IMPROVED PERFORMANCE OF A RANDOM
COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
R. Nogueroles', M. Bossert', A. Donder' and V. Zyablov2
'Dept. of Information Technology, University of Ulm, Germany
21nst. for Problems of Information Transmission, Moscow, Russia
Abstract
In this paper we consider the uplink performance of an OF-
DMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) sys-
tem for mobile communications. First, we describe the random
OFDMA system which is based on MC-FDMA (multicarrier
FDMA), and where each user has a set of randomly selected
subchannels. We also describe the performance criteria con-
sidered for the evaluation of this system and present different
system implementations depending on the level of block syn-
chronization assumed. In the last section we describe different
methods for improving the system performance, one based on
different receiver configurations and another based on different
sets of subchannels per user depending on the traffic load. We
also show some simulation results for the performance of the
system under the different assumptions.
I. INTRODUCTION
In the last years the field of mobile communications and
multimedia has faced an enormous development. The number
of subscribers in mobile communication systems increases con-
stantly and their data-rate requirements get always higher. The
current tendency towards broadband mobile communications
implies a big effort on research in new and efficient transmis-
sion techniques to adjust to the multimedia requirements of high
data transmission rates. Also improved multiple access methods
are needed to cope with the increasing number of subscribers.
Today, many studies on multicarrier systems (MC, OFDM) fol-
low this goal [ 1,2].
In a multicarrier transmission system the entire frequency
bandwidth is divided into a set of non-overlapping subchannels.
We have focused on the uplink of the MC-FDMA technique,
considering a total number N of subchannels and each user will
use only a set of n < N subchannels for his transmission.
11. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
In [3] the random OFDMA system was described. In the
random OFDMA system, each user will always use for his
transmission a personal set of n subchannels, which is different
for each user. This personal set of subchannels is like the tele-
phone number, which is also different for each subscriber. A
central organization will randomly select a set of n subchannels
0 1998 lEEE
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out of the total of N subchannels and assign this personal set of
n subchannels to each new subscriber. The assignment of the
personal set to each subscriber could be done in the hardware of
the mobile terminal by the manufacturer, or better in the soft-
ware by the telephone company when the new subscriber joins
the system.
Due to the random selection of the n subchannels, several
users may coincide in some of their subchannels. If two or more
active users in a cell coincide in one subchannel, this subchan-
ne1 will be corrupted and no information can be transmitted over
it. Since the number of users active in a cell will change con-
stantly, the number of corrupted subchannels per user will also
vary, having influence on data transmission as shown in [4].
The disadvantage of this system is the problem of corrupted
subchannels and its resulting loss of capacity, but its advantage
is that no signalling protocols for the assignment of subchannels
to the users are needed, since each user knows his subchannels
and each base station knows the subchannels that correspond
to each user. Another advantage is the uniqueness of each per-
sonal set of subchannels which allows an easier handover, since
no change of subchannels is needed when changing the cell:
each user may move over the whole system using always his
personal set of subchannels for transmission.
A. Peformance criteria
For our work we have considered the following performance
criteria.
1) User capacity
We define user capacity C,,,, as the amount of information
that a user may transmit over the mobile radio channel by using
his n subchannels. The user capacity will be a function of the
number n and the quality of the subchannels used by each user,
the modulation alphabet used in each subchannel and also the
number of active users in the system [3].
To obtain the user capacity we have to sum up the capacity
of the user in each of his non corrupted subchannels
i=l
V i I subch(i) not corrupted.
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 2) Transmission rate
Dividing the obtained user capacity by the duration of an
OFDM symbol, we will obtain the potential transmission rate
per user
R,=-. C U S W (2)
TB
The block duration TBmay be obtained as
TB = N T.+ Tmas,
* (3)
where N is the total number of subchannels, T. = I, W
Y 4 I
the total system frequency bandwidth and T,,, the maximum
propagation delay of the considered channel.
B. System implementations
In [3] the problem of block synchronization in an OFDM
transmission was analyzed. It was shown that for the case
of a non perfect block synchronization, for each transmit-
ted subchannel there exists an energy overcross to neighbour
subchannels at reception at the base station.
Depending on the level of block synchronization, three dif-
ferent system implementations were distinguished in [3]:
1) System A: without synchronization
This system is based on an unslotted aloha scheme, where
the users transmit whenever they want to. If there is no syn-
chronization for transmission of the different users in the sys-
tem, the signals of the different users will arrive at different
times at the base station receiver. The delay among the different
users will vary from 0 up to the block duration TB as shown in
fig. 1.
I User 1 I we get two additional system implementations:
TB
Figure 1: Delay of different users in system A
Each transmitted subchannel by a given user will be re-
ceived at the base station with a signal energy overcross to other
subchannels, depending on the delay in reception [3], producing
a big amount of interference on the other subchannels. This is
called multiple access interference (MAInoise). Since the in-
formation on the different subchannels is uncorrelated, the MAI
noise is uncorrelated and is added to the white gaussian noise.
The S N R will be computed as
This loss in S N R will produce a rather big performance reduc-
tion as will be shown in the results.
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2) System B: with synchronization at the mobile iusers
In the system with synchronization at the mobile users, the
base station broadcasts the slotted scheme for transmission and
so the users know when they have to transmit their blocks. Due
to the different positions of the mobile users in the cell, as
shown in fig. 2, the signals will arrive at different times at the
base station receiver.
User 1 I
user2 1
J
User3 I
user4 1
I Rec. window I
I I
I* D 1
' TB
Figure 2: Delay of different users in system B
In this case the maximum delay in reception depends on the
size of the considered cell
A T = -2Rce11 << TB.
c
There exists still an energy overcross to neighbour subchan-
nels that will produce the appearance of MAI, but less than in
system A.
To avoid this problem we could increase the block duration
to guarantee synchronization at the base station receiver, and so
B.1 Without extended guard
If the guard period is not extended, there will exist a loss in
S N R and a considerable performance reduction, lsut much
smaller than for the case of system A as will be !shown in
the results.
B.2 With extended guard
If the block duration is increased by AT, the new block
+
duration is TA = TB AT and synchronization at the
base station will be guaranteed, and no loss in S N R will
appear. But the transmission rate, from equation (2), will
be slightly reduced due to the longer block durati'on TA.
In very small cells, like indoor cells, the maximum delay
AT in reception will be very small. If synchronization at mo-
bile users is given, the loss in S N R or the reduction in R , by
increasing TB will be nearly neglectable.
3) System C: fully synchronized at base station
This implementation is also based on a slotted sclheme for
transmission, where to ensure that the messages of the different
users in the system arrive always at the same time at the base
station, each user would have to transmit with a different timing
advance in order to guarantee synchronizationat the base station
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 III. IMPROVING SYSTEM PERFORMANCE

In this section we investigate methods for improving the sys-

tem performance is followed. For this aim, first two different
receivers are considered, and next the employ of several sets of
subchannels with different sizes is explained.

A. Receiver assumptions
For the random OFDMA system a base station receiver is
needed that performs the FFT of the received signal and ob-
tains the information contained on the different subchannels. A
single-user multicarrier (OFDM) receiver has been considered
in the previous section, where if two or more users transmit over
the same subchannel this subchannel will be corrupted, and the
System U n NMAI information contained in this subchannel will be lost since the
A 0.344 receiver cannot properly decode it.
B.l 30 137 0.052 Two additional receiver configurations have been considered
for improving the performance of the random OFDMA system:
Table 1: MAI values
1) Multiuser receiver with interference cancellation
In fig. 3 the user transmission rate for the different imple-
mentations of the random OFDMA system depending on is % In the random OFDMA system it is possible to apply a cod-
ing scheme over the n subchannels of each user. This could be
shown. To compute the user capacity, for each value of the 3, seen as a combined OFDM-CDMAIFDMA, by spreading over
S N R has to be computed by using equation (4). a limited bandwidth with a different code for each user, and this
Random OFDMA. u a 0 . N=4086.n=137. m 4 A M limited bandwidth is the set of n subchannels corresponding to
each user in the system. At the base station, a receiver capable
of performing a successive interference cancellation (SIC) al-
synchr MS ext guard (E 2)
- - synchr MS NO ext guard(E 1) gorithm similar to the one described in [6] for DS-CDMA is
-12w
- - no synchr (A) assumed. The decoding algorithm would work on the follow-
ing way [3]: initially all U simultaneously active users are con-
sidered and the number of corrupted subchannels for each user
is computed. The user with the smallest number of corrupted
subchannels (best user) is taken and it is tried to decode this
‘best’ user. If it can be decoded, then it is subtracted from the
received signal. In the next step the other U - 1users without the
previous best user (cancel interference) are considered, again
the number of corrupted subchannels for each user is computed,
-10 0 10 20 30 40 M
the best user is selected and it is med to decode it. This proced-
EsMO [de] ure is repeated for all active users.
Figure 3: R, for different system implementations
In fig. 4 the dependence with 9 of the user transmission
rate is shown for the different system implementations when at
the base station receiver an SIC algorithm is applied and with
In fig. 3 the big loss in performance due to the appearance the same system parameters as in the previous section.
of MA1 noise for the systems without synchronization (A) and When comparing the fig. 4 with fig. 3, the improvement due
without extended guard interval (B.l) can be observed. It can to the application of SIC (62%) can be noticed.
also be observed that for the system with synchronization at the
mobile users it is better to increase the guard interval, to ensure 2) Single-user receiver with capture capability
synchronization at the base station, than allowing the appear- In a mobile radio system, due to the propagation impair-
ance of MAI, since the transmission rate of the system B.2 is ments of the mobile radio channels and the different distances
higher than the corresponding one for system B.l. It can also from the users to the base station, the signals of the different
be noticed that for the system with extended guard interval (B.2) users may arrive with different powers at the base station re-

system is small (e
the loss in performance with respect to the fully synchronized
M 7%) for the considered system para-
meters. So for the more realistic system implementation the
ceiver, as described in [7, 81. In a multicarrier system the sig-
nals of the different users in the different subchannels may also
arrive with different powers at the receiver. Due to this it can
performance of the system is nearly as good as for the best im- be considered that when two or more users transmit over the
plementation. same subchannel, this subchannel will not be always corrupted,

0 1998 IEEE
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 Random OFDMA wth SIC, ~ ~ 3N4096,
0 . n-137.40864~M Ran- OFDMA with c ~ p l u r ause,
. N4006. n=137.4006-0AM

w d r MS ext guard (B 2) synchr MS ext guard (B 2)

synchr MS NO ext guard (B 1)

__------------
SM) -

-10 0 10 20 30 40 50 10 20 30 40 SO
E m 0 [de] E a 0 [dB1

Figure 4: R, for different system implementations, with SIC Figure 5: R, for different system implementations,with capture

because sometimes the user with higher power in this subchan-
ne1 could be correctly received due to the appearance of capture
effect in this subchannel.
Here the availability of a multicarrier receiver with capture
capability in the different subchannels has been assumed. If the
signal of a user in a given subchannel is captured by the base
station receiver, the energy of the other users is considered as
interference (additional MA1 noise) reducing the S N R in this
subchannel (4).
A uniform spatial distribution of users in a cell has been
considered. All users transmit with the same power and the
propagation attenuation has been taken as f . A pessimistic
capture model (see [8]) with consideration of the noise has been
considered. That means that capture takes place if the power of
a given user is a factor CT (captureratio) bigger than the sum of
the power of the interfering users plus noise
users in the system. The number of active users will depend on
the traffic load of the system, which will be different at different
times of the day.
In order to maximize the system performance, at (different
times of the day, each user could have three different sets of
subchannels of different sizes: a reduced set with n, snbchan-
nels, a normal set with n subchannels, and an extended set with
ne subchannels (n, < n < ne). The base station just has
to report on the downlink which set size must be useld by the
mobile users. So if there are few users they can employ more
subchannels (ne)having a higher transmission rate, and if there
are many users they will employ less subchannels (n,)to min-
imize the number of corrupted subchannels.
The dependence of the user transmission rate with the traffic
load of the system is shown in fig. 6 for the fully synchronized
random system with N=4096, SNR=%OdB, 4096-QA.M mod-
ulation in each subchannel, and different numbers n of subchan-
nels per user.

Perfect capture [7] (cr=l)has been considered.

In fig. 5 the dependence with 3
of the user transmission
rate is shown when the appearance of capture effect is con-
sidered for the different system implementations and with the
same system parameters as before.
When comparing the fig. 5 with fig. 3, the improvement due
to the appearance of capture effect (65%)can be observed.
It can also be observed in fig. 5, that for good conditions
(high %) the user transmission rate is high. For example, at
20 dB more than 1.15 Mb/s, and this for a big number of active
users in a cell (u=30), which does not take place very often in
a real system. For a smaller number of active users the trans-
mission rate will be still higher, as will be shown in the next
section.
Figure 6: Dependence user transmission rate with traffic load
B. Influence tram load. Different sets of subchannels
In [4] the optimum number n of selected subchannels per
user was obtained as nopt = $, being U the number of active In fig. 6 it can be noticed that when using a high modula-

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tion alphabet and having a good SNR, high values of the user
transmission rate can be obtained, and how the user transmis-
sion rate decreases by increasing traffic load G, and it decreases
faster for a bigger n.
In fig. 7 the dependence of the system transmission rate with
the traffic load of the system for the same parameters as above
is shown.
N=4096.4096-QAM. S N R S O dB
;-----, ,
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
G
Figure 7: Dependence system transmission rate with traffic load
In fig. 7 it can be noticed how depending on the number n
of selected subchannels per user the system transmission rate is
maximized for a different traffic load of the system. It can be
observed that the system transmission rate has its maximum at
the value of G that makes n be the optimum value for a given
U = G, according to the expression for nopt given above. In fig.
7, for n=819, its maximum is at G=5, for n=410, G=10, and for
n=205, G=20.
From the figures shown it becomes clear that it is important
to know the average traffic load of the system in order to op-
timize its design. It could be possible that each user has several
sets of subchannels of different sizes n, in order to optimize
the system for different traffic loads according to the time of
the day. The base station would only need to send a message
telling which size of the subchannel set has to be used. For
example, at the early morning the users could use n=410 (nor-
mal set size), obtaining a high value of the transmission rate per
user (up to 4.4 Mb/s in fig. 6). If the traffic increases (G 2 15),
like happens at noon, the base station would broadcast to the
users a message for changing to the reduced set n,.=205, in or-
der to optimize the system performance although reducing the
user transmission rate if the traffic were small. At the late even-
ing and at night the base station would broadcast to the users
a message for changing to the extended set n,=819, allowing
very high transmission rates when the traffic load is small (up
to 7.7 Mb/s in fig. 6).
IV. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper we have described a proposal of an OF-
DMA system for mobile communications based on random
0 1998 IEEE
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MC-FDMA. We have mentioned the drawback of the conup-
ted subchannels due to the random selection of subchannels,
but also the advantage of absence of signalling protocols for the
assignment of subchannels.
We have presented three possible implementations of the
random OFDMA system depending on the level of the block
synchronization. We have defined the performance criteria con-
sidered for the evaluation of the system, and we have shown
simulation results for the different system implementations.
We have described different possibilities to improve the sys-
tem performance by applying better receivers capable of per-
forming SIC or capture, bringing a considerable performance
improvement as shown with some simulation results.
Finally, we have shown the influence of the traffic load in
the performance of the system and how to improve it by us-
ing different sets of subchannels depending on the traffic load
of the system. We have shown how with adequate parameters
very high user transmission rates can be achieved (higher than 2
Mb/s), making this system suitable for multimedia applications.
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54
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