Apr 22, 20225 min read

What is OFDM in Wireless System

OFDM: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing

OFDM is a form of signal modulation that divides a high data rate modulating stream placing them onto many slowly modulated narrowband close-spaced subcarriers, and in this way is less sensitive to frequency selective fading. OFDM is a modulation format that is being used for many of the latest wireless and telecommunications standards.

OFDM is a form of multicarrier modulation. An OFDM signal consists of a number of closely spaced modulated carriers. When modulation of any form – voice, data, etc. is applied to a carrier, then sidebands spread out either side. It is necessary for a receiver to be able to receive the whole signal to be able to successfully demodulate the data. As a result when signals are transmitted close to one another they must be spaced so that the receiver can separate them using a filter and there must be a guard band between them. This is not the case with OFDM. Although the sidebands from each carrier overlap, they can still be received without the interference that might be expected because they are orthogonal to each another. This is achieved by having the carrier spacing equal to the reciprocal of the symbol period.

The OFDM scheme differs from traditional FDM in the following interrelated ways:

Multiple carriers (called subcarriers) carry the information stream
The subcarriers are orthogonal to each other.
A guard interval is added to each symbol to minimize the channel delay spread and intersymbol interference.

How OFDM Works:

OFDM is a specialised FDM having the constraint that the sub-streams in which the main signal is divided, are orthogonal to each other. Orthogonal signals are signals that are perpendicular to each other. A main property of orthogonal signals is that they do not interfere with each other.

When any signal is modulated by the sender, its sidebands spread out either side. A receiver can successfully demodulate the data only if it receives the whole signal. In case of FDM, guard bands are inserted so that interference between the signals, resulting in cross-talks, does not occur. However, since orthogonal signals are used in OFDM, no interference occurs between the signals even if their sidebands overlap. So, guard bands can be removed, thus saving bandwidth. The criteria that needs to be maintained is that the carrier spacing should be equal to the reciprocal of the symbol period.

In order that OFDM works, there should be very accurate synchronization between the communicating nodes. If frequency deviation occurs in the sub-streams, they will not be orthogonal any more, due to which interference between the signals will occur.

The following diagram plots FDM versus OFDM, to depict the saving in bandwidth obtained by OFDM −

OFDM variants

There are several other variants of OFDM for which the initials are seen in the technical literature. These follow the basic format for OFDM, but have additional attributes or variations:

COFDM: Coded Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing. A form of OFDM where error correction coding is incorporated into the signal.
Flash OFDM: This is a variant of OFDM that was developed by Flarion and it is a fast hopped form of OFDM. It uses multiple tones and fast hopping to spread signals over a given spectrum band.
OFDMA: Orthogonal frequency division multiple access. A scheme used to provide a multiple access capability for applications such as cellular telecommunications when using OFDM technologies.
VOFDM: Vector OFDM. This form of OFDM uses the concept of MIMO technology. It is being developed by CISCO Systems. MIMO stands for Multiple Input Multiple output and it uses multiple antennas to transmit and receive the signals so that multi-path effects can be utilised to enhance the signal reception and improve the transmission speeds that can be supported.
WOFDM: Wideband OFDM. The concept of this form of OFDM is that it uses a degree of spacing between the channels that is large enough that any frequency errors between transmitter and receiver do not affect the performance. It is particularly applicable to Wi-Fi systems.

OFDM applications

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing is used in many technologies, including the following:

Digital radio, Digital Radio Mondiale, and digital audio broadcasting and satellite radio.
Digital television standards, Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial/Handheld (DVB-T/H), DVB-Cable 2 (DVB-C2). OFDM is not used in the current U.S. digital television Advanced Television Systems Committee standard, but it is used in the future 4K/8K-capable ATSC 3.0 standard.
Wired data transmission, Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 1901 powerline networking, cable internet providers. Fiber optic transmission may use either OFDM signals or several distinct frequencies as FDM.
Wireless LAN (WLAN) data transmission. All Wi-Fi systems use OFDM, including IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax. The addition of OFDMA to the Wi-Fi 6/802.11ax standard enables more devices to use the same base station simultaneously. OFDM is also used in metropolitan area network (MAN) IEEE 802.16 Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX>) installations.
Cellular data. Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and 4G cellphone networks use OFDM. It is also an integral part of 5G NR cellular deployments.
Other proprietary systems.

OFDM advantages

OFDM has been used in many high data rate wireless systems because of the many advantages it provides.

Immunity to selective fading: One of the main advantages of OFDM is that is more resistant to frequency selective fading than single carrier systems because it divides the overall channel into multiple narrowband signals that are affected individually as flat fading sub-channels.
Resilience to interference: Interference appearing on a channel may be bandwidth limited and in this way will not affect all the sub-channels. This means that not all the data is lost.
Spectrum efficiency: Using close-spaced overlapping sub-carriers, a significant OFDM advantage is that it makes efficient use of the available spectrum.
Resilient to ISI: Another advantage of OFDM is that it is very resilient to inter-symbol and inter-frame interference. This results from the low data rate on each of the sub-channels.
Resilient to narrow-band effects: Using adequate channel coding and interleaving it is possible to recover symbols lost due to the frequency selectivity of the channel and narrow band interference. Not all the data is lost.
Simpler channel equalization: One of the issues with CDMA systems was the complexity of the channel equalization which had to be applied across the whole channel. An advantage of OFDM is that using multiple sub-channels, the channel equalization becomes much simpler.

OFDM disadvantages

Whilst OFDM has been widely used, there are still a few disadvantages to its use which need to be addressed when considering its use.

High peak to average power ratio: An OFDM signal has a noise like amplitude variation and has a relatively high large dynamic range, or peak to average power ratio. This impacts the RF amplifier efficiency as the amplifiers need to be linear and accommodate the large amplitude variations and these factors mean the amplifier cannot operate with a high efficiency level.
Sensitive to carrier offset and drift: Another disadvantage of OFDM is that is sensitive to carrier frequency offset and drift. Single carrier systems are less sensitive.