Optimize BER Offset QPSK Baseband Modulation-

Demodulation featuring AWGN and OFDM

Mohammad Hakim Adhiguna

Prapto Nugroho Sigit Basuki Wibowo
Department of Electrical and
Department of Electrical and Department of Electrical and
Information Engineering
Information Engineering Information Engineering
Universitas Gadjah Mada
Universitas Gadjah Mada Universitas Gadjah Mada
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Yogyakarta, Indonesia Yogyakarta, Indonesia
hakim.adhiguna@mail.ugm.ac.id
tatok@mail.ugm.ac.id sigitbw@mail.ugm.ac.id

Journal of Electrical, Electronic, Information, and Communication Technology (JEEICT) pages XX

Vol. XX No. X, Month-Year, Pages XX-XX
 Abstract— In communication system, being fastest not act as transmitter and demodulation act as receiver.
always the best option because of much great error Fundamental knowledge about modem design that can be
probabilities. Complex architecture also cost high for the built properly, usually using three basic types of digital
component maintenances. An optimal OQPSK modem is modulation techniques, such as Amplitude Shift Keying
provide for friendly use and affordable model in academic (ASK), used modulation technique that modulates amplitude,
purposes. The proposed method is moderate way with twice Frequency Shift Keying (FSK), used modulates frequency
data size than the conventional method, but error calculation is and Phase Shift Keying (PSK), used modulates phase. Phase
exactly constant. Good and optimal BER measurements from
modulation is chosen, because it is a linear baseband
simulated binary data useful for academic learning purpose.
modulation technique which able to deliver the digital
Keywords— Additive White Gaussian Noise, Bit Error Rate, message in modulates the phase of at constant amplitude
Offset Quadrature Phase Shift Keying, Orthogonal Frequency signal.
Division Multiplexing To make easier illustration, it can be learned from
MATLAB Communications Toolbox which provides
I. INTRODUCTION modulators and demodulators for these phase modulation
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers techniques [6, 7], such as:
(IEEE) provides a lot of support for study and development  Phase shift keying (PSK) — Binary, quadrature, and
of wireless communication technology through official general PSK
regulations. Since its release in 2003, the IEEE 802.15.4
regulation on wireless communication has become very  Differential phase shift keying (DPSK) — Binary,
popular as a reference for wireless sensor and actuator quadrature, and general DPSK
networks (WSANs) products [1]. However, wireless sensor  Offset QPSK (OQPSK)
and actuator networks products on the market, for example,
Bit Error Rate (BER) measuring instruments have price tag
above tens millions Indonesian Rupiah (IDR). This is
certainly a barrier against academic institutions with limited
funding.
Numerous study about practicum module wireless
communication [2, 3] specifically at modulation model
development has been carried out starting from the basic
binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) modulation technique used
in two low-speed data bits, to the offset quadrature phase
shift keying (OQPSK) modulation used for the higher data
rate version. From some study results, OQPSK has a more
constant waveform, thus enabling a more efficient nonlinear
power gain to be used to minimize power consumption.
In the next study, experiments were conducted to Fig. 1. Phase Modulation
evaluate and compare the resistance to interference of the
There are two type of simulation signal, called baseband
OQPSK and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
and passband. MATLAB supports baseband and passband
(OFDM) showing that the OFDM provides significant
benefits compared to OQPSK in terms of interference simulation methods; however, the phase shift keying
techniques support baseband simulation only [8, 9].
resistance [4].
Overall, this shows that the selection of OQPSK as main A. Baseband and Passband Simulation
modulation technique featuring channel OFDM physical A general passband waveform can be represented as
layer is appropriate when applying it to low-power wireless
networks for module implementation in the academic
purposed. Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) will also where fc is the carrier frequency and θ is the initial phase of
implement as noise error correction method [5]. The study is the carrier signal. This equation is equal to the real part of
mainly focused on BER calculation to optimize modem
OFDM-OQPSK performance.
On this paper, the author wants to know about generate In a baseband simulation, only the expression within the
signals through a computer simulation using MATLAB. square brackets is modeled. The vector y is a sampling of the
Implementing carrier signal OFDM simulation into OQPSK complex signal
baseband modulation, while adding AWGN through in-
phase and quadrature channel to able perform signal
detection for good and optimal BER measurements from
simulated random binary data streams. B. BPSK
In binary phase shift keying (BPSK), the phase of a
II. METHOD constant amplitude signal switches between two values
corresponding to binary 1 and binary 0. The passband
For digital communication system, needed to design waveform of a BPSK signal is
devices called modem as two-way wireless communication
between modulation and demodulation, where is modulation
 where:
 Eb is the energy per bit.
 Tb is the bit duration.
 fc is the carrier frequency.
In MATLAB, the baseband representation of a BPSK
signal is

The probability of a bit error in an AWGN channel is

where N0 is the noise power spectral density.

C. QPSK
In quadrature phase shift keying, the message bits are
grouped into 2-bit symbols, which are transmitted as one of
four phases of a constant amplitude baseband signal.

Fig. 3. BPSK vs QPSK Constellation Diagram

The bit error probability for QPSK is

which is the same as the expression for BPSK. As a

Fig. 2. BPSK vs QPSK Timming Diagram
This grouping provides a bandwidth efficiency that is
twice as great as the efficiency of BPSK. The general QPSK
signal is expressed as
result, QPSK provides the same performance with twice the
bandwidth efficiency.
D. OQPSK
Offset QPSK is almost similar to QPSK except that the
time alignment of the in-phase and quadrature bit streams
differs. In QPSK, the in-phase and quadrature bit streams
transition at the same time. In OQPSK, the transitions have
an offset of a half-symbol period as shown below.

where Es is the energy per symbol and Ts is the symbol

duration. The complex baseband representation of a QPSK
signal is

The constellation diagram of BPSK signal has two

phases: 0 and π. While at QPSK, each 2-bit sequence is
mapped to one of four possible states. The states correspond
to phases of π/4, 3π/4, 5π/4, and 7π/4.

Fig. 4. QPSK vs OQPSK Timming Diagram

The in-phase and quadrature signals transition only on

boundaries between symbols. These transitions occur at 1-
second intervals because the sample rate is 1 Hz. The
following figure shows the in-phase and quadrature signals
for an OQPSK signal.
F. OFDM
OFDM is a multi-carrier modulation system where data
is transmitted as a combination of orthogonal narrowband
signals known as subcarriers [10]. OFDM builds upon
single carrier modulation such as QPSK symbols and
transmit at similar data rates [11].

These symbols are loaded into equally spaced frequency

bins and an inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) is applied
to transform the signal into orthogonal overlapping
sinusoids in the time domain [12]. The IFFT is given by the
equation:

III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Fig. 5. OQPSK half-symbol period offset
For OQPSK, the quadrature signal has a 1/2 symbol
period offset (0.5 s).
The BER for an OQPSK signal in AWGN is identical to
that of a QPSK signal. The BER is
where N0 is the noise power spectral density.
A. Result
MATLAB used in this chapter to simulate QPSK and
OQPSK each other. From the simulation diagram block can
be seen QPSK simulation block diagram and OQPSK
simulation block diagram respectively. By using 1024 bits
random data and crate sampling interval parameter to be set
around of 1:10000 and so on as precise as possible. Only use
one signal sample number for modulation ease, and the
signal to noise ratio ranges from 0-10 dB.

E. AWGN
Assuming a channel of bandwidth as B, received signal
power as Pr and the power spectral density (PSD) of noise as
N0/2, then the signal to noise ratio (SNR) is given by

Fig. 7. QPSK simulation diagram

Let a signal’s energy-per-bit is denoted as E b and the
energy-per-symbol as Es, then γb= Eb/N0 and γs= Es/N0 are
the SNR-per-bit and the SNR-per-symbol respectively.
In order to simulate a specific SNR point in performance
simulations, the modulated signal from the transmitter needs
to be added with random noise of specific strength. The
strength of the generated noise depends on the desired SNR
level which usually is an input in such simulations. In
practice, SNRs are specified in dB. Given a specific SNR
point for simulation, simulate an AWGN channel that adds
correct level of white noise to the transmitted symbols.

Fig. 8. OQPSK simulation diagram

To validate the modulation works properly, figure out the

mapping result, by create scatter plot of 1024 bits data into
modulator, and there is the result:

Fig. 6. AWGN Channel Model

 Fig. 9. Bit Data Scatter Plot
Then signal through the channel into demodulator would
be divided into two channel in-phase and quadrature carrier
for demodulation process. These two demodulated signals
through the corresponding matched filter back into
demanded formatted data. So, it can be produced in-phase
and quadrature binary data through the circuit, and then
combine into one formatted. Thus, those 1024 bits data could
be detected. Its schematic diagram can be seen below.
Fig. 10. QPSK Modulation-Demodulation Diagram Algorithm
The performance simulation for the QPSK modulation
demodulation combination was coded in MATLAB. QPSK
signal essentially combines two orthogonally modulated
BPSK signals. Therefore, the resulting performance curves
for QPSK. Thus, BER will be same as that of conventional
BPSK.
Fig. 11. QPSK simulated waveform
After bits data detection work properly, then calculate
how much bit error per total data. In the following figure, the
QPSK curves overlap one another.
Fig. 12. BER of QPSK vs Higher Orde-PSK
For modulation orders beyond 4, the bit error rate
performance of PSK in AWGN worsens.
In OQPSK, the orthogonal components cannot change
states at the same time, this is because the components
change state only at the middle of the symbol periods due to
the half symbol offset in the Q-channel. This eliminates 180 0
phase shifts all together and the phase changes are limited to
00 or 900 every Tb seconds. Elimination of 180 0 phase shifts
in OQPSK offers many advantages over QPSK.

Fig. 13. OQPSK Modulation-Demodulation Diagram Algorithm
Fig. 14. OQPSK simulated waveform
Offset QPSK is essentially same as QPSK, except that
the orthogonal carrier signals on the I-channel and the Q-
channel are staggered, where one of them is delayed in time.
Fig. 15. BER of QPSK vs OQPSK
The simulation of QPSK and OQPSK in the AWGN
channel bit error rate shown in figure, BER of OQPSK is
less than QPSK.
B. Discussion
From the bit error probability formula, can be seen that
QPSK and BPSK bit error rate are equal, but in the same
bandwidth QPSK transmit the data twice. Compared with
BPSK, QPSK can provide twice the spectral efficiency even
in the same energy efficiency, with the magnitude of QPSK
is a constant. However, when QPSK is to pulse shape, it will
result in the signal envelope through zero instantaneous due
to the phase shift of signal occasionally occur. Then the
signal loss the nature of constant envelope. This will lead to
side-lobe regeneration and expansion of the spectrum, which
must use the less efficient linear amplifier to amplify QPSK
signal [13].
According to today's modern communication technology,
the paper studies the principle of QPSK and OQPSK, which
is widely used in current communication system. It makes
use of MATLAB to simulate and verify the performance of
QPSK and OQPSK. The results can make compensate for
errors caused by the interference in hardware devices [14].
Although OQPSK eliminates hopping, but band-limited
OQPSK signal can’t lead to signal envelope through zero.
However, the changes of the envelope are small. So OQPSK
is not as QPSK which has so many high-frequency side-
lobes. In this way, it will significantly reduce the occupation
of the spectrum and can use more efficient RF amplifiers.
Even in Non-linear amplification, OQPSK can still maintain
its band-limited nature. In a word, OQPSK is more suitable
than QPSK in mobile communication. The main reason is
that in the case of low-power applications, bandwidth
efficiency and efficient non-linear amplifier play a decisive
role [15].
However, OFDM is more robust to frequency selective
fading and simplifies equalization at the receiver. OFDM is a
foundational scheme found in many common wireless
communications standards such as WIFI, LTE, and 5G [16].
Fig. 16. BER QPSK-OFDM Theorical vs Simulation
Simulation and theorical result can be calculated by using
MATLAB with addition of OFDM. QPSK signal through the
channel at the output is divided into two parts which with the
same phase and quadrature carrier for demodulation
respectively. Then these two demodulated signals through
the corresponding matched filter to filter. It can be produced
in-phase and quadrature binary stream then through a
decision circuit, and then through the string and transform.
Finally, can get a raw binary series. Its schematic diagram is
shown in figure above.
 IV. CONCLUSION
Based on the results of the study conducted, it can
generate signals through a computer simulation using
MATLAB. Implementing carrier signal OFDM baseband
simulation into OQPSK modulator, to perform AWGN
between in-phase signal and quadrature as signal mapping
for good and optimal BER measurements from simulated
binary data streams in real-time. It can also predict the result
based on theorical calculation, which is useful for academic
learning purpose as main goals.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author deeply want to show an expression of a
gratitude for support from supervisor in term of study,
specifically about digital wireless communication. It’s
known as quite complex topic, but there is our best to
arrange in simple format and easy to learn as academic
module.
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