Performance of Multi tone Code Division Multiple Access (MT-CDMA) in an

AWGN Channel and in Presence of Narrowband Jamming

Khalifa Nasser K Jileta, Mahamod Ismail, Alina Marie Hasbi
Department of Electrical, Electronics and System Engineering,
Faculty of Engineering
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
436000 Bangi- Selangor, Malaysia
Tel: +6 03 8296322 Fax: +6 03 8296146
kjleta(yahoo.com, {mbi, alina)}eng.ukm.my

very important advantage of MT-CDMA gained from

Abstract- The main limits of the conventional single
carrier modulation techniques are the restrictions imposed
by the multipath channel, and the receiver complexity. On
other hand the multicarrier techniques such as Multi-
Carrier (MC) and Multi-Tone (MT) can provide high data
rates at reasonable receiver complexities. Jamming on the
other hand is of interest in some communication
applications, and in military anti-jam systems. In this work,
we study the performance of Multi-Tone Code Division
Multiple Access (MT-CDMA) in presence of narrowband
jamming. We investigate Bit Error Rate (BER) performance
as a function of some system parameters such as number of
sub-carriers, processing gain, and as a function of channel
conditions such as jamming type, number of jammers,
jamming center frequency, jamming power, and jamming to
signal power ratio. We compare the performance with the
analytical performance in absence of any jamming. The
simulation results show, that the performance can be
enhanced by increasing the processing gain, number of
jammers or by decreasing the number of sub-carriers, the
jamming to power ratio or jamming power. Furthermore the
effect of jamming center frequency on the performance is
negligible, and good agreement with the analytical
performance in absence of jamming is achieved.
Keyword&-OFDM, CDMA, MT-CDMA, Narrowband
jamming
I. INTRODUCTION
Multimedia applications of mobile communications
need modulation, and multiple access techniques that, can
deliver very high data rates, which cannot be offered. by
the traditional single carrier modulation techniques. MT-
CDMA is a combined technique between Orthogonal
Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and Code
division Multiple Access (CDMA) and it is an attempt to
provide a communication system that inherits the
advantages of both CDMA and OFDM, and provides the
new probable technique for the fourth generation of
mobile communication systems. MT-CDMA inherits the
powerful features of CDMA, which allow number of users
to access the channel simultaneously. This is achieved by,
modulating and spreading the signals with pre-assigned
codes sequences. Since CDMA provides better spectral
efficiency and easier base station placement compared to
second generation systems and beside its high
perfonnance in presence ofjamming interference. Another
OFDM is its less sensitivity to the inter symbol
interference (ISI) caused by radio channel impairments.
This advantage is achieved by using more than one carrier
to carry the symbol and then a lower data rate for the same
user data comparing to single carrier modulation is
achieved. By well-chosen system parameters, we can
reduce the effect of unfriendly channels such as
frequency-selective channels. Another very important
advantage using MT-CDMA is its spectrum efficiency due
to allowing the sub-carriers to largely overlap with each
other. Actually High Spectral Efficiency is the main
advantage of MT-CDMA over single and the multicarrier
techniques. At the same time, to facilitate inter-carrier
interference free demodulation of the sub-carriers, the sub-
carriers are made orthogonal to each other. The possible
orthogonality in MT-CDMA is over the symbol time T,
[1], [2]. If the orthogonality is not altered by the channel,
the modulating signal of each sub-carrier can be recovered
exactly by the receiver [3]. A comparison between MT
and single carrier schemes was done in [4] and both
schemes show equivalent performance in presence of
multi user interference. Jamming noise is of interest in
some fields and applications such as anti-jam systems
used in military applications and in the spectral overlay of
narrowband pulsed signals over Direct Sequence Spread
Spectrum (DS-SS) transmission [4]. In this work we
assume single user to simplify the work (no Multi User
Interference) and we use conventional receiver which is
recommended in case of single user detection. Spreading
technique is DS-SS and the modulation technique is
assumed Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK), since it is
the most common modulation type, used in direct
sequence systems. The type of data mapping to sub-carrier
is considered as Serial to Parallel (S:P) transformation.
The codes on all sub-carriers are the same, in order to
obtain a high correlation among the sub-carriers
modulation symbols. Perfect symbol synchronization and
phase coherence are assumed. And the channel is assumed
as Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN).
In the next we describe MT-CDMA system. In section
III we describe the simulation methodology. Section IV
provides the simulation results, discussion and section V
includes a summary and the conclusion.

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 11. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION ANT MODEL
Fig. 1, Fig. 2, show the MT-CDMA transmitter and
MT-CDMA spectra respectively.
S j , x { Ij j QC(n)cos(2Tj,t)4
C (t) Cos(2*pi*fxT) (3)
where:
S(t) is the transmitted signal.
M is the number of sub-carriers.
C (t) Cos(2*pi*f2T) Lxj
is the integer part of x.
d(t) S(t) cos 2z'rfjT(t): is the RF carrier for the corresponding
*00 sub-carrier at the transmitter.
I I At the receiver, the transmitted signal is added to n(t),
I I the AWGN noise signal with zero mean and variance of
CM(t) Cos(2*pi*fMT) NJ2 W/Hz. The received signal can be
r(t) = s(t) + n(t) (4)
MT-CDMA receiver is shown in Fig. 3. The received
Fig. 1. MT-CDMA Transmitter signal is entered to M parallel paths, on each path we
demodulate the received signal by multiplying it by
cos 2fjR (t) and c(t), then integrating over the symbol
period (Ts). The integrator removes (shown in Fig. 4) the
double or high frequency term resulting from the
'- I I I I ! multiplication by the sinusoidal carrier signal. The
f1 f2 f3 f3...fM
decision circuits are used then to collect the symbol
Fig. 2. MT-CDMA spectra samples to make a decision and get the data symbol. The
decision static is denoted by 4. This is done on each sub-
The incoming bit stream denoted by d(t) is first serial- carrier, hence Mof Fig. 4 is required [5].
to-parallel converted into M data streams (Mis number of Cos(2*pi*f,T)
sub-carriers). Then the data on each path is spread by
using orthogonal codes denoted by Cj(t).Same or different
codes can be used on each path. After spreading the
spread data modulates the orthogonal sub-carriers. In MT-
CDMA, the sub-carriers are orthogonal over the symbol
duration, and hence the sub-carriers frequencies are given
by f = f +P where fo is the RF and T is the
symbol time, and p 01,.....M-l. The modulated and
=

spread waveforms are scale and then summed. The Jlh

sub-carrier data waveform (transmitter input) is[5]:
dj(t) = 2
n
djn p t-n (l)
where the nib data symbol is djn
E D = {1}and T is
the bit time. The modulation symbol Ij(n) are analogous to Fig. 3. MT-CDMA Receiver
the data symbol and the modulation waveform for sub-
carrierj can be defined as[5].
Ij (t) =EIj (n)pTs (t- nTs) (2) 1.(t) Ts _(t)
The Processing Gain (P) is defined as P = T/TC, where T,
= 1/R1 the chip time, and R& is the chip rate. The
modulated and spread waveforms are scaled and then
summed. The final carrier waveform is denoted as S(t) [5] C (t)
Fig. 4 De-spread block of MT-CDMA receiver

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 MT-CDMA analytical model is given in [5]. [5]
Assumes AWGN and doesn't consider any jamming
interference. The AWGN channel receiver decision statics
Zj is given as [5]
Ts
Z= r(t)cos(27dtRt)c(t)dt
0
The probability of error was derived in [5] for BPSK
and it is given by
PB = QEaAjJ
Equation (6) is used to compute the BER analytically
for MT-CDMA in absence of jamming interference and it
is used in this work to compare the performance in
presence and absence of jamming interference.
1Il. SIMULATION DESCRIPTION
We have employed Monte Carlo simulation technique
to estimate the performance of the system in terms of
probability of error. Monte Carlo simulation method
utilizes sequence of random numbers to perform the
simulation. To study the MT-CDMA system performance,
a software model of the system is developed (transmitter,
communication channel, and receiver). The simulation
program started by setting the simulation parameters and
then a random data is generated. The simulation model
can be summarized as follows:
A Serial to parallel (S: P)
Converting the serial data to parallel is a simple
process. Dividing the input data with rate Rb bps to M
parallel streams each of which is Rb/M bps where M is the
number of sub-carriers does the whole process.
B. Spreading code generator
The code that, used to spread the data is also randomly
generated The spreading process is done based on DS-SS
technique, where each data bit is repeated first P times,
then randomized by multiplying it by a random number
(pseudorandom code) generated above. By repeating each
bit P times, we achieve the first condition for the DS-
CDMA signal; we get chips with chip time equal to Tb/P
or R, equal to P*Rb (spread the data over wider
bandwidth), and then by multiplying the chips with
random number we achieve the second of DS-CDMA
signal which seems random to the jammers.
C. Sinusoidal Carriers Generators
Sinusoidal sub-carriers generators are used to generate
sinusoidal vectors for modulation. The sub-carriers of
MT-CDMA as mentioned before are separated by l/(T,) in
frequency domain, and since we have one sample per chip
and each spread bit is sampled P times, then in simulation
the sinusoidal vectors are separated by I/P. The data is
multiplied by the spreading code and sinusoidal signal for
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each sub-carrier and all the sub-carriers samples are then
summed to perfonn the transmitted signal given by (3)F
but for one user (1 =1).
D. AWGNchannel
(5) Rand Matlab function is used to generate AWGN. The
variance of AWGN is changed with the desired Eb/NO. The
transmitted signal is then added to the AWGN to get the
transmitted signal with AGNW noise. That signal is then
added to the jamming noise to perform the input signal to
the receiver.
(6) E. Jamming genera tor
Jamming noise can be considered as sinusoidal signals.
Both of single tone and multiple tone jamming noises can
be generated by the same method used to generate the
sinusoidal carriers.
F. Detection and error estima tion
The receiver is simulated based on the system shown in
Fig. 3. We use conventional receiver for the detection
process, which consists of correlator, integrator and
comparator. The received signal enters to the receiver is
first serial to parallel converted into M parallel paths. At
each path it is demodulated and despread by the correlator
by multiplying it with the sinusoidal signal and spreading
code. After that it is integrated or accumulated over the
symbol time, where the double frequency term resulting
from the multiplication by the carrier signal is removed.
Then, decisions are made on the bits by the decision
circuit shown in Fig. 4 after collecting the symbol samples
and translating them to data symbol based on threshold
value (greater than or equal to 0.5 is considered 1, and less
than 0.5 is 0).
To calculate the errors exist in the received data, we
compare these received bit estimates with the transmitted
bits. In other words, the bits of each transmitted sub-
carrier are compared with the corresponding received sub-
carrier bit. The error counter is also increased if the
transmitted and received bits are not the same. The bit
error of the all system (aggregate bit error rate) is then the
average of these bits error of all sub-carrier.
The output of this simulation program is a plot of the
obtained bit error of the system versus SNR (ENo).
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
A Performance in Presence ofSingle Janming
The most important parameter that effect design of MT-
CDMA is the number of carriers, since in MT-CDMA the
bandwidth is divided among large number of sub-carriers,
and the sub-carriers are largely overlapped. Fig. 5 presents
the effect of number of carriers on the system
performance.
981
 0peformnance of MT-CDMA in presence of single jamming over AWGN channel
. .::.::-:_-.:
achieved by using higher processing gain but the cost of
1n0 :.t-.
::-. -=
_ _ ,_ F_ _ _-, -_:I :=:::: . . _
increasing the processing gain is less throughput, lower bit
_-
, _ ___ _ ___ _F .

-- ------- rate, and higher system complexity.

lo-'I -- =-
R ---
==-- -,=^ts., s
b-<------f---
=,=s|t-=sr.
-T---------------
-
*---------
AWGN
The effect of jamming interference comes from its
~--
--~ _-_- _-_-__-_-_-,
center frequency and its power with compared to the
10Uo-2
. . . ._ __ __ _ , ~~-< --~~-- ~_ signal power. Maximum jamming effect is achieved if the
tone is placed on one of the sub-carrier center frequencies
s. 10,~ -- -- ----

[6]. Fig. 7 shows the effect of single tone jamming center

----- - ----- t r S - :- :
frequency and jamming to signal power ratio. First the
jammer was replaced at the center of the first sub-carrier,
__ __.
------- __----- - - ---- --- --- ---;- -------
+ -'-*
*

and then at the center frequency of the transmitted signal.

lo' ---
*---------T -- ----,-------,-- ---- - ___ ,__ _~,___
As shown in Fig. 7, it is clear that, the jamming has no
effect on the transmission even if it has centered
11
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 frequency as one of the sub-carrier center frequencies
SNRtdB) (worst case). However, by increasing the jamming to
Fig. 5. Effect of number of sub-carriers signal power ratio from 3 dB to 9 dB, the jamming noise
has clear effect on the performance of the system.
Fig. 5 presents clearly that by increasing number of
carriers, the BER will increase, due to the increase in the Dperformance of MT-CDMA in presence of single jamming over AWGN channel
sub-carriers interfering, and hence the system performance
will be degraded. The result is based on three simulations
-E ti-iE-ti-ii t-----t-iE

-i-i--- --- E--E-----

X vI

--,*
- J-S--,,*,}9dB.
performed with different number of carriers (3 carriers, 5
carriers and 15 carriers) for various SNR (O dB to 10 dB). tone jm i ca Anel
AWN.....................
oe
Indeed some factors may limit the number of carriers in investigated. F-ig. 8--sho the simulation resu.
,
~~~~~~~~~~~~.. It i-s cle
the system, such as sub-carriers interfering, system
..........................

-----s~~--~ ~

complexity and processing time. With small number of

SNR(dB)~~~~~J S-d
sub-carrier (M13), the performance obtained was very
close to the theoretical BER in absence of any jamming.
We can also notice that the effect of single jamming noise t push th at -e
er To be ce----
ta -t
is negligible due to the effect of corrleator and the B'.PEFRAC
integrator where the jamming is first spread over the entire ..... OVE
.... AWG ....... .. . ..3... 3sE..AN iN.............
..... CHNE
system bandwidth by the correlator and then lowpass - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 10
8
filtered by the integrator so, that only small portion of its SNR(dq-
power will be collected. The effective power of the fro
Fig. Fi
7. The 8 tha,
effect inraigtenubro_amn
of. jamming to signal power ratio in presence of single
jammer is reduced by a factor equals to the processing tone jamming over AWGN channel
gain [7]. The effect of processing gain is showrn in Fig. 6.
desre jammingcsrs:aseand moSs=2sts:of-deisis$sgner'2}sdo so ffrt
B. PERFORM4ANCE OVER AWGN CHAMFL AND) IN
performance of MT-CDMA in presence of single jamming over AWGN channel PRESENCE OF MULTIPLE TONE JAMM7ING
.i.~
~ ~ ~~~--------4 P-32

---- ----
:::.1~~~~~~~~--
----- ------ ------1
-P=64
cOrrelatorr ratr
In this part thethe of so
effect side
receive g th=ren
the tha:rer=jofammin
number jammers
effectis
investigsed. Fig. 8 shows the simulation results. It is clear
P =128
10 . ........... AWGN

---
redceFig.by 8thethat,inert.
from increasing
Tistheis number of jamming
tru if thiamn
i -i-El signals enhances the performance. This is because as we
--------------------------
increase the number of jamming noises as we go toward
Li 10 -----------I white wide band jamming case which is actually the
10m
----------------
-----------------------
-------------- -------------- ------------- ............I desired jamming case and most of designers do so efforts
--------------
.............
--------------------- to push the jammer to be at that case because the total
-------------- jamming power will be divided among a number of
....................
...... jammers and then spread over a wide band by the
-----------

-------------- --------------
correlator at the receiver side so then the jamming effect
-el
in-
I IE will be spread over all the sub-carriers and then will be
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
SNR(dB) reduced by the integrator. This is true if the jamming
Fig. 6. The effect of processing gain in presence of single tone jamnming power is not sufficient enough to interrupt the
noise and over AWGN channel transmission, as shown in Fig. 9.
It is clear from the results in Fig. 6 that increasing the
processing gain can enhance the system performance.
Higher capacity in terms of number of users can be also

982

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 cc
w
it
10

it

it
HE*_-E

-10.01
0
30

x~r-
peorrnance of MT-CDMA in presence of Mutiple tone jamming over AWGN channel
-,

it
iE _--

_ 5_ _t--

1
---.
t__:- .E .
_l --i

-3--------------------
~ -÷
-----

........

SNR(dB)
-
_
- - I_ _ =

three simulations perfonned with jamming power (equal

3 Jammers= M

----

to the transmitted power, double of the transmitted power,

triple of the transmitted power). From Fig. 9, we can
easily notice that the BER of the system decreases as the
jamming power increases even when the number of
jammers is higher than the number of the sub-carriers so
we can conclude that the effect of multiple jamming noise
is controlled by its power and the increasing of the
number of jamming signals can enhance the performance
of the system unless the jamming power is not sufficient
enough to interrupt the transmission.
~
b
-
jammers=NM
-- 9- jammers=2M
-------

------- --

_ _ _ _ _* _ _ __ _ _ __ _ . __ .

-----;- -- -- -;-- -- -- -,--- -- - - r

5

Fig. 8. The effect of number ofjammers over AWGN channel

Fig. 9 represents the effect of increasing the jamming

power on the system performance. The result is based on
l
3
. .

---
..

-peformance of MT-CDMA in presence of Mutipte tone jamming over AWGN channel

ci
tu 30
10

10-t

10.1
0
__

r---

1
.

_ _ -_.
___
_ S_
s-

_______-------r------

2
-

:-
4

.,------,---------
- - ----- ~e

Fig. 9. The effect of the power of multiple tones janming noise over
AWGN channel

In this work, the performance of MT-CDMA under

various channel, various system conditions and in
presence of narrowband jamming noise has been
investigated. Increasing the number of sub-carriers will
degrade the system performance. The sub-carriers
interfering limit the number of sub-carriers.
Increasing the processing gain enhances the system
performance.
r. ---
----
------ T------ I

_.___i______*______J__.
---

----------::
7-------
------::
:: C
--------------=

......-

- - - - - -

-- --

: ;: : :: : : ~:

V. CONCLUSION
SNR(dB)
5

*
= =r ra------------ -

5
_

----------

...............

-.-:

~-- -
-

--------- --

6
i -- - -
-

,,

--

-- -- ~---------T-----

-----

-----
------- ------

6
-

-- --

- . - ------------

--

Authorized licensed use limited to: INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY MADRAS. Downloaded on May 28, 2009 at 21:20 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
-
__ _
jammers=4M
AWGN

------------

F__-----

8
:
-r----
.
------=: -------t

______

J=2TSrans.power
J-3
: -: -r;------
>Q ______

Trans.power

-----___=_____r__

a
-

--*
_-R

9
_

*-*
_
10

10

983
Replacing the single jamming at the center frequency
of one of the sub-carriers frequencies has a negligible
effect and almost the same as replacing it at the center of
the spectrum of the transmitted signal however, the
performance is degraded as jamming to signal power ratio
increases.
Increasing the number of jammers will enhance the
performance, but increasing jamming power degrades the
performance. Excellent agreement between performance
in AWGN in presence of jamming and the theoretical plot
of the performance in AWGN without any jamming.

VI. REFERENCES
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Multitone and Multicarrier DS-SS in the Presence of Imperfect
Phase Synchronization. School of Electrical Engineering &
Computer Science, Athens, OH 45701.2002.
[21 S. Hara, R. Prasad, Overview of Multicarrier CDMA, IEEE
Communication Magazine, vol. 35, no. 12, pp. 126-133, December
1997.
[3] L.Vandendorpe, Multitone Spread Spectrum Multiple Access
Communications System in a Multipath Rician Fading Channel.
IEEE Transactions on Vehicular AR technology. Vol. 44. NO. 2.
1995.
14] D. W. Matolak, F. A. Alder, V. Deepak, Performance of
Multitone and Multicarrier DS-SS in The Presence of Partial-Band
Pulse Jamming/Interference. School of Electrical Engineering &
Computer Science, Athens, OH 45701.2002.
[5] 1. Sen, Bandwidth Efficient Reduced-complexity MT-DS-SS
via Reduced subcarnier Frequency Spacing. M.Eng. Thesis.
Carleton University. Ohio University. 2004.
[6] R. L. Peterson, R. E. Ziemer, D. E. Borht, Introduction to
Spread Spectrum Communication, Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey, 1995.
[71 Tan. F. Wong. (2004, May 12). Spread Spectrum and Code
Division Multiple Access. Wireless communication course.
University of Florida. Available:
http://www.wirelesss.ece ufl-edu/twong/eel6503/