Introduction to OFDM Receiver Design and Simulation

Book excerpt: This practical book is an accessible introduction to Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) receiver design, a technology that allows digitized data to be carried by multiple carriers. It offers a detailed simulation study of an OFDM algorithm for Wi-Fi and 4G cellular that can be used to understand other OFDM waveforms. Extensive simulation studies are included using the transmissionwaveform given by the IEEE 802.11 standard. Scrambler, error-correcting codes, interleaver and radio-wave propagation model are included. OFDM waveform characteristics, signal acquisition, synchronization issues, channel estimation and tracking, hard and soft decision decoding are all covered. Detailed derivations leading to the final formula for any algorithm are given, which allows the reader to clearly understand the approximations and conditions behind the formulas and apply them appropriately. The algorithms are selected not just for the best performance from simulation study but also for easy implementation. An example is a unique algorithm for signal acquisition using the principle of maximum likelihood detection.