compared to conventional techniques
rarely investigated solution for broadband communication
systems is the concept of single carrier transmission with
frequency domain equalization (SCFDE) [ 101- [ 171. This
approach combines the properties of OFDM and single
carrier transmission advantageously. SC/FDE shows
strong analogies to OFDM where equalization is also
performed in the frequency domain. Similar to OFDM,
the pmposed SCmlE system makes use of efficient FFT
operations, the transmission is canied out blockwise, and
a cyclic extension (guard interval) is added to the individ-
ual blocks in order to mitigate interblock interference.
Due to the use of FFT operations the receiver complexity
is kept significantly below the complexity of conventional
single carrier systems with time domain equalizer struc-
tures and due to the use of single carrier modulation
schemes the constraints on the transceiver's analog com-
ponents are more relaxed compared to OFDM systems.
While most of the research in recent years has been fo-
cused on OFDM with respect to WLAN systems, different
proposals have subsequently &en made for SCEDE, es-
pecially in the IEEE 802.16 Wireless MAN (Metropolitan
Area Network) standardization process.
The paper is organized as follows: In the next section
we give a short overview of the baseband signal process-
ing of an OFDM system. In Section 3 we introduce the
Figure 1: Baseband block diagram afthe simiilated OFDM system.
530
SC/FDE concept and describe one particular FDE imple-
mentation structure. Next we compare channel estimation
concepts for OFDM and SCFDE. Finally, we present our
simulation results and compare both systems in terms of
their BER performance, bandwidth efficiency and signal
processing constraints. Furthermore, we discuss an ad-
vantageous combination of OFDM and SCIFDE, which
has been considered during the IEEE 802.16 standardiza-
tion process.
2 OFDM
We briefly review the main physical layer (PHY) pa-
rameters and baseband processing steps of a Hiperlad2 or
IEEE 802.1 la-like OFDM system [8]. [9].
Figure 1 shows the main baseband processing steps of
the investigated system. In the transmitter path the binary
input data are first scrambled (to ensure a small peak-to-
average power ratio) and encoded by using the industry
standard rate 1/2, constraint length 7 convolutional en-
coder with generator polynomials (133, 171). By punc-
turing the rate 1/2 code, coding rates of 314, 2J3 and 9/16
may also be achieved. An efficient coding scheme is a
crucial requirement for OFDM since data symbols corre-
sponding to carriers located in a region with deep spectral
fades would otherwise be unreliable.
After frequency domain interleaving, which ensures that
adjacent coded bits are modulated on non-adjacent sub-
carriers, the binary values are converted to QAM values.
The PHY layer offers different subcarrier modulation
schemes and different coding rates, such that different
data rates from 6 Mbitfs up to 54 Mbit/s can be provided.
To facilitate coherent reception, four pilot values are
added to each 48 data values, which yields a total of 52
QAM values per OFDM symbol. The raw OFDM symbol
duration is 3.2 ys.
 A Comparison of an OFDM System and a Single Camer System Using Frequency Domain Equalization
Figure 2: Baseband block diagram of the simulated SC/FDE system.
The heart of the OFDM system is the IFFTFFT sec-
tion - the 64-point IEFT/FFT algorithms perform the
modulation and demodulation. In the transmitter the IFFT
modulates a block of 52 QAM values onto 52 subcamers.
The DC subcanier and the subcarriers at the band edges
are not used for data transmission. To make the system
robust against multipath propagation, the cyclic prefix is
added. It is essential that the duration of the guard interval
is longer than the duration of the channel impulse re-
sponse. The guard interval of length 80011s ensures ro-
bustness to delay spreads up to 25011s. To attain a narrow
output spectrum, time domain windowing or digital fil-
tering can be applied. Finally, the digital output signals
are converted to analog signals, which are up-converted to
the 5 GHz band.
In the receiver path, after passing the RF part and the
analog-to-digital conversion, time and frequency synchro-
nization is performed before starting the demodulation of
the OFDM symbols. For each symbol the cyclic prefix is
removed, and an EFT is used to demodulate all subcarri-
ers. The output of the FFT contains 48 distorted data val-
ues that are equalized by 48 complex multiplications. The
pilot subcarriers are used to correct the remaining phase
drift. The equalized QAM values are then demapped onto
binary values and deinterleaved. Finally, decoding by a
Viterbi decoder and descrambling produces the binary
output data.
3 SC/FDE
We will now give a short introduction to the simulated
SCFDE system. Figure 2 shows the block diagram of the
simulated system, that is comparable to OFDM in general,
but different in detail. The SC/FDE signal processing
starts with encoding the binary input data using the same
encoder as used in the OFDM standards. After coding the
binary data are converted to QAM values and a guard pe-
nod is added between successive blocks. The insertion of
a guard period anticipates the blockwise processing
Vol. 13. No. 5 . September-October 2002
needed in the receiver when using FFT operations. The
use of a guard period and the blockwise transmission was
proposed in [lo] for the first time. In order to mitigate in-
terblock interference the duration TC of the guard interval
has to be longer than the duration Tl1of the channel im-
pulse response h(r).
Figure 3 shows the structure of one transmitted block
which consists of the original sequence of N symbols with
duration T F ~ = N and
T the cyclic extension with duration
TG.
After pulseshaping (Root Raised Cosine Pulses) and
digital-to-analog conversion the resulting VQ signals are
up-converted to the 5 GHz band.
I
Figure 3: Transmitted block of the SC/FDE system.
In the receiver path, after passing the RF part and the
analog-to-digital conversion, time and frequency synchro-
nization is performed first. For each symbol the cyclic
prefix has to be removed before the equalization can be
performed. The task of the frequency domain equalizer is
to eliminate intersymbol interference within the individual
blocks. The equalized QAM values are then demapped
onto soft bipolar values and decoded by a Viterbi decoder.
Although the placement of the IFFT operation seems to be
the only difference between OFDM and SCFDE, it is es-
sential to gain some insight into the block “Frequency
Domain Equalization”. Due to the cyclic extension of the
transmitted blocks, the convolution of one cyclically ex-
tended transmitted block and the channel impulse re-
52 1
H. Witschnig, M. Huemer, A. Koppler, A. Springer. R. Weigel
sponse h(!) can be calculated by a circular convolution
corresponding to the frequency domain relation
R(nfo)= H(nfo)S(nfo)+ N(nf0) (1)
~ . the functions Rff), Scf) and
for neZ and f o = l f l ~ Here
H m are related to the time domain signals r(t) (one period
of the received data block), s(t) (the original, non cycli-
cally extended block) and h(t) by the continuous Fourier
transform. Ncf) is the Fourier transform of the additive
noise. This relationship enables the implementation of an
optimal linear receiver as shown in figure 4 [4]. The fol-
lowing signal processing steps have to be performed:
3.1 MATCHED FILTERING
In the case of root raised cosine transmit pulse shap-
ing, sampling with twice the symbol rate enables optimal
digital matched filtering. A 2N-point FFT transforms the
2N samples r(m)=[r(f)],.mTn (m=O, ..., 2 N - I ) of the re-
ceived data block into the frequency domain. It is indi-
cated in figure 4 that the channel estimate, which will be
the topic of the next chapter, is not only used to determine
the equalizer transfer function but also to implement the
optimum matched filter in the frequency domain. There-
fore, this matched filter is not only matched to the trans-
mitted pulse shape but also to the channel itself and can be
written as
In this equation K denotes a real constant,
Cg’2(nfo)denotes the discrete time Fourier transform of
the transmitted pulse shape, HL!e:,(nfO) describes the es-
timated channel transfer Function, and the superscript ”*”
denotes the complex conjugate. Here the subscript D indi-
cates that the frequency domain function arises from the
Fourier transform of a discrete-time sequence, and the su-
perscript m indicates the particular underlying sampling
rate. The implementation of a matched filter that is also
matched to channel transfer function shows two signifi-
cant advantages.
a) In comparison to the suboptimal matched filter, that
suffers from a matching loss as soon as the channel
Figure 4: Low cornplcsiry implernentntion scheme of o frequency domain eqiicili:er.
is frequency selective, an improvement of the BER
behavior of up to 2 dB in terms of E$No can be
reached. The reached gain depends strongly on the
channel transfer function.
b) When applying a suboptimal matched filter the sys-
tem performance is highly sensitive to the choice of
the sampling phase For systems with excess band-
width B>I/T [18], since the term exp(-j27&rO) is not
compensated for by the filter. As a consequence the
sampling rate reduction (see. (4)) may result in de-
structive aliasing in the fold-over-region around
I=I/(2T).
The output signal of the matched filter, denoted by
XL”(nf0), is determined by
= R L / * ( ~ J I ~ ) G @ ~ ( ~ J I ~ )(3)
x Y 2w0) ~
n = O ...2N-1
3.2 TIME DOMAIN SAMPLING RATE REDUCTION
DESCRIBED IN THE FREQUENCY DOMAIN
The time domain sampling rate reduction implemented
in the frequency domain is performed by N complex addi-
tions in the following way:
(4)
n = O...N - 1
3.3 EQUALIZATION
N complex multiplications are needed for the equali-
zation
Y b (nfo) = xb (nfo)EL (nfo1, n =0.. N - 1. (5)
Two types of linear equalizers are commonly used: The
ZF (Zero Forcing) equalizer is designed to satisfy the
zero-IS1 constraint and is given by
 A Comparison of an OFDM System and a Single Camer System Using Frequency Domain Equalization
where
(7)
Q3(nfo) describes the overall T-spaced transfer function
including transmit pulse shaping, complex valued base-
band channel, receive filter and matched filtering. One has
to note, that the use of a ZF equalizer may result in sig-
nificant noise enhancement. If Q$(nfo) has very deep
spectral fades, the noise introduced by a ZF equalizer is
very high (and can even tend to infinity).
MMSE (Minimum Mean Square Error) equalizers
avoid the problem of infinite noise enhancement by com-
promising noise amplification and IS1 reduction. The
MMSE equalizer frequency response is given by [4]
The additive term in the denominator of Equation
(9) protects against infinite noise enhancement.
0,"describes the variance of the uncorrelated data se-
quence and @ ~ , , , ( n f O )denotes the power spectral den-
sity of the colored (due to the matched filtering) equalizer
input noise sequence.
After going back to the time domain, a memoryless
detector, which processes the corresponding time domain
sequence, y(k) 0 -*YA(f), concludes the frequency do-
main equalization.
4 CHANNEL
ESTIMATION
4.1 CHANNEL ESTIMATION FOR O m M
4.1.1 Channel estimation using training symbols
The digital signal processing of every burst starts with
Figlire 5: IEEE 802.I la. prrcimble.
Vol. 13, No. 5 . September-October3-00?
a training phase wherein symbol timing, frequency offset
and channel estimation are derived using the pilot sym-
bols provided by the preamble [3], [8], 191. The preamble
of the IEEE 802.1 la burst is shown in figure 5. It is com-
posed of two sections. Section 1 consists of a repetition of
ten identical short training symbols t, to C,, . Each short
training symbol has a length of 800ns. This part of the
preamble is dedicated to frame synchronization, AGC
(Automatic Gain Control), coarse timing synchronization,
and coarse frequency synchronization. Section 2 consists
of two identical dFDM symbols sl,,ilorand S2pi/or of normal
length 3.2 ps, preceded by a guard interval of length 1.6
p s . The two long symbols should be used for fine fre-
quency synchronization and initial channel estimation.
Note that the guard interval preceding the long training
symbols is twice as Iong as the guard interval of normal
OFDM data symbols. This guarantees IS1 free channel
estimation even for channel impulse responses which are
longer than the normal guard interval.
Each subcarrier of the irhreceived symbol is only distorted
by amplitude and phase e m r s caused by the multipath
channel as long as the mutual orthogonality between sub-
camers is guaranteed. We can denote the nrhdata symbol
of the i"' received OFDM symbol as [3]
rn,i = sn,i * H ( n f o )+ nn,i =
IH
= (nfo )In.i
. ., j Q ( n f o )
' + "n,i * (10)
n = 1, ...,52
In this equation s,{.idescribes the transmitted data symbol,
Hlnfo) designates the channel transfer function and n,,,,
represents the additive noise. Here we assume the channel
transfer function to be time invariant for the duration of
one burst. Dividing the distorted received pilot symbol by
the transmitted values, we find a noisy estimate of the
channel transfer function, i.e. the amplitude and phase er-
ror for each subcarrier.
Once the channel transfer function is known, the equali-
zation can easily be carried out by a complex multiplica-
tion of each data subcarrier value with the inverse of the
H. Witschnig, M. Huemer, A. Koppler, A. Springer, R. Weigel
estimated channel transfer function.
The additive term due to noise leads to a significant dete-
rioration of the BER behavior and makes an additional
noise reduction necessary. The IEEE 802.11a and the
Hiperlad2 standard already supports noise reduction by
providing two identical pilot symbols dedicated for chan-
nei estimation [8],[9] (see Figure 5). The noise power can
be reduced by 3 dB by averaging over the two symbols.
The noise-reduced channel estimate in the frequency do-
main is simply
Note that the pilot symbols used in the BEE 802.1 1 and
Hiperlad2 standards show an optimized time domain
peak-to-average power ratio.
4.1.2 A-priori knowledge of the channel impulse re-
sponse
Further noise reduction and improvement of the BER
behavior can be reached by taking advantage of the sys-
tem specification. The guard interval is chosen in such a
way that its duration is longer than the channel impulse
response T,,cTG.If we start with a coarse channel estirna-
tion in the frequency domain, as described above, then the
duration of the time domain impulse response of the esti-
mated channel exceeds the guard time significantly. The
a-priory knowledge T, > T,, allows further noise reduction
by simple time domain windowing as shown in figure 6 .
By setting ail sampling values for t>TG to zero, as these
non-zero samples are considered to be caused by noise
only, a significant noise reduction is achieved.
Figure 6: Signal windowing in the time domain.
However, additional Fourier transformations have to
be performed.
The problem with OFDM is the fact that for this time
domain windowing a 64-point lFFT is needed but only 52
values (subcamers) are given and reasonable extrapola-
tion is not applicable. A solution to this problem can be
found in f19],[20]. The principle to overcome this prob-
lem is to use the channel coefficients h,, in the time do-
main that are expected to be zero for t>TG.The IDFT (In-
verse Discrete Fourier Transformation) can be computed
as follows
h indicates the subvector in the time domain that contains
the channel impulse response and h,, contains the zeros
or pure noise for t>TG.The subvector Hk indicates the ac-
cessible coefficients of the channel in the frequency do-
main and H. includes the unknown channel coeficients.
The IDFT submatrices W , / , W12, W,, and W ~contain
Z all
twiddle factors
in a rearranged way. Using (13). the unknown
transfer factors can be calculated as Foflows
Using this information the unknown channel coefficients
are calculated.
H , =-W& . W,,. Hk (16)
W& indicates a modified pseudo inverse of W22. The
transformation to the time domain (IFFT) is now camed
out by
h = ( W l ~-w12 .w& -W2[)*Hk. (17)
Performing the time domain windowing ( hzrm = 6 ) and
going back to the frequency domain is determined by
Finally, the noise reduced subcartier coefficients H,,, are
computed by
H,,,=[V,H .w,
-K .WLW?,>
I 14
(19)
=W,.Hk
This matrix multiplication has to be applied instead of
the steps IFFT, time domain windowing and FFT.There-
fore, extra (hardware) blocks have to be designed for the
generation of Wu and for the realization of the matrix op-
eration, although this matrix multiplication has to be per-
formed only once, if only an initial channel estimation is
carried out. Unfortunately the IFFT/FFT blocks cannot be
reused. In the next section we will point out that the situa-
tion is different for the SCFDE system. Here, the proce-
dure shown in Figure 6 can be applied straight forward.
4.2 CHANNEL ESTIMATION FOR SC/FDE
4.2.I Channel estimation using training symbols
Channel estimation methods for SC/FDE are compa-
rable to the methods developed for OFDM. In the receiver
 A Comparison of an OFDM System and a Single Carrier System Using Frequency Domain Equalization

the pilot symbol is known by its frequency domain sam-
ples s;,';,,,,(nfo) n=O,...,2N-1, where N defines the num-
ber of symbols per FIT-block. By dividing the received
pilot symbol, given in the frequency domain as
by the transmitted one, we find the estimate of the channel
transfer function
duction is achieved when carrying out an additional time
domain windowing after the coarse channel estimation in
the frequency domain. For the SC/FDE system noise re-
duction due to time domain windowing can be imple-
mented as it is shown in Figure 6 without any further cal-
culations. As a consequence, no additional hardware is
needed since the IFFT/FFT sections, originally imple-
mented for equalization purposes, may be reused for the
improved channel estimation. It will be shown in the next
chapter that for this improved channel estimation tech-
niques both systems exhibit comparable BER perform-
ance but the implementation effort is reduced significantly
for the SC/FDE system.

Again the additive term due to noise in (21) leads to a

significant degradation of the channel estimate and makes
further investigations necessary.
As stated in [12] signals with a constant envelope in the
time domain and constant amplitude over the system
bandwidth, e.g. like chirp signals, fit best for the applica-
tion of channel estimation.
For the investigated system we use two chirp signals
within on pilot symbol of duration T w . The reason for
using two chirp signals is that due to the periodicity of the
signal, its Fourier transform at frequency points nfo with n Figure 7: Pilot symbolfor SUFDE.
being odd are equal to zero in the ideal, noise-free case.
With noise being present these points nfo are non-zero due
to pure noise. This fact can be used advantageously to 5 COMPARISON OF OFDM AND S O E
calculate the variance onzof the noise and precisely de-
termine the additive term cPb,",,/a; in the MMSE 5.1 SIMULATION RESULTS
equalizer. This approach makes interpolation for n being
odd necessary to calculate the channel transfer function. 5.I. 1 Simniation parameters
The used pilot symbol is described by the following
equation Table I : Main physical layer parameters of the simulated
OFDM system and comparable parameters of the investigated
SC/FDE concept.
OFDM SC/FDE
In (22) p describes the chirprate that is defined by Information data rate [Mbps] 12, 18 12, 18
p = B / ( T ~ f i ) .B defines the symbol bandwidth. Subcarrier (symbol) QPSK QPSK
modulation scheme
4.2.2 Channel estimation with noise reduction
The bit enror behavior is improved by using two iden-
I Coding rates I %,% 1 Yz,% I
tical pilot symbols of duration Tm as foreseen in the Number of data symbols per 48 64
IEEE 802.11a and HIPERLAW2 standards. The im- block Ndnm
provement due to noise reduction is simply based on aver- Number of pilot symbols per 4
aging. Figure 7 shows the channel estimator used for the block Ntm,~
SC/FDE, which is conform with the standards.
Block duration [ps] 4 5.33
4.2.3 A-priori-knowledge of the channel impulse re- TFFT [PSI 3.2 4.49
sponse
TG [nsl 800 842
The a-priori knowledge of the duration of the channel
impulse response can be used for noise reduction in the I Roll off factor I - I 0.25 I
same way as for OFDM systems. A significant noise re-

Vol. 13. No. 5 . September-October 1-00? 525

H.Witschnig, M. Huemer, A. Koppler, A. Springer, R. Weigel
The parameters (Table 1) of the simulated SCFDE
system have been adapted to the harmonized HiperlanR
and IEEE 802.1 la OFDM based standards. Note that the
parameters of the SClFDE system have been chosen in
such a way that both systems operate at the same symbol
rate and both systems can handle similar channel delay
spreads. Bit error rate simulations of the investigated sys-
tems have been performed for AWGN as well as for in-
door multipath conditions. The indoor radio channel im-
pulse response h has been modeled as tapped delay line,
each tap with random uniformly distributed phase and
Rayleigh distributed magnitude and with the power delay
profile decaying exponentially. (The same model has been
used during the W E 802.1la standardization process.)
Here A T is the multipath resolution time, ZRMS is
the channel delay spread, and N(0, IRq') is a zero mean
Gaussian random variable with variance In 0,' chosen
such that the condition ckp=;okz = 1 is satisfied to en-
sure constant average received power. In our simulations
the number of multipath echos has been chosen to
P=IOTRM~AT. with At=35ns (which corresponds to the
simulation sampling time of the investigated single carrier
system). The channel is assumed to be static throughout a
burst. 20 indoor radio channel snapshots, each with a de-
lay spread of zRM5=IOOns, have been randomly generated
and stored with the model described above. The BER be-
havior of the two systems has been simulated and aver-
aged over these 20 channels.
5.1.2 B E R behavior in the AWGN channel for ideal
channel estimation
Figure 8 shows the bit error ratios of the two systems
versus EJN0 in the AWGN channel for information data
rates of 12 Mbitfs and 18 Mbitfs, respectively. For the 12
Mbitls mode the coding rate r = % has been used, for the
18 Mbit/s mode the coding rate was r = % (which is ob-
tained by puncturing the rate M mother code output). The
results have been produced by assuming perfect channel
estimation.
For both data rates the SC/FDE system performs about
0.5 dB better than the OFDM system. However, this is not
a real performance gain of the single carrier system, but
appears due to the choice of the simulation parameters:
5 26
One cyclically extended OFDM block contains more re
dundancy than one cyclically extended block of tht
SC/FDE system:
The SC/FDE system has been simulated withou
pilot symbols within the data blocks, while tht
OFDM system uses four pilot subcarriers per block
for synchronization purposes.
T ~ /( T FFT + T Gis) somewhat higher for the
S O E system.
Since the focus of this paper is on channel estimation,
no dedicated pilot symbols (except the preamble symbols)
for synchronization purposes have been introduced in the
single carrier system. We want to point out that any form
of further pilot symbols (which will be necessary in any
real implementation) will decrease the bit error perfonn-
ance of the SCFDE system, so that finally both systems
will show almost identical BER behavior in the AWGN
channel.
0
SUFOE 12 MbiVs
OFDU: 12MbVs
1 . SUFDE 16MtiUs
OFOW 18 MbVs
.2
-3
W
m
'Sr
-5
6
Figure 8: BERgerfonnance of the investigated OFDM-and
SUFDE systems in the A WGN channel.
5.1.3 Performance of the investigated channel estima-
tors
We measured the performance of the investigated
channel estimators in the AWGN channel and in a mul-
tipath environment. In both cases we used the 12 Mbith
mode for comparison. Figure 9 and Figure 10 show the bit
error ratios for the different channel estimation imple-
mentations in the AWGN channel.for the SClFDE system
and the OFDM system. respectively. In Table 2 we surn-
marized the implementation loss of the individual channel
estimators with respect to an ideal channel estimation at a
bit error rate of l o 5 .
For both systems we find that compared to the simple
estimator using one pilot symbol (CE 1) the implementa-
tion loss decreases significantly by averaging over two
E'IT
 A Comparison of an OFDM System and a Single Camer System Using Frequency Domain Equalization

pilot (CE 2)‘ A further significant improvement
can be achieved by time domain windowing (CE 3) using
the a-priory knowledge about the channel impulse re-
sponse duration. For CE 1 and CE 2 the performance loss
of the single carrier system is much higher than for the
OFDM system. For CE 3 the implementation loss of the
two systems only differs by 0.35 dB. In a multipath envi-
ronment we only simulated the performance of CE 3. The
BER behavior of the two systems has been simulated and
averaged over the 20 randomly generated channels. At a
bit error rate of 10’’ we measured an implementation loss
(with respect to an ideal channel estimation) of 0.85 dB
for the OFDM system, and an implementation loss of 0.95
dB for the SCEDE system.
0 . . .. - ..
-. - .. . .
r - - _-
. .
1 .
Table 2: Implementation loss of the differentchannel estimators
at a bit error rate of iO-’,respectively.
5.0 dB
5.1.4 BER pe f o m n c e in indoor multipath environ-
ment
Figure 11 shows the bit error ratios versus mean Eg’7Vo
for both systems in a typical indoor multipath environ-
ment. The BER behavior of the two systems has been
. . ... ,. .. -
simulated and averaged over 20 randomly generated in-
SUFDE. idul CE
* SUFDE.CE1 door multipath channels, each channel with a delay spread
SUFOE CEZ of 100ns. For all simulations CE 3 has been used for
SUFDE.CE3

-2 . channel estimation. As published for example in [20],the

OFDM system performs slightly better, when the coding
rate r = ‘/2 is used. For the coding rate r = % the SCEDE
i
z
3- -3 system performs significantly better than the OFDM sys-
p
tem. We found that for r = % the OFDM system showed a
-4 strong BER saturation behavior for three out of the 20
channels. This was not the case for the rate !h OFDM
-5
mode and for both S W D E modes. As a result the aver-
aged BER performance of the rate % OFDM mode only
increases slowly with increasing bit energy.
-6
0 1 2 3 4 5 8 7 8 9 10 11
wi
~4% 0
z -_ . SUFDE: r = 1/2 (12 MbiVs)
OFW: r = 1/2(12 MbiVs)
Figure 9: SC/FDE: Performance of the investigated channel
estimators. CE I: channel estimation without noise reduction,
1
<

- .
.
. SCIFOE: r = 3’4 (I8 MbiVs)
OFOM: r D Y4 (18 MbiVr)
CE 2: channel estimation with noise reduction due to averaging I .

over two symbols, CE 3: noise reduced channel estimation due -2 - 1

to averaging and time domain windowing.

0
. .
OFW. ideal CE
I .

4
t o m . CE1
o m : CEZ ‘ .
OFDM: CE3
5
I .
-2
I

a
3- -3’
2

4!
Figure 11: BER simulation results of the investigated OFDM-
and SC/FDE systems for coding rate r = % (12 Mbit/s mode)
-5 and r = % (18 Mbit/s mode).

4 L - Since the data decisions in OFDM are independently

o 1 z 3 4 5 8 7 a 9 10 11
Ed% Wl made on different carriers, the BER behavior of uncoded
Figure 10: OFDM: Performance of the investigated channel OFDM is dominated by subcarriers, which are located in a
estimators. CE I : channel estimation without noise reduction, region with deep spectral fades in the channel transfer
CE 2: channels estimation with noise reduction due to averag- function. For the simulated environment the rate ‘/t code
ing over two symbols, CE 3: noise reduced channel estimntion proves to be strong enough to the of
due to averaging and time domain windowing.
uncoded OFDM. while the rate % code does not.

Vol. 13, No. 5, September-October 7002 527

H. Witschnig, M. Huemer, A. Koppler, A. Springer, R. Weigel
In single camer systems the energy of each bit is
spread over the whole channel bandwidth, so the average
SNR of the channel dictates the bit error rate performance.
Therefore, the BER saturation behavior observed in un-
coded or inefficiently coded OFDM systems is not typical
for single carrier systems.
5.2 BANDWIDTH
EFFICENCY
Due to the increasing bandwidth demand for any
communication system, it is essential to compare different
systems by means of their bandwidth efficiency. For
OFDM the parameters as defined by the standard are used
(number of total subcamers: 52, number of pilots: 4,
guard Time: 800ns, FFT integration time: 3 . 2 p , number
of bidsymbol: M=2). The ideal bandwidth efficiency of
q=2 [bit/s/€Iz] for a QPSK system is reduced due to the
use of the guard period on the one hand and due to the use
of pilot symbols on the other hand. For the OFDM stan-
dard, the bandwidth efficiency is approximately given by
Bitrate -
'*'DM = Bandwidth-
where the system bandwidth has been approximated by B
= N m t & ~ ~It . is essential to mention that for this calcu-
lation the reduction of the bandwidth efficiency due to
coding has not been taken into account as long it is the
same for both systems.
Compared to OFDM, the bandwidth efficiency of the
SC/FDE system is additionally dependent on the roll-off
factor. For the simulations a roll-off factor of 0.25 has
been chosen. To make the systems comparable, the sym-
bol rate is the same for both systems. As a result the dura-
tion of the FFT window is approximately 4.49 ps and the
guard time is ca. S42ns.
Again, both systems have a comparable bandwidth effi-
ciency.
5.3 RF RELATED ISSUES
The development of an F S chipset for 5 GHz WLANs
is a rcal challenge. Maybe the most critical RF p u t for
OFDM is the power amplifier. The transmit signal enve-
lope of the investigated system shows a high peak-to-
average power ratio. This is a problem when i t comes to
the use of non-linear power amplifiers. The major prob-
lem caused by non-linear amplification is the generation
of out-of-band emission. But further filtering after power
s2x
amplification is undesired, because filters that can cope
with high power are too expensive for the aspired solu-
tions. Furthermore non-linear amplification causes in-
band-distortions, which decreases the bit error perform-
ance. As a consequence, the power amplifier must be op-
erated with significant back off, which means, that the
power efficiency of the device decreases. In comparison
to OFDM, for the SC/FDE concept the demands on the
power amplifier are reduced significantly. The peak-to-
average power ratio is defined by the modulation scheme.
A small peak-to-average power ratio enables the use of a
less cost intensive power amplifier.
Another challenge is the development of appropriate
PLLs (Phase Locked Loops), since OFDM is known to be
very sensitive regarding phase noise. This very high sen-
sitivity concerning phase noise is at least reduced for the
S O E system [151.
There is a strong trend 'in RF solutions for wireless
communication systems for the direct conversion archi-
tecture, since costly IF filters (for example surface acous-
tic wave devices which cannot be integrated) can be saved
in that concept. One problem of direct conversion solu-
tions is the I/Q-imbalance mainly caused by the analog
I/Q (de)modulators.Since 802.1 la and Hiperlad2 provide
IBQAM and 64QAM modulation schemes, which are
very sensitive regarding I/Q imbalance, it is likely that the
first generation RF architectures will be based either on
conventional IF or low IF approaches. Nevertheless, di-
rect conversion will be targeted too.
COMBINATION OF OFDM
6 ADVANTAGEOUS
AND SC/FDE
Referring to Figure 1 and Figure 2 it is obvious that
the two types of systems differ mainly in the placement of
the IFFT. While OFDM uses the IFFT in the transmitter
to multiplex the information onto subcarriers, the SC/FDE
system uses the IFFI' in the receiver to convert the equal-
ized data back to the time domain. Although the overall
signal processing complexity is comparable for both sys-
tems, one can take advantage of the different placement of
the IFET by combining OFDM and SCRDE. As depicted
in [23], a dual mode system, using OFDM for the down-
link and SCRDE for the uplink, would have significant
advantages for the mobile station (subscriber end). These
advantages can be described as follows:
It was stated that OFDM exhibits a high peak-to-
average power ratio that forces the amplifier to be
operated with a significant back off, which de-
creases the power efficiency, while the peak-to-
average power ratio depends only on the modula-
tion scheme for SCIFDE. This leads to a higher ef-
ficiency in terms of power consumption due to the
reduced power backoff requirement. which is im-
portant for a long battery life in the mobile station.
ETT
 A Comparison of an OEDM System and a Single Carrier System Using Frequency Domain Equalization
The signal processing complexity is concentrated
at the base station (three fourier transformations at
the base station versus one fourier transformation
at the mobile station).
7 CONCLUSION
In this work we presented a detailed comparison be-
tween OFDM and SC/FDE. It has been shown that the
adoption of techniques initially associated with OFDM,
like the guard interval or frequency domain equalization,
by conventional single camer systems can boost the latter
to make it equivalent to OFDM in principle and even out-
perform it in some points. Relying on similar PHY pa-
rameters (modulation scheme, coding, symbol rate, band-
width efficiency, channel delay spread resistance, etc.),
both systems attain comparable BER performance for
ideal assumptions.
For transmission over multipath channels initial channel
estimation is crucial for both systems. We presented dif-
ferent channel estimation techniques which allow OFDM
as well as SC/FDE to perform near the boundary of ideal
channel knowledge. It has been presented that OFDM
shows slight advantages when taking the BER perform-
ance into account, while the SC/FDE system exhibits ad-
vantages in terms of signal processing complexity. Con-
cerning the transmitter and receiver concepts of both sys-
tems it can be said that for a comparable delay spread re-
sistance, bandwidth efficiency and BER performance, the
analog system front end requirements (power amplifier)
are much more relaxed for the SC/FDE system. When
taking into account future investigations of mobile com-
munication systems, a combination of OFDM and
SCFDE shows significant advantages. A dual mode sys-
tem exhibits advantages for the mobile station in terms of
power consumption and signal processing complexity.
Figure 12: Coinbindun u j OFDM anti SC/FDE.
Vol. 13, No. 5 . September-October 1-00?
Manuscript received on April 5, 2002.
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