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OFDM Baseband Modulation Technology based on VHDL

Lin Lin Yan-feng Qiao Changchun Wan-xin Su

Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics Changchun Institute of Optics,
Mechanics and Physics, Chinese and Physics, Chinese Fine Mechanics and Physics,
Academy of Sciences Academy of Sciences Chinese Academy of Sciences
Graduate School of the Chinese Changchun China Changchun China
Academy of Sciences Changchun qiaoyf@ciomp.ac.cn swx123456@mail.jl.c
China; Beijing China n
linlinat0218@yahoo.com.cn

Abstract—In order to improve the transmission velocity in digital video broadcasting (DVB), asymmetric digital
mulitipath fading wireless channel, the high speed OFDM subscriber line (ADSL), and IEEE802.11a. OFDM is also
technology receives increasing attentions in mobile considered in the new fixed broadband wireless access
communication. Modulation programs are designed with system specifications [3] [4].
VHDL based on the principle of OFDM in the paper.
First, after OFDM fundamental is introduced; two main II. ALGORITHM BEHAVIOR
advantages are obtained via discussing spectrum utilization
ratio of OFDM. Then, from the results of VHDL simulation, A. OFDM fundamental
the realization of baseband operations, such
Supposing N subchannels in OFDM system, one
as interleaver, subcarrier modulation,
IFFT and adding CP, are presented. Finally,
subchannel uses one subcarrier
implemented programs are validated on the actual implement
system. Experimental results indicate that setup xk t Bk cos 2 f k t (k 0,1, ,N (1)
time 1)
k
corresponding to transmission velocity is only 71.05μs where Bk is amplitude of the kth subcarrier which decides
and
input code; fk is frequency of the kth subcarrier; φk is initial
steady time is approximately 6 times as setup time, that is,
not only achieving the high speed transmission, but also phase of the kth subcarrier [5]. The sum of N subcarriers is
supplying adequate modulation time. provided
Keywords: OFDM; VHDL; Baseband N 1

Modulation st Bk cos 2 f k t (2)

k
k 0
I. INTRODUCTION Rewriting (2) in complex field
N 1
j2 f t
The growth of mobile communications and
wireless s t Bk k k
(3)
internet access has produced a strong demand for k 0 e
advanced
wireless techniques. The challenges for wireless where Bk is complex input of the kth subcarrier.
communication designscome from the If frequency interval of adjacent subcarrier is f = 1/T
detrimental characteristics of wireless
environments, such as multipath f k (k m) /(2 (m 0,1,2
an ) , arbitrary two
fading, Doppler Effect, co-channel interference, d T)
and
intentional jamming in military communications. subcarriers is orthogonal in code duration T, that is
The T

objective of this paper is to provide an approach to solve the

problem of transmission velocity of multipath fading by cos 2 f k t k
cos 2 f i t i
dt
means of orthogonal frequency division 0 (4)
multiplexing
(OFDM) [1] wher f k f i n / (n 0,1,2 and orthogonality is
[2]. e T )
OFDM is a special form of multicarrier modulation, first investigated the use of OFDM for mobile
which was originally used in high frequency military radio. communications. Since then,
An efficient way to implement OFDM by means of a OFDM has become popular. In the 1990s, OFDM was
discrete Fourier transform (DFT) was found by Weinstein in adopted in the standards of digital audio broadcasting
1971. The computational complexity could be further (DAB),
reduced by a fast Fourier transform (FFT). However, OFDM
was not popular at that time because the implementation of 978-1-4244-5848-6/10/$26.00 ©2010
large-size FFTs was still too expensive. Recent advances in IEEE
VLSI technologies have enabled cheap and fast
implementation of FFTs and IFFTs. In the 1980s, Cimini
independent of φk and φi . So this multicarrier system is
called orthogonal frequency division multiplexing.
Spectrum density of single subcarrier is showed as Fig.1. f
fk
fk+1/T
Figure 1: Spectrum density of single subcarrier

1
 Inverse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT) is used to
modulate signal, since the expression of OFDM symbol is
like that of IDFT
1 K 1
s(k ) S (n)e j (2 K ) nk

K n0
(8)
Figure 2: Spectrum density of complex subcarriers where k = 0, 1 K-1. Using K input codes in (2) to
substitute into K disperse values S(n), s(k) becomes s(t) of (2)
Because frequency interval of adjacent subcarrier is and φk = 0.
f
This section presents VHDL implement results of
= 1/T, spectrum density of complex subcarriers is showed interleaver, subcarrier modulation, IFFT and adding CP.
as Next, these will be discussed respectively.
Fig. 2.
There are two main advantages of the method: one is A. Interleaver
that signal could make the most of frequency band; the Interleaver is to disperse lost information to decrease
other is the flexibility of modulation of subcarriers. error bit rate, in other words, when user information bits are
lost among transmission process, lost information is part bits
B. OFDM spectrum utilization ratio of some users, not all bits of one user and original
Supposing that N is the number of subcarriers, T is code information can be recovered by the remaining information
duration and M is modulated M-system of every subcarrier. [7]. The process of interleaver is that data are read from
Frequency band width is the
N
BOFDM 1 (5 RAM where grouping data are stored, according to some
T ) rule. Here data are across read with equal interval, and the
interval
Utilization ratio of frequency band is transmitted bit is 4. Simulation results are showed as Fig.3.
ratio of unit bandwidth
B. Subcarrier modulation
N log 2 M 1 N
log2 M
BOFDM
T BOFDM N Subcarrier modulation mostly uses three modes that are
1 FSK (Frequency Shift Keying), PSK (Phase Shift Keying)
(6 and MQAM (Multiple Quadrature Amplitude Modulation)
)
when N converges at , BOFDM log 2 M [6]. [8]. In the article employ BFSK (Binary Frequency Shift
If a subcarrier adopts M-system code to transmit, in Keying), QPSK (QuadriPhase Shift Keying) and
order to obtain the same transmission velocity, utilization 16QAM (16-system QAM). Pilot modulation usually adopts
ratio of frequency band is expressed by BFSK that f1 and f2 correspond to "0" and "1" in Fig.4. For
QPSK, phase 0, π/4, π/2 and 3π/4 are denoted by code
"00", "01",
N log 2 M 1 "10" and "11", respectively, and simulation results of time
T
log (7
)
BM M 2
sequence are showed as Fig.5 (Maker region is the
2N 2

T
Comparing (6) and (7), OFDM technology makes waveforms of four phases). Frequency division and phase
utilization ratio of frequency band approximately increase shift of QPSK are realized by taking count of system clock.
twice times. MQAM is amplitude and phase keying system
where amplitude and phase are synchronously modulated as
two independent parameters. The kth code is denoted as
III. VHDL IMPLEMENT sk t Ak cos 0
t kT t k 1T
VHDL is a hardware description language that describes (9) k

electron circuitry and systemic behaves. Based on the

description and interrelated software tools, one can gain
anticipant circuitry or system. In the article, ISE9.2i
achieves various operations of Virtex-5 FPGA such as
program, synthesis, implement, restriction and simulation.
Figure 3: Simulation results of time sequence of interleaver
 Figure 4: Simulation results of time sequence of BFSK

12

13
-128
14

-101
37
-100

38
-89

39

-88

62
-87

63
-64

64

-63

87
-62

88
-39

89

-38

100
-37

101
 127

-13
128

-12

155

-1
156

0
167

Figure 7: Simulation results

168 of time sequence of 16QAM
12
169

-128 data subcarriers mapping direction 127

13
192

13

193

37
194

Figure 8: OFDM
38
subcarriers
217
mapping
Figure 5: Simulation results of time sequence of QPSK 39

218

data subcarriers mapping

62
64
direction

where k = 0,1,2,3 , Ak and θk can choose different positive frequency negative frequency
63 255
region 87 region
0 64
219
discrete values. When θk is 0 or π/2 and Ak is +A or –A,
MQAM becomes QPSK, so QPSK is the simplest 87
242

MQAM. In vectorgraph, every spot expresses amplitude and

phase of one code, and MQAM signal is composed of two 88
243

orthogonal 89
244

vectors as Fig.6. The real and imaginary part of the spot Figure 9: Regulated OFDM subcarriers mapping
express signal value has been modulated. Fig.7 shows 100
255

101
simulation plot of time sequence of 16QAM where relevant
spot is denoted by well-regulated combination of four 127

values
-- "0000100000" (32), "0001100000" (96), "1111011111"
(-
33) and "1110011111" (-
97).
C. Realization of IFFT
Inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) is a fast
realization of IDFT and employs here. After mapping,
data must be from frequency domain to time domain via
IFFT, and synchronously accomplish OFDM modulation.
The number of spots is 256. Data of frequency domain have
been on corresponding subcarriers before IFFT. 256
subcarriers are
192 data subcarriers, 8 pilot subcarriers and 56 empty
subcarriers including 28 protective subcarriers in low
frequency region, 27 protective subcarriers in high
frequency region and one DC (Direct Current) subcarrier.
Indexes of 8
pilot subcarriers are -88 -63 -38 -13, 13, 38, 63, 88 [9].
Data subcarriers map according to arrowhead direction
from negative frequency to positive frequency as Fig.8. In
implement process, sequence number of IFFT module is 0
255, so subcarrier -128 127 transform subcarrier 0 255
based on periodicity of IFFT, where 0 127 and 128
255 are positive and negative frequency region,
respectively. The plot is showed as Fig. 9.
Figure 10: Simulation results of time sequence of adding CP (GI = 4)
Realization of IFFT makes use of Fast Fourier
Transform v5.0 that is an IP core of Xilinx ISE. Xilinx Co.
supplies partly free IP cores for users which can be used via
setting correlative parameters or making little modifications
to save logic resources of mapping, operate steadily and
shorten design period. Here FWD_INV = 0, FWD_INV_WE
= 1, NFFT = 64, 16, NFFT_WE = 1 and the others adopt
defaults.
D. Adding CP
In OFDM systems, the entire channel is divided into N
narrow subchannels and the high-rate data are transmitted in
parallel through the subchannels at the same time. Therefore,
the symbol duration is N times longer than that of single-
carrier systems and the inter-symbol interference (ISI) is
reduced by N times. Through adding a cyclic prefix (CP)
ahead of each OFDM symbol, the ISI can be totally
suppressed as long as the length of CP Tg is longer than the
maximum channel delay τmax. Usually the length of CP is
much smaller than the symbol duration; therefore, the
spectrum efficiency decrease is negligible. To preserve the
orthogonality, the subchannel spacing satisfies f = 1/ Ts,
where Ts is the OFDM symbol duration [10] [11].

Ak
However, introduced guard interval (GI) brings loss of
k power and information velocity. The loss of power is
defined as

Figure 6: Vectorgraph of 16QAM and 64QAM

Tg 10 log 1
guard
10
T FFT

(10)
where Tg is the length of sample GI TFFT is the symbol
 length of OFDM after FFT without GI. From (10), when GI
occupies 20%, the loss of power is no more than 1 dB, but

3
the loss of power could achieve 20%. The cost is worthy
because of eliminated ISI. Simulation results of time
sequence of adding CP is showed as Fig.10.
IV. EXPERIMENT RESULTS
Fig.11 shows the actual implement system. The
implement results enumerated in Table 1 indicate that the
movement of programs is normal. Experiment conditions
are data transmission rate - 25Mb/s, mobile velocity - 400
km/h, sampling frequency - 12.5MHz, FFT period - 3.84μs,
and CP length - 0.96μs. Noted, the mix of Table 1 is the
combine of
16QAM, QPSK and BPSK.
When the modulation modes alternately use to adapt
channel change, setup and steady time is 71.05μs
and
440.03μs respectively, in other words, implement system
has enough time to accomplish various baseband works and
operation velocity satisfies the request of high speed.
Moreover, memory resources consumed are only 7.6% and
CFOs (carrier frequency offsets) error is also accurate
within
1% of the subcarrier spacing.
V. CONCLUSION
OFDM Baseband Modulation Technology mentioned in
the article, using VHDL as realization foundation reduces
setup time and increases steady time which make
complicated baseband works be accomplished well, and
whose validity and feasibility are proved through the ISE
simulation results and running on the actual implement
system, respectively. It is exhibited that setup time
corresponding to operation velocity is between 10 and
230μs improving approximately one order of magnitude and
steady time can arrives at 65.53 1223.65μs. Next, much
less CFOs error will be researched with higher mobile
velocity.
Figure 11: Implement system
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is supposed by the National High Technology
Research and Development Program of China (863,
No.
2008AA7034320B), and here thanks for constant
guidance of my advisors, Dr. Yan-feng Qiao and Wan-xin
Su and opportunity supplied by conference organizers.
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TABLE I. EXPERIMENT RESULTS

modulation setup time steady memory CFOs
(μs) time (μs) resources (%) error

64QAM 213.23 1223.65 10.5% 0.00987

16QAM 55.74 381.77 7.8% 0.00966
QPSK 20.65 108.26 4.2% 0.00792
BPSK 12.33 65.53 2.0% 0.00654
mix 71.05 440.03 7.6% 0.00971
(average) (average) (average) (average)
4