KATHMANDU UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING

FINAL YEAR
PROJECT REPORT




Modeling and Simulation
Of
WiMAX/IEEE 802.16e Physical Layer



A final year project report submitted in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the degree of
Bachelor of Engineering


Submitted By:
Amar Shrestha (Regd. No.010617-09)
Shashi Raj Pandey (Regd. No. 010608-09)



June, 2013




CERTIFICATION


FINAL YEAR PROJECT REPORT
On
MODELING AND SIMULATION OF WIMAX/IEEE 802.16e PHYSICAL LAYER
by:
Amar Shrestha (Regd. No. 010617-09)
Shashi Raj Pandey (Regd. No. 010608-09)




Approved by:
1. Project Supervisor


___________________ ____________________________ __________
(Signature) (Name) (Date)


2. Head/In-Charge of the Department

___________________ ____________________________ __________
(Signature) (Name) (Date)

i

ABSTRACT
WiMAX is a wireless transmission infrastructure that allows a fast deployment as well as low
maintenance costs. Based on the IEEE 802.16-2004 standard, WiMAX allows for an efficient
use of bandwidth in a wide frequency range, and can be used as a last mile solution for
broadband internet access. To increase data rate of wireless medium with higher performance;
better spectral efficient Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technique is used.
Modulation schemes such as 16-QAM, 32-QAM, 64-QAM and 128-QAM (Quadrature
amplitude modulation) have been used in the developed OFDM system for FFT based model.
This research report discusses the model building of the WiMAX Physical layer using Simulink
in Matlab. This model is a useful tool for performance evaluation of the WiMAX Physical layer
under different modulation schemes and channel conditions. And utilizing tools such as BER and
SNR, this research helps to find suitable modulation schemes for different channel condition
regarding WiMAX.







ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to express sincere gratitude to our project coordinator, Mr. Brajesh Mishra, for
granting us the permission to work on this project MODELING AND SIMULATION OF
WIMAX/IEEE 802.16e PHYSICAL LAYER. We are grateful to have Mr. Subodh Ghimire as
our project supervisor. It is due to his constant support, supervision and guidance we have been
able to successfully complete the project. Our special thanks to all the faculty members of the
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering for their provision of a sound ambience
and of all the facilities required for the working of our project.
Last but not the least; we would like to thank all our friends for the help they have given us in
innumerable way.


iii

ABBREVIATIONS

AWGN Additive Gaussian White Noise
BER Bit Error Rate
BPSK Binary Phase Shift Keying
BS Base Station
BWA Broadband Wireless Access
CP Cyclic Prefix
CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check
DSL Digital Subscribers Line
FDD Frequency Division Duplexing
FEC Forward Error Correction
FFT Fast Fourier Transform
GT Guard Time
HCS Header Check Sequence
IFFT Inverse Fast Fourier Transform
ISI Inter symbol Interference
ICI Inter carrier Interference
NLOS Non Line of Sight
OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
OFDMA Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access
PHY Physical
QAM Quadrature Amplitude Modulation
QPSK Quadrature Phase Shift Keying
SC Single Carrier

iv

SNR Signal to Noise Ratio
SS Subscriber Station
TDD Time Division Duplexing
WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access





















v

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure1.1: Basic Communication System....................................................................................... 2
Figure1.2 Simulation Setup ............................................................................................................ 2
Figure1.3: Simulation Overview ..................................................................................................... 3
Figure2.1 Digital Modulation Principle .......................................................................................... 9
Figure2.2 The BPSK and QPSK constellation ............................................................................... 9
Figure2.3 Possible Phase Value for QPSK modulation .................................................................. 9
Figure2.4 A 64-QAM constellation .............................................................................................. 10
Figure2.5 Time and frequency representation of the SC and OFDM ........................................... 12
Figure2.6 Generation of an OFDM signal (simplified) ................................................................ 13
Figure2.7 Presentation of the OFDM subcarrier frequency.......................................................... 13
Figure2.8 Cyclic Prefix insertion in an OFDM symbol ................................................................ 14
Figure2.9 WiMAX OFDM subcarriers types ............................................................................... 15
Figure2.10 OFDM PHY data rates in Mb/s. ................................................................................. 17
Figure2.11 Model of an OFDM system ........................................................................................ 18
Figure3.1 BER for different modulation scheme in AWGN channel ........................................... 24
Figure3.2 Effect of Doppler shift on BER in QPSK ..................................................................... 25
Figure3.3 BER for QPSK for different values of Doppler shift ................................................... 26
Figure3.4 BER for QPSK for different delay spread .................................................................... 27
Figure3.5 BER for QPSK for different multipath gains ............................................................... 28












vi

LIST OF TABLES


Table 1 Simulation Parameters ....................................................................................................... 4
Table 2 Normalization Factors...................................................................................................... 11
Table 3 Modulation alphabet for the constellation map ............................................................... 11





















vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................................................ ii
ABBREVIATIONS ...................................................................................................................... iii
LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... v
Chapter 1 ....................................................................................................................................... 1
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Background and Objectives ............................................................................................... 1
1.2 System Overview .............................................................................................................. 2
1.3 Methodology ..................................................................................................................... 3
1.4 Overview of Report ........................................................................................................... 7
Chapter 2 ....................................................................................................................................... 8
LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................................ 8
2.1 Literature Survey ............................................................................................................... 8
2.2 Technological Survey ...................................................................................................... 22
Chapter 3 ..................................................................................................................................... 24
SIMULATION RESULTS AND ANALYSIS .......................................................................... 24
3.1 AWGN ............................................................................................................................. 24
3.2 Multipath Fading: ............................................................................................................ 25
Chapter 4 ..................................................................................................................................... 29
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ........................................................................................ 29
4.1 Discussion and Conclusion ............................................................................................. 29
4.2 Recommendations ........................................................................................................... 29
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 30
Appendix ...................................................................................................................................... 31


1

Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background and Objectives
1.1.1 Background
Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) has emerged as a promising solution for last mile access
technology to provide high speed internet access in the residential as well as small and medium
sized enterprise sectors. At this moment, cable and digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies are
providing broadband service in this sectors. But the practical difficulties in deployment have
prevented them from reaching many potential broadband internet customers. Many areas
throughout the world currently are not under broadband access facilities. Even many urban and
suburban loations may not be served by DSL connectivity as it can only reach about three miles
from the central office switch. On the other side many older cable networks do not have return
channel which will prevent to offer internet access and many commercial areas are often not
covered by cable network. But with BWA this difficulties can be overcome. Because of its
wireless nature, it can be faster to deploy, easier to scale and more flexible, thereby giving it the
potential to serve customers not served or not satisfied by their wired broadband alternatives.
IEEE 802.16e standard for BWA and its associated industry consortium, Worldwide
Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) forum promise to offer high data rate over
large areas to a large number of users where broadband is unavailable. This is the first industry-
wide standard that can be used for fixed as well as mobile wireless access with substantially
higher bandwidth than most cellular networks. Wireless broadband systems have been in use for
many years, but the development of this standard enables economy of scale that can bring down
the cost of equipment, ensure interoperability, and reduce investment risk for operators.
1.1.2 Objectives
This research project mainly focuses on the following topics
Analyze the basic concept of WiMAX including its standards and relationship with other
technologies.
Modeling and Simulation of WiMAX/IEEE 802.16e Physical Layer and its performance
evaluation implementing various modulation techniques.




2

1.2 System Overview
Physical layer set up the connection between the communicating devices and is responsible for
transmitting the bit sequence. It also defines the type of modulation and demodulation as well as
transmission power. WiMAX 802.16e PHY-layer considers two types of transmission techniques
OFDM and OFDMA. Both of these techniques have frequency band below 11GHz and use TDD
and FDD as its duplexing technology. WiMAX physical layer is based on the orthogonal
frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). OFDM is a good choice of high speed data
transmission, multimedia communication and digital video services. It even can maintain very
fast data rate in a non-line of sight (NLOS) condition and multipath environment. The role of the
PHY-layer is to encode the binary digits that represent MAC frames into signals and to transmit
and receive these signals across the communication media. The basic communication system is
shown in Figure1.1.
.


Figure1.1: Basic Communication System
We have implemented the transmitter and receiver of the baseband part of the PHY-layer as in
Figure1.2. This structure corresponds to the phyical layer of the standard. In this setup we have
just implemented the mandatory features of the specification while leaving the implementation of
optimal features for future work.The complementary operations are applied in the reverse order
at channel decoding in the receiver end.






Figure1.2 Simulation Setup

Random
Data
Mapping
Cyclic Prefix
Insertion
IFFT
De-Mapping FFT Output
Cyclic Prefix
Removal
Transmitter Channel Receiver

3

1.3 Methodology
1.3.1 Simulation strategy










Figure1.3: Simulation Overview
Our simulation study is based on the standard of OFDM model with parameters based on IEEE
802.16e with changes in the channel according to the environment and as per the requirement for
analysis. And Simulink being a block based design tool, it seemed the best option to implement
the model. So the simulation model was developed model by module in Simulink based on the
basic structure of an OFDM system .Then the standard parameters are provided to the models to
direct the simulation in the direction that the standard permits.
After gaining knowledge about the simulation platform, the model was simulated following the
procedures given below.
At first we perform initialization of the model parameters.
The models are run via Bertool function or directly through Simulink model.
The results are plotted out in number of ways: BER versus SNR plot when AWGN channel is
involved and BER versus Doppler spread/Doppler shift/Multipath gain vector for Rayleigh
fading channel.
Then on the basis of plots and our literature survey analysis is made.



Execute
Initializing
Matlab File
(final.m)
Execute Simulink
Model (.mdl
extension file)
Output Graph Plotting
(Matlab)
Bertool
(.ber file)

4

1.3.2 Simulation Model
Scenario:
For the simulation scenario, we have considered basic models available. As we are working
under wireless communication network for WiMAX, we have taken into account AWGN
(Additive White Gaussian Noise) channel in which noise components just adds up, fading
channel due to multipath environment and a combination of both AWGN and fading channels for
the purpose of simulation. Similarly for the simulation model, we have chosen different
parameters as per the IEEE 802.16e standard.
Table 1 Simulation Parameters
Parameter Value
N
data
192
N
pilot
8
N
train
3
BW Variable,from1.25 to 20 MHz being an integer
multiple of 1.25, 1.5, or 1.75 MHz
n
f
8/7
G 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32
Number of lower frequency guard
subcarriers
28
Number of higher frequency guard
subcarriers
27
Frequency offset indices of guard
subcarriers
-128,-127,, -101
+101,+102, , +127
Frequency offset indices of pilot carriers -88,-63,-38,-13
+13,+38,+63,+88
T
frame(msec)
2.5,4,5,8,10,12.5,20
Beside the parameters that describe the OFDM symbol, other parameters are required in order to
define parameters for the transmission, such as the frame duration, the packet size, or the total
number of transmitted OFDM frame duration, the packet size, or the total number of transmitted
OFDM symbols.
The five primitive parameters that characterize the OFDM symbol are:
BW: nominal channel bandwidth.
N
data
: number of data subcarriers.

5

N
pilot
: number of pilot subcarriers.
n
f:
sampling factor, used with BW and N
used
(number of non-zero subcarriers) to
determine the subcarrier spacing and the useful symbol time.
G: ratio of CP time to useful time.
Next, derived parameters, which are dependent of the primitive parameters, are listed:
N
used
: number of used non-zero subcarriers.
N
used
=

N
data
+ N
pilot
N
FFT
: number of points used to perform the FFT. It is specified to be the smallest power
of two, and greater than N
used
.
N
FFT
=

2
|Iog
2
(N
dctc
)]

F
s
: sampling frequency.
F
s
= j
n
]
Bw
8000
[ 8uuu
: subcarrier spacing.

=

P
s
N
FFT

Tb: useful symbol time.
T
b
=

1
]

Tg: CP time.
T
g
= 0I
b
T
sym
: OFDM symbol time.
T
sym
=

T
b
+ T
g

T
s
: sampling time.
T
s
=
1
b
N
FFT


6

1.3.3 Performance Metrics
The following different performance metrics are evaluated to analyze the performance of OFDM
in different channels with different modulation scheme for WiMAX.
Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)
SNR is the ratio of signal power to noise power. SNR value provides the general information
about the channel condition and helps in evaluating the channel capacity for the provided
bandwidth.
SNR =
Signol Powcr
Noisc Powcr

SNR = _
F
s
B
] _
E
s
N
o
] = N
b
_
F
s
B
] _
E
b
N
o
]
Where,
F
s
= symbol rate (1/sec)
B= bandwidth (Hz=1/sec) F
s
N
o
= noise power spectral density
E
s
= Energy per symbol (Joules)
E
b
= Energy per bit (Joules)
N
b
= bits per symbol

Bit Error Rate (BER)
Bit error rate (BER) also called as bit error probability simply is the ratio of lost bits to the total
number of transmitted bit in a channel.
BER =
Iotol Iost Bits
Iotol IronsmittcJ Bits

For AWGN channel the BER can be calculated using following equations.
BPSK: P
s
= __2
L
b
N
c
]

7

4-QAM: P
s
2 __2
L
b
N
c
]
M-QAM: P
s
4___[
E
b
N
o

Slog
2
Ho
H1
__
Where
(x) =
1
2n
_ c
-t
2
dt
+
x

=
1
2
crc [
x
2


1.4 Overview of Report
This project is divided into four different chapters, each one illustrating the description of the
project in detail. The report highlights the system overview and the technology and literature
review conducted for the completion of the project.
Chapter 1 discusses the introduction part regarding the project. The background of the project
and its objective initiate the report. The system overview defines the components of the system
for simulation. The simulation strategy and different parameters considered for simulation are
classified under methodology heading.
Chapter 2 deals with the Literature Survey and Technological survey where we have tried to put
all necessary details that help to understand technical terminologies of the project. The research
and survey done during the project time are also included in the survey which could be referred
to understand the project.
Chapter 3 focuses on Simulation Results and Analysis.
Chapter 4 emphasizes on the conclusion of the project. The outcome of the project under
different parameter is highlighted under this section.



8

Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Literature Survey
2.1.1 Digital Modulation
As for all recent communication systems, WiMAX/802.16 uses digital modulation. The now
well-known principle of a digital modulation is to modulate an analogue signal with a digital
sequence in order to transport this digital sequence over a given medium: fiber, radio link, etc
(Figure2.1). This has great advantages with regard to classical analogue modulation: better
resistance to noise, use of high-performance digital communication and coding algorithms, etc.
Many digital modulations can be used in a telecommunication system. The variants are obtained
by adjusting the physical characteristics of a sinusoidal carrier, the frequency, phase or
amplitude, or a combination of some of these. Four modulations are supported by the IEEE
802.16 standard: BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM. In this section the modulations used in
the OFDM and OFDMA PHYsical layers are introduced with a short explanation for each of
these modulations.
Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK)
The BPSK is a binary digital modulation; i.e. one modulation symbol is one bit. This gives high
immunity against noise and interference and a very robust modulation. A digital phase
modulation, which is the case for BPSK modulation, uses phase variation to encode bits: each
modulation symbol is equivalent to one phase. The phase of the BPSK modulated signal is or
according to the value of the data bit. An often used illustration for digital modulation is the
constellation. Figure2.2 shows the BPSK constellation; the values that the signal phase can take
are 0 or .
Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK)
When a higher spectral efficiency modulation is needed, i.e. more b/s/Hz, greater modulation
symbols can be used. For example, QPSK considers two-bit modulation symbols. Figure 6 shows
the possible phase values as a function of the modulation symbol. Many variants of QPSK can be
used but QPSK always has a four-point constellation (Figure 5). The decision at the receiver, e.g.
between symbol 00 and symbol 01, is less easy than a decision between 0 and 1. The
QPSK modulation is therefore less noise- resistant than BPSK as it has a smaller immunity

9

against interference. A well-known digital communication principle must be kept in mind: A
greater data symbol modulation is more spectrum efficient but also less robust.

Figure2.1 Digital Modulation Principle


Figure2.2 The BPSK and QPSK constellation



Figure2.3 Possible Phase Value for QPSK modulation



10

Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM): 16-QAM and 64-QAM
The QAM changes the amplitudes of two sinusoidal carriers depending on the digital sequence
that must be transmitted; the two carriers being out of phase of /2, this amplitude modulation is
called quadrature. It should be mentioned that according to digital communication theory, QAM-
4 and QPSK are the same modulation (considering complex data symbols). Both 16-QAM (4
bits/modulation symbol) and 64-QAM (6 bits/modulation symbol) modulations are included in
the IEEE 802.16 standard. The 64-QAM is the most efficient modulation of 802.16 (Figure2.4).
Indeed, 6 bits are transmitted with each modulation symbol. The 64-QAM modulation is optional
in some cases:
license-exempt bands, when the OFDM PHYsical Layer is used
for OFDMA PHY, yet the Mobile WiMAX profiles indicate that 64-QAM is mandatory in the
downlink.

Figure2.4 A 64-QAM constellation

The modulation mapping is built in the simulator by a Simulink block implemented as a Matlab
m-file. The normalization factors and the symbol alphabet (A
s)
that represent the coordinate
points in the constellation map are defined in Table 2 and Table 3 respectively.



11

Table 2 Normalization Factors
Modulation scheme Normalization constant for unit average power
BPSK Cm= 1
QPSK
Cm= 12
16-QAM
Cm= 11u
64-QAM Cm= 142


Table 3 Modulation alphabet for the constellation map
Modulation scheme Symbol alphabet
BPSK A
s
= (1, 1)
QPSK A
s
= (1 + j, 1 j, 1 + j, 1 j )
16-QAM A = (j, 3j, j, 3j )
A
s
= (A + 1, A + 3, A 1, A 3)
64-QAM A = (j, 3j, 5j, 7j j, 3j, 5j, 7j )
A
s
= (A + 1, A + 3, A + 5, A + 7, A 1, A 3, A 5,
A 7

2.1.2 OFDM
OFDM is a very powerful transmission technique. It is based on the principle of transmitting
simultaneously many narrow-band orthogonal frequencies, often also called OFDM subcarriers
or subcarriers. The number of subcarriers is often noted N. These frequencies are orthogonal to
each other which (in theory) eliminates the interference between channels. Each frequency
channel is modulated with a possibly different digital modulation (usually the same in the first
simple versions). The frequency bandwidth associated with each of these channels is then much
smaller than if the total bandwidth was occupied by a single modulation. This is known as the
Single Carrier (SC) (Figure2.5). A data symbol time is N times longer, with OFDM providing a
much better multipath resistance. Having a smaller frequency bandwidth for each channel is
equivalent to greater time periods and then better resistance to multipath propagation (with
regard to the SC). Better resistance to multipath and the fact that the carriers are orthogonal

12

allows a high spectral efficiency. OFDM is often presented as the best performing transmission
technique used for wireless systems.
Basic Principle: Use the IFFT Operator
The FFT is the Fast Fourier Transform operator. This is a matrix computation that allows the
discrete Fourier transform to be computed (while respecting certain conditions). The FFT works
for any number of points.

Figure2.5 Time and frequency representation of the SC and OFDM
The operation is simpler when applied for a number N which is a power of 2 (e.g. N =256). The
IFFT is the Inverse Fast Fourier Transform operator and realizes the reverse operation. OFDM
theory shows that the IFFT of magnitude N, applied on N symbols, realizes an OFDM signal,
where each symbol is transmitted on one of the N orthogonal frequencies. The symbols are the
data symbols of the type BPSK, QPSK, QAM-16 and QAM-64 introduced in the previous
section. Figure2.6 shows an illustration of the simplified principle of the generation of an OFDM
signal. In fact, generation of this signal includes more details that are not shown here for the sake
of simplicity.


13


Figure2.6 Generation of an OFDM signal (simplified)


Figure2.7 Presentation of the OFDM subcarrier frequency

If the duration of one transmitted modulation data symbol is T
d
, then T
d
=1/f, where f is the
frequency bandwidth of the orthogonal frequencies. As the modulation symbols are transmitted
simultaneously,
T
d
=duration of one OFDM symbol
=duration of one transmitted modulation data symbol.

14

This duration, f, the frequency distance between the maximums of two adjacent OFDM
subcarriers, can be seen in Figure 2.7. This figure shows how the neighboring OFDM sub-
carriers have values equal to zero at a given OFDM subcarrier maximum, which is why they are
considered to be orthogonal. In fact, duration of the real OFDM symbol is a little greater due to
the addition of the Cyclic Prefix (CP).
Time Domain OFDM Considerations
After application of the IFFT, the OFDM theory requires that a Cyclic Prefix (CP) must be added
at the beginning of the OFDM symbol (Figure2.8). Without getting into mathematical details of
OFDM, it can be said that the CP allows the receiver to absorb much more efficiently the delay
spread due to the multipath and to maintain frequency orthogonality.

Figure2.8 Cyclic Prefix insertion in an OFDM symbol
The CP that occupies a duration called the Guard Time (GT), often denoted T
G
, is a temporal
redundancy that must be taken into account in data rate computations. The ratio T
G
/T
d
is very
often denoted G in WiMAX/802.16 documents. The choice of G is made according to the
following considerations: if the multipath effect is important (a bad radio channel), a high value
of G is needed, which increases the redundancy and then decreases the useful data rate; if the
multipath effect is lighter (a good radio channel), a relatively smaller value of G can be used. For
OFDM and OFDMA PHY layers, 802.16 defined the following values for G: 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 and
1/32. For the mobile (OFDMA) WiMAX profiles presently defined, only the value 1/8 is
mandatory. The standard indicates that, for OFDM and OFDMA PHY layers, SS searches, on
initialization, for all possible values of the CP until it finds the CP being used by the BS. The SS
then uses the same CP on the uplink. Once a specific CP duration has been selected by the BS for

15

operation on the downlink, it cannot be changed. Changing the CP would force all the SSs to
resynchronize to the BS.
Frequency Domain OFDM Considerations
All the subcarriers of an OFDM symbol do not carry useful data. There are four subcarrier types
(Figure2.9):
Data subcarriers: useful data transmission.
Pilot subcarriers: mainly for channel estimation and synchronization. For OFDM PHY,
there are eight pilot subcarriers.
Null subcarriers: no transmission. These are frequency guard bands.
Another null subcarrier is the DC (Direct Current) subcarrier. In OFDM and OFDMA
PHY layers, the DC subcarrier is the subcarrier whose frequency is equal to the RF center
frequency of the transmitting station. It corresponds to frequency zero (Direct Current) if the
FFT signal is not modulated. In order to simplify Digital-to-Analogue and Analogue-to-Digital
Converter operations, the DC subcarrier is null.

Figure2.9 WiMAX OFDM subcarriers types





16

OFDM Symbol Parameters and Some Simple Computations
The main WiMAX OFDM symbol parameters are the following:
The total number of subcarriers or, equivalently, the IFFT magnitude. For OFDM PHY,
NFFT=256, the number of lower-frequency guard subcarriers is 28 and the number of higher
frequency guard subcarriers is 27. Considering also the DC subcarrier, there remains Nused, the
number of used subcarriers, excluding the null subcarriers. Hence, Nused=200 for OFDM PHY,
of which 192 are used for useful data transmission, after deducing the pilot subcarriers.
BW, the nominal channel bandwidth
n, the sampling factor.
The sampling frequency, denoted fs, is related to the occupied channel bandwidth by the
following (simplified) formula: f
s
=nBW.
This is a simplified formula because, according to the standard, f
s
is truncated to an 8 kHz
multiple. According to the 802.16 standard, the numerical value of n depends of the channel
bandwidths. Possible values are 8/7, 86/75, 144/125, 316/275 and 57/50 for OFDM PHY and 8/7
and 28/25 for OFDMA PHY.
Duration of an OFDM Symbol
Based on the above-defined parameters, the time duration of an OFDM symbol can be
computed:
OFDM symbol duration = useful symbol time + guard time (CP time)
=1/ (one subcarrier spacing) +G useful symbol time
= (1/f) (1+G)
= [1/ ( f
s
/ NFFT)] (1+G)
= [1/ ( nBW / NFFT)] (1+G).
The OFDM symbol duration is a basic parameter for data rate computations.


17

Data Rate Values
In OFDM PHY, one OFDM symbol represents 192 subcarriers, each transmitting a modulation
data symbol (see above). One can then compute the number of data transmitted for the duration
of an OFDM symbol (which value is already known). Knowing the coding rate, the number of
uncoded bits can be computed. Figure2.10 shows the data rates for different Modulation and
Coding Schemes (MCSs) and G values. The occupied bandwidth considered is 7 MHz and the
sampling factor is 8/7 (the value corresponding to 7 MHz according to the standard).Consider the
following case in Figure 12: 16-QAM, coding rate 3/4 and G 1/16. It can be verified that the data
rate is equal to:
Data rate =number of uncoded bits per OFDM symbol/OFDM symbol duration
=192 4 (3/4)/ {[256/ (7 MHz 8/7)] (1 + 1/16)}
=16.94 Mb/s.


Figure2.10 OFDM PHY data rates in Mb/s








18

The OFDM Model


Figure2.11 Model of an OFDM system
OFDM signals are typically generated digitally due to the difficulty increasing large banks of
phase lock oscillators and receivers in the analog domain. Figure2.11 shows the block diagram of
such an OFDM system .In the transmitter, the incoming data stream is grouped in blocks of N
c

data symbols, which are the OFDM symbols, and can be represented by a vector X
m
. Next, an
IFFT is performed on each data symbol block and acyclic prefix of length Ng is added.
The received signal is, generally, the sum of a linear convolution with the discrete channel
impulse response, h (n), and an additive white Gaussian noise, w (n). It has to be said that it is
implicitly assumed that the channel fading is slow enough to consider it constant during one
symbol, and both, transmitter and receiver, are perfectly synchronized. At the receiver, the cyclic
prefix is removed, and then, the data symbol y
k,m
(frequency index k, OFDM symbol m) is
obtained by performing the FFT operation.
2.1.3 CHANNEL
AWGN
Additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) is a channel model in which the only impairment to
communication is a linear addition of wideband or white noise with a constant spectral density
(expressed as watts per hertz of bandwidth) and a Gaussian distribution of amplitude. The model
does not account for fading, frequency selectivity, interference, nonlinearity or dispersion.

19

However, it produces simple and tractable mathematical models which are useful for gaining
insight into the underlying behavior of a system before these other phenomena are considered.
Multipath Fading Channel
A fading channel is a communication channel comprising fading. In wireless systems, fading
may either be due to multipath propagation, referred to as multipath induced fading, or due to
shadowing from obstacles affecting the wave propagation, sometimes referred to as shadow
fading. The presence of reflectors in the environment surrounding a transmitter and receiver
create multiple paths that a transmitted signal can traverse. As a result, the receiver sees the
superposition of multiple copies of the transmitted signal, each traversing a different path. Each
signal copy will experience differences in attenuation, delay and phase shift while travelling
from the source to the receiver. This can result in either constructive or destructive interference,
amplifying or attenuating the signal power seen at the receiver. Strong destructive interference is
frequently referred to as a deep fade and may result in temporary failure of communication due
to a severe drop in the channel signal-to-noise ratio.
Doppler spread and Delay spread
When the receiver and the transmitter are in relative motion, the received signal is subject to a
constant frequency shift, called the Doppler shift Therefore, as it occurs in the time domain, the
Doppler spread is defined as the difference between the largest and the smallest among these
frequency shifts,
f
d
= f
M
cos
Where
f
M
= f
c
( v/c) is the maximum Doppler shift,
v is the vehicle speed,
f
c
is the carrier frequency,
c is the speed of light, and
is the arrival angle of the received signal component.

20

Thus we have,
f
d
= f
c
( v/c) cos
Furthermore, a time-varying Doppler shift is induced on each multipath component if the
reflecting objects and scatters in the propagation channel are in motion, causing frequency
dispersion.
The two manifestations of the channel time variations are the delay spread and the Doppler
spread. Depending on their values, the signal transmitted through the channel will undergo flat or
frequency selective fading. On one hand, the delay spread is a measure of the spreading time
over which the multipath signals arrive. It is a measure of the time dispersion of a channel, and is
very important in determining how fast the symbol rate can be in digital communications. One of
the most widely used measurement for characterizing the delay spread of a multipath channel is
the rms delay spread

. Furthermore, the inverse of the delay spread defines the coherence

bandwidth, B
coh
. It is the frequency separation at which two frequency components of the signal
undergo independent attenuations and a measure of the range of frequencies over which the
multipath fading channel frequency response can be considered to be flat or not. On the other
hand, the Doppler spread B
d
, is a measure of the spectral broadening caused by the time rate of
change of the multipath components due to the relative motion between transmitter and receiver.
Depending on how rapidly the multipath components change, the channel may be classified
either as a fast or a slow fading channel. Inversely proportional to one another rare the Doppler
spread and the coherence time. The coherence time T
coh
, is the time domain dual of Doppler
spread and is used to characterize the time-varying nature of the frequency dispersiveness of the
channel in the time domain. It is a statistical measure of the time duration over which the channel
impulse response is essentially invariant quantifying the similarity of the channel response at
different times.
Rayleigh fading
Rayleigh fading models assume that the magnitude of a signal that has passed through such a
transmission medium (also called a communications channel) will vary randomly, or fade,
according to a Rayleigh distribution the radial component of the sum of two uncorrelated
Gaussian random variables.

21

Rayleigh fading is a reasonable model when there are many objects in the environment that
scatter the radio signal before it arrives at the receiver. The central limit theorem holds that, if
there is sufficiently much scatter, the channel impulse response will be well-modeled as a
Gaussian process irrespective of the distribution of the individual components. If there is no
dominant component to the scatter, then such a process will have zero mean and phase evenly
distributed between 0 and 2 radians. The envelope of the channel response will therefore be
Rayleigh distributed.
Calling this random variable R, it will have a probability density function:
p
R
(r) =
2

c
-
2

, r u
Where
=E (R
2
)
Often, the gain and phase elements of a channel's distortion are conveniently represented as a
complex number. In this case, Rayleigh fading is exhibited by the assumption that the real and
imaginary parts of the response are modeled by independent and identically distributed zero-
mean Gaussian processes so that the amplitude of the response is the sum of two such processes.
Rician fading
Rician fading is a stochastic model for radio propagation anomaly caused by partial cancellation
of a radio signal by itself the signal arrives at the receiver by several different paths (hence
exhibiting multipath interference), and at least one of the paths is changing (lengthening or
shortening). Rician fading occurs when one of the paths, typically a line of sight signal, is much
stronger than the others. In Rician fading, the amplitude gain is characterized by a distribution.
Rayleigh is the specialized model for stochastic fading when there is no line of sight signal, and
is sometimes considered as a special case of the more generalized concept of Rician fading. In
Rayleigh fading, the amplitude gain is characterized by a Rayleigh distribution.



22

2.2 Technological Survey
2.2.1 Matlab
Matlab (Matrix Laboratory) is an interactive system whose basic data element is an ARRAY. It
was intended for use in Matrix theory, Linear algebra and Numerical analysis. Later and with the
addition of several toolboxes the capabilities of Matlab were expanded and today it is a very
powerful tool at the hands of an engineer. Its typical uses include:
Math and Computation
Algorithm development
Modeling, simulation and prototyping
Data analysis, exploration and visualization
Scientific and engineering graphics
Application development, including graphical user interface building.
2.2.2 Simulink
Simulink (Simulation and Link) is an extension of MATLAB by Math works Inc. It is a platform
for multi domain simulation and Model-Based Design of dynamic systems. It works with
MATLAB to offer modeling, simulation, and analysis of dynamical systems under a graphical
user interface (GUI) environment. The construction of a model is simplified with click-and-drag
mouse operations. Simulink includes a comprehensive block library of toolboxes for both linear
and nonlinear analyses. Models are hierarchical, which allow using both top-down and bottom-
up approaches. As Simulink is an integral part of MATLAB, it is easy to switch back and forth
during the analysis process and thus, the user may take full advantage of features offered in both
environments. Also, control logic can be tested and evaluated with-out the need to do time
consuming hardware experiments.
Key Features
Extensive and expandable libraries of predefined blocks
Interactive graphical editor for assembling and managing intuitive block diagrams
Ability to manage complex designs by segmenting models into hierarchies of design
components

23

Model Explorer to navigate, create, configure, and search all signals, parameters, and
properties of the model
Ability to interface with other simulation programs and incorporate hand-written code,
including MATLAB algorithms
Option to run fixed- or variable-step simulations of time-varying systems interactively
or through batch simulation
Functions for interactively defining inputs and viewing outputs to evaluate model
behavior
Graphical debugger to examine simulation results and diagnose unexpected behavior
in the design
Full access to MATLAB for analyzing and visualizing data, developing graphical user
interfaces, and creating model data and parameters
Model analysis and diagnostics tools to ensure model consistency and identify
modeling errors


24

Chapter 3
SIMULATION RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
3.1 AWGN
This section gives a comparison between the different modulation schemes used in the simulator.
These results have been obtained in an AWGN channel.


Figure3.1 BER for different modulation scheme in AWGN channel
The curves show the BER as a function of the bit energy to noise rate (E
b
/N
0
), which is a
measure of the energy eciency of a modulation scheme. If a higher E
b
/N
0
is needed to transfer
data for a given modulation scheme, it means that more energy is required for each bit transfer.
Low spectral eciency modulation schemes, such as BPSK and QPSK, require a lower E
b
/N
0
,
and hence, are more energy ecient and less vulnerable to bit errors than the high spectral
efficiency modulation schemes, such as 16-QAM and 64-QAM. And it is clearly visible in the
figure 3.1 which shows BPSK and QPSK with same curves and 16-QAM and 64-QAM with
progressively higher BER curves.
.


25

3.2 Multipath Fading:
As discussed earlier, the Rayleigh fading channel was used to implement the multipath fading.
And the analysis for the three main parameters for the fading channel is done from the obtained
simulation results.
Effect of Doppler shift
.

Figure3.2 Effect of Doppler shift on BER in QPSK
OFDM requires very accurate frequency synchronization between the receiver and the
transmitter; with frequency deviation the sub-carriers will no longer be orthogonal, causing inter-
carrier interference (ICI) (i.e., cross-talk between the sub-carriers). Frequency offsets are caused
by Doppler shift due to movement. While Doppler shift alone may be compensated for by the
receiver, the situation is worsened when combined with multipath, as reflections will appear at
various frequency offsets. This effect typically worsens as speed increases, and it can be easily
seen from the simulation results in figure 3.2 and figure 3.3.


26


Figure3.3 BER for QPSK for different values of Doppler shift
Keeping the delay spread and multipath gain constant, the above simulation results for the
change in Doppler shift for QPSK modulation scheme was determined. In the figure 3.2, the bit
error rate increases as the relative velocity increases. This is also presented in the BER vs. SNR
plot which displays that with increasing Doppler shift, the curves have also shifted showing
higher BER at certain SNR point for higher Doppler shifts.









27

Effect of delay spread:

Figure3.4 BER for QPSK for different delay spread
The simulation result showing the effect of delay spread of the Rayleigh fading channel
presented in the figure3.4.
When the delay spread is less than the sample period, the signal bandwidth is smaller than the
coherence bandwidth causing only flat fading and the delayed samples interfere only with the
own sample itself. The result is that there is no Inter Symbol Interference (ISI). But when the
delay spread increases such that it is higher than the sample period, and the signal bandwidth
becomes larger than the coherence bandwidth causing the delayed samples interfere with the
adjacent samples. This results in ISI and thus bit error. And this can easily be seen in the above
figure. For a delay spread less than sample period, the BER vs. SNR curve shows no effect of
multipath fading and almost represents the AWGN result. But for when delay spread is greater
than sample period, the effect of multipath fading is clearly seen with the increase in BER.




28

Effect of multipath gain

Figure3.5 BER for QPSK for different multipath gains
The figure3.5 shows the effect of the gains of the multipath components.
The amount a multipath component interferes with a transmitting signal depends on the power
that the component reaches the receiver. When the gain of the component is higher, the
interference is higher causing loss in performance. Similarly, low multipath gain leads to less
interference and thus higher performance. And this is clearly seen in the figure3.5.






29

Chapter 4
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
4.1 Discussion and Conclusion
In this wireless communication industry, WiMAX is an attractive alternative for fulfilling needs
higher range and data rates. And the physical layer defined in the standard IEEE 802.16e
describes the use of the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) which is a
technique based on multi carrier modulation (MCM) and frequency division multiplexing
(FDM). So this research helps to analyze the characteristic behavior of this technique in
different channels with different modulation schemes. BER and SNR are the main metrics used
to perform the analysis. This research helps to find suitable modulation schemes for different
channel conditions.
This research discusses the introduction of the WiMAX physical layer, its components and its
characteristics. The flexible and parameterizeable OFDM was studied, then simulated in
Simulink and analyzed, deriving its characters at different parameters.
Based on the analysis we can conclude that in AWGN channel, modulation schemes with low
spectral efficiency like BPSK and QPSK are better. Similarly, the performance of the OFDM in
multipath fading channel was seen to deteriorate at higher velocity, longer delay spread and
higher multipath gain.
4.2 Recommendations
The simulation analyzes and helps to find suitable modulation schemes for different channel
conditions. And thus this research can be further extended to develop and analyze a system with
adaptive modulation. Similarly, channel coding can be added to this model to add error
protection in the system, and in future this model can be expanded to include the components of
the MAC layer and a complete end to end WiMAX system could be built based on this model.






30

Bibliography

IEEE Computer Society and the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society , IEEE
Standard for Local and metropolitan area networks, Part 16: Air Interface for Broadband
Wireless Access Systems
John Wiley & Sons, WiMAX: Technology for Broadband Wireless Access Lout Nuaymi
2007, Ltd. ISBN: 0-470-02808-4
Chritian Bauer (Stuttguart), Introduction to WiMAX,
Jeffrey G. Andrews, Ph.D.Arunabha Ghosh, Ph.D.AT&T Labs Inc,Rias Muhamed.AT&T Labs
Inc., Fundamentals of WiMAX
M.A. Mohamed, F.W. Zaki, R.H. Mosbeh, Simulation of WiMAX Physical Layer: IEEE 802.16e
Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn. Markus Rupp, Dipl.-Ing. Christian Mehlfhrer, Implementation
of a WiMAX simulator in Simulink
Roberto Cristi, Wireless Communications with Matlab and Simulink: IEEE802.16 (WiMax)
Physical Layer
Won Gi Jeon, Student Member, IEEE, Kyung Hi Chang, Senior Member, IEEE, and Yong Soo
Cho, Member, IEEE, An Equalization Technique for Orthogonal Frequency-Division,
Multiplexing Systems in Time-Variant Multipath Channels










31

Appendix
OFDM simulator block diagram
In order to have a general view of the WiMAX simulator described through the thesis, a
complete block diagram of the Simulink model le is given in this appendix.


Simulation on AWGN channel


32


Simulation on Rayleigh and AWGN channel



Simulation on Rayleigh channel

33

CODES FOR SIMULATION AND ANALYSIS

Initialization Code:
clear
BW=input('Required channel bandwidth in MHz(max 20 MHz)=');
disp('choose cyclic prefix to overcome delays spreads')
disp(',1/4 for longest delay spread ,1/8 for long delay spreads ,')
disp('1/16 for short delays spreads ,1/32 for very small delay spread channels')
G=input('= ');

if ((G~=1/4)&(G~=1/8)&(G~=1/16)&(G~=1/32))
error('You have choosen a guard period thats not valid in the IEEE 802.16')
end
inputsize=192;
Nfft=256;
fs=floor((2)*BW*1e6); %sampling freqency
freqspacing= fs/Nfft; %freqency spacing
Tb= 1/freqspacing; %usfel symbol time
Tg= G*Tb ;%Guard time
Ts=Tb+Tg ;%symbol time
samplingttime= Tb/Nfft;

CPsel=[(256-G*256+1):256 1:256];
CPremove=[(256*G+1):(256+G*256)];

SNR=input('Enter the channel SNR in dB=');

34

if SNR<0
error('not a valid SNR value')
end
a= input('Choose the modulation scheme :1=BPSK, 2=QPSK, 3=16 QAM, 4=64QAM ');

if (a==1) %BPSK
m=2;
Ry=[+1 -1];
Iy=[0 0];
qamconst=complex(Ry,Iy);
qamconst=qamconst(:);
bitspersymbol=1;

disp('Modulation scheme of BPSK is chosen');

elseif (a==2) %QPSK
m=4;
Ry=ones(2,1)*[+1 -1];

Iy=([+1 -1]')*ones(1,2);

qamconst=complex(Ry,Iy);
qamconst=qamconst(:)/sqrt(2);
bitspersymbol=2;

disp('Modulation scheme of QPSK is chosen');

35


elseif (a==3) %16-QAM
m=16;
Ry=ones(4,1)*[+1 +3 -1 -3];
Iy=([+1 +3 -3 -1]')*ones(1,4);
qamconst=complex(Ry,Iy);
qamconst=qamconst(:)/sqrt(10);
bitspersymbol=4;

disp('Modulation scheme of 16-QAM is chosen');

elseif (a==4) %64-QAM
m=64;
Ry=ones(8,1)*[+3 +1 +5 +7 -3 -1 -5 -7 ];
Iy=([+3 +1 +5 +7 -3 -1 -5 -7 ]')*ones(1,8);
qamconst=complex(Ry,Iy);
qamconst=qamconst(:)/sqrt(42);
bitspersymbol=6;

disp('Modulation scheme of 64-QAM is chosen');

end

Plotting code:
Effect of doppler shift on BER in QPSK
fd=[.1 1 10 15 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100];

36

ber=[0 0 .054 .104 .162 .2198 .2646 .3015 .3326 .3566 .3769 .391 .398]
%ber_0=[1.6e-6 1.6e-6 .025 .049 .071];
plot(fd,ber,'b*-')
grid on
xlabel('Doppler Shift ')
ylabel('Bit error rate')
title('Effect of doppler shift on BER in QPSK')
hold all
%plot(fd,ber_0,'r+-')
legend('QPSK','DQPSK', 3)

Bit error rate for QPSK for different values of doppler shift
clc
SNR=[0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30];
ber=[ 0.2156 0.1330 0.0580 0.0132 0.0008 0.00001 0 0 0 0 0];
ber_0=[0.2341 0.1654 0.1117 0.0574 0.0179 0.0032 0.0002 0.00001 0 0 0];
ber_1=[0.3141 0.1929 0.1104 0.0795 0.0469 0.0249 0.0115 0.0049 0.0018 0.0004
0.00005];
ber_2=[ 0.3212 0.2612 0.1947 0.1325 0.0854 0.0532 0.0333 0.0187 0.0077 0.0020
0.0002];
ber_3=[ 0.3386 0.2863 0.2257 0.1644 0.1116 0.0686 0.0364 0.0191 0.0079 0.0022
0.0002];
ber_4=[0.3499 0.2981 0.2370 0.1757 0.1221 0.0792 0.0466 0.0236 0.0095 0.0031
0.0005];
semilogy(SNR,ber,'b*-');
grid on
xlabel('SNR ')

37

ylabel('Bit error rate')
title('Bit error rate for QPSK for different values of doppler shift')
hold all
semilogy(SNR,ber_0,'r+-');
semilogy(SNR,ber_1,'bo-')
semilogy(SNR,ber_2,'gx-')
semilogy(SNR,ber_3,'k*-')
semilogy(SNR,ber_4,'cs-')
legend('0.001Hz','1Hz','5Hz','10Hz','20Hz','100Hz', 3)

Bit error rate for QPSK for different delay spread
SNR=[0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30];
ber=[0.2551 0.1788 0.1018 0.0422 0.0112 0.0016 0.0001 0.0000 0 0 0]
ber_0=[ 0.3596 0.3114 0.2548 0.1944 0.1371 0.0908 0.0597 0.0417 0.0322 0.0273
0.0249];
semilogy(SNR,ber,'b*-')
grid on
xlabel('SNR ')
ylabel('Bit error rate')
title('Bit error rate for QPSK for different delay spread')
hold all
semilogy(SNR,ber_0,'r+-')
legend('1.7e-6 delay','2e-5 delay', 3)

Bit error rate for QPSK for different multipath gains
SNR=[0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30];

38

ber=[0.2551 0.1788 0.1018 0.0422 0.0112 0.0016 0.0001 0.0000 0 0 0];
ber_0=[0.2202 0.1398 0.0663 0.0195 0.0026 0.0001 0.00000 0 0 0 0];
ber_1=[0.2101 0.1291 0.0575 0.0149 0.0015 0.00001 0.0000 0 0 0 0];
ber_2=[ 0.2090 0.1279 0.0566 0.0144 0.0014 0.00001 0.0000 0 0 0 0];
semilogy(SNR,ber,'b*-');
grid on
xlabel('SNR ')
ylabel('Bit error rate')
title('Bit error rate for QPSK for different multipath gains')
hold all
semilogy(SNR,ber_0,'r+-');
semilogy(SNR,ber_1,'bo-')
semilogy(SNR,ber_2,'gx-')
legend('-3dB','-10dB','-20dB','-30dB', 3)