MATLAB Simulation of a Wireless Communication System using OFDM Principle

Abstract

FDMA, TDMA and CDMA are the well known multiplexing techniques used in wireless communication systems. While working with the wireless systems using these techniques various problems encountered are (i) multipath fading (ii) time dispersion which lead to intersymbol interference (ISI) (iii) lower bit rate capacity (iv) requirement of larger transmit power for high bit rate and (v) less spectral efficiency. In a typical terrestrial broadcasting, the transmitted signal arrives at the receiver using various paths of different lengths. Since multiple versions of the signal interfere with each other, it becomes difficult to extract the original information. The use of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technique provides better solution for the above mentioned problems. OFDM technique distributes the data over a large number of carriers that are spaced apart at precise frequencies. This spacing provides the “orthogonality”, which prevents the demodulator from seeing frequencies other than their own. The benefits of OFDM are high spectral efficiency, resiliency of RF interference, and lower multi-path distortion. OFDM is a powerful modulation technique that is capable of high data rate and is able to eliminate ISI. The use of FFT technique to implement modulation and demodulation functions makes it computationally more efficient. The OFDM based wireless communication system design includes the design of OFDM transmitter, and OFDM receiver. The authors have proposed the design for the above system, using simulink modeling tool and communication block set available in MATAB version 6.5. The digital modulation schemes such as BPSK and QPSK were selected to assess the performance of the designed OFDM system. From the simulation results, it is observed that the BPSK allows the BER to be improved in a noisy channel at the cost of maximum data transmission capacity. Use of QPSK allows higher transmission capacity, but at the cost of slight increase in the probability of error. From the results, authors concluded that use of OFDM with QPSK is beneficial for long distance transmission link, whereas for short distance transmission link OFDM with BPSK will be preferable.