2014 International Conference on Control, Instrumentation, Communication and Computational Technologies (ICCICCT)

OPTICAL OFDM A SUPERIOR

TECHNOLOGY IN WIRELESS
COMMUNICATION
Veena Gopinath (Student)

Sudhi Sudharman (Asst. Professor)

Department of Communication Engineering

SBCEW, Ayathil, Elavumthitta
Pathanamthitta (Dst.), Kerala, India
vngpnth648@gmail.com

Dept. of Electronics and Communication

SBCEW, Ayathil, Elavumthitta
Pathanamthitta (Dst.), Kerala, India
er.sudhi@gmail.co

Abstract Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)

is a promising technology for optical communications. OFDM is a
modulation technique in which the other subcarriers have zero
amplitude at the peak of each subcarrier. S ince it is an effective
solution to inter symbol interference caused by a dispersive
channel, OFDM can be used in most new and emerging
broadband wired and wireless communication systems. The main
drawback of OFDM is its high peak to average power ratio
(PAPR) that can be alleviated by an effective technique called the
pilot-assisted PAPR reduction technique. This technique is much
more efficient than clipping method. This paper makes the
comparison of conventional optical OFDM (OOFDM) and pilotassisted OOFDM (PA-OOFDM) so as to show that PA-OOFDM
completely eliminates the PAPR. The comparison of BER
performance of BPS K and QAM is also discussed.

II.

CONVENTIONA L OOFDM AND PILOT-ASSISTED

OFDM

A. Conventional OOFDM(Optical OFDM)

Keywords Optical OFDM, BER, Pilot-Assisted OFDM

I.

INT RODUCT ION

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is

used widely in broadband wired and wireless communication
systems since it is an effective solution to inter-symbol
interference (ISI) caused by a dispersive channel [3]. Although
the spectra of individual subcarriers overlap, the subcarriers
can be demodulated without interference as long as the
channel is linear because of its orthogonality property, and
there is no need for analogue filtering to separate the received
subcarriers [2]. The fundamental principle of orthogonal FDM
was proposed by Chang as a way to overlap multiple channel
spectra within limited bandwidth without interference, taking
consideration of the effects of both filter and channel
characteristics. Since then, many researchers have investigated
and refined the technique over the years and it has been
successfully adopted in many standards. Although OFDM has
been studied in RF domain for over four decades, the research
on OFDM in optical communication began only in the late
1990s [4]. Optical OFDM is well suited for high speed
transmission systems with high spectral efficiency and
attracted significant attention from the optical communication
community [5]. Section II deals with the comparison of optical
OFDM (OOFDM) and pilot-assisted optical OFDM (PAOOFDM) followed by a conclusion in section III.

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Fig. 1: Block diagram of a basic optical OFDM (OOFDM)

As shown in fig. 1, the data to be transmitted is mapped

onto an M level quadrature amplitude modulation after serialto parallel conversion, so as to perform IFFT operation. The
IFFT output is converted to serial form and is then
transformed to analogue signal using digital-to-analogue
converter for up conversion. The analogue signal together with
dc bias is then fed to an optical source like PIN photo detector
and is transmitted through an optical wireless channel. The
purpose of dc bias is to make the OFDM signal unipolar and
suitable for intensity modulation of an optical source [6].
At the receiver, the exact inverse operation is performed. The
photo detector converts the received optical radiation into
electrical or current signal which is then transformed to
voltage signal using transimpedance amplifier (TIA). A post
detection amplifier is also present along with TIA, which
boosts the voltage signal into a level y(t). The resultant signal
is then first converted to digital form using analogue-to-digital
converter (ADC), and then to parallel form with serial-toparallel converter (since inputs to both FFT and IFFT should
be in parallel form) to perform FFT operation. The FFT output
is then de-mapped to recover the estimates of the transmitted
data. Finally, the data that is transmitted from the transmitter

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2014 International Conference on Control, Instrumentation, Communication and Computational Technologies (ICCICCT)

can be obtained back at the receiver in serial form using

parallel-to-serial converter.
Although the system shown in fig. 1 eliminates ICI and ISI,
high peaks will be present in the OFDM signal i.e., high
PAPR. This limitation can be solved by considering the
OOFDM system shown in fig. 2.
B. Pilot-Assisted Optical OFDM (PA-OOFDM)

Fig. 3: Constellation diagram of 16-QAM with clipping

Pilot-assisted PAPR
completely alleviates
diagram of 16-QAM
Here, all the signal
region unlike fig. 3.

doesnt have such drawbacks and it

PAPR. Fig. 4 shows the constellation
using pilot-assisted PAPR reduction.
points are operating within the linear

Fig. 2: Block diagram of a pilot -assisted OOFDM

The working of OOFDM system shown in fig, 2 is the same as

that in fig. 1, except the presence of Hermitian symmetry at
the transmitter and Data symbol extraction block at the
receiver. The time domain signal which is used to modulate
the intensity of the optical carrier must consists of only real
values. This condition is ensured by imposing Hermitian
symmetry on X(k) prior to IFFT operation. On the other hand,
the data symbol extraction block removes the conjugate
symbols and padding zeros introduced at the transmitter
section [1]. The working of other blocks remains the same as
described in II A.
LED is used in both the systems instead of LASER diodes
since LED is incoherent and of low cost. A 16 bit ADC is used
since it provides more resolution when compared with 8-bit
ADC. The resolution, Q can be obtained by the equation,
Q=

PAPR reduction can be achieved by choosing a pilot phase

sequence (k) that avoids coherent addition of subcarriers as
much as possible, based on selected mapping (SLM) algorithm
as follows.
Generate R different iterations of the pilot sequence
, r = 1,2,...R.
Each

consists of a randomly generated phase

sequence
Evaluate the

(k), k = 0,1,...

-1.

value of each iteration of

Choose the desired pilot as the sequence

.
that

gives the minimum PAPR of all the R different

iterations.

(1)

where the Full Scale voltage Range,

=
(2)
where
and
are the upper and lower
extremes, respectively of the voltages that can be coded. M
represents the ADCs resolution in bits.
Radix-4 FFT/IFFT is performed because it is 20% more
efficient than radix-2 for large transforms. Radix-2 is the
easiest but is least efficient. In the fig. 2, PAPR can be
effectively reduced using the technique called pilot-assisted
PAPR reduction technique. This technique is different from
the other reduction technique called clipping method where
the high peaks will be clipped. However, the clipping method
will lead to nonlinear distortion of the signals. Fig. 3 shows
the constellation diagram of 16 QAM using clipping method.
From the fig., it is obvious that many of the signals are outside
the linear region leading to dis tortion.

978-1-4799-4190-2/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

Fig. 4: Constellation diagram of 16-QAM with pilot-assisted PAPR reduction

When figures 3 and 4 are compared with figure 5, it is clear

that OOFDM with pilot-assisted PAPR reduction completely
eliminates PAPR since all the signals are operating within the
linear region.

Fig. 5: Constellation diagram of 16-QAM without PAPR.

According to the simulation result shown in fig. 6, it can be

observed that pilot-assisted OFDM shows better BER
performance identical to that of basic OFDM when compared
with clipped OFDM.

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2014 International Conference on Control, Instrumentation, Communication and Computational Technologies (ICCICCT)

III.

Fig. 6: Comparison of BER performance for 16 -QAM.

One can also use mapping techniques like BPSK instead of

QAM and the simulation result shown in fig. 7 indicates the
corresponding BER performance of BPSK for a given EbN0
ratio .
As the EbN0 increases, BER reduces leading to higher error
performance.

CONCLUSION

Optical OFDM transmission has become a fast progressing

and vibrant research field in optical fiber communications.
Last few years saw experimental demonstrations up to 1
Tb
transmissions, together with rapid advance in real-time
demonstrations. With the standardization of 100GbE and
prospect of emergence of the Tb/s era, much excitement is
growing in the optical communications community for the
application of OFDM, the modulation format of choice in RF
wireless communications. The introduction of OFDM without
doubt has great potential and promise in bringing about the
next-generation optical networks that possess high degree of
flexibility and scalability. In the mean time, the research in
optical OFDM also presents tremendous challenges and oppor
tunities in the areas of novel DSP algorithms, high -speed
electronic and photonic integrated circuits [4]. OFDM is a
very promising technology for optical communications
nowadays.
Thus, a pilot-assisted optical OFDM modulation technique is
proposed in this paper which completely eliminates PAPR and
distortions such as ISI and ICI as well. The simulation results
show that it provides better error performance and high data
rate.
A CKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to thank all friends and staff of Electronics
and Communication Engineering Department, SBCEW for
their constant support all the way through our work.
REFERENCES

Fig. 7: Comparison of BER performance of BPSK

Since QAM modulation is proposed in the system as per fig. 2,

the corresponding BER performance can be shown in fig. 8.

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