Performance Evaluation of LTE Physical Layer Using SC-FDMA & OFDMA

Abstract: Since past few decades different types of cellular networks were launched and went successful on the radio links such as WiMAX, that became very popular because of its high data rate (70Mbps) and support for providing wireless internet services over 50km distance. The UMTS Long Term Evolution (LTE) is an emerging technology in the evolution of 3G cellular services. LTE runs on an evolution of the existing UMTS infrastructure already used by over 80 percent of mobile subscribers globally. We have very limited resources in cellular technologies and it is important to utilize them with high efficiency. Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) & Orthogonal Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) are major part of LTE. OFDMA was well utilized for achieving high spectral efficiency in communication system. SC-FDMA is introduced recently and it became handy candidate for uplink multiple access scheme in LTE system that is a project of Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). The Multiple Access Scheme in Advanced Mobile radio system has to meet the challenging requirements for example high throughput, good robustness, efficient Bit Error Rate (BER), high spectral efficiency, low delays, low computational complexity, low Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR), low error probability etc. Error probability is playing vital role in channel estimation and there are many ways to do channel estimation, like Wiener Channel Estimation, Bayesian Demodulation etc. In our thesis, we investigate the performance of SC-FDMA and OFDMA of LTE physical layer by considering different modulation schemes (BPSK, QPSK, 16QAM and 64QAM) on the basis of PAPR, BER, power spectral density (PSD) and error probability by simulating the model of SC-FDMA & OFDMA. We use Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel and introduce frequency selective (multipath) fading in the channel by using Rayleigh Fading model to evaluate the performance in presence of noise and fading. A set of conclusions is derived from our results describing the effect of higher order modulation schemes on BER and error probability for both OFDMA and SC-FDMA. The power spectral densities of both the multiple access techniques (OFDMA and SC-FDMA) are calculated and result shows that the OFDMA has high power spectral density. The considered modulation schemes also have a significant impact on the PAPR of both OFDMA and SC-FDMA such that the higher order modulations increase PAPR in SC-FDMA and decrease PAPR in OFDMA. However, the overall value of PAPR is minimum in SC-FDMA for all modulation schemes. The PSD calculation results also support the remarks given on PAPR.