International Journal of Advanced Computer Research (ISSN (print): 2249-7277 ISSN (online): 2277-7970)

Volume-1 Number-1 Issue-1 September 2011

Performance Analysis and Simulation Result of MC-CDMA for AWGN

Channel and Rayleigh Based on SNR/BER
Vikas Gupta1, Ruby Tiwari2
Assistant Professor, TIT, Bhopal1
Student (M.E.), TIT, Bhopal2

Abstract with large time dispersion [1]. Since 1993, MC-

CDMA rapidly has become a topic of research. At the
For any electronic communication system keynote address of the ISSSTA conference 1996,
bandwidth utilization and BER performance under Prof. Hamid Aghvami predicted that the hottest topic
different channel conditions are major aspect of in spread-spectrum, viz. multi-carrier CDMA, would
consideration, to cope up with these conditions attract 80% of the research by 1997. Around 2000,
different modulation technique are used one of we see that MC-CDMA has attracted tremendous
them is MC-CDMA (Multicarrier Code Division attention, with entire conference sessions devoted to
Multiple Access) which outperforms other this. Mc-CDMA is praised as a modulation solution
techniques for bandwidth utilization and performs that merges the insights due to Shannon (particularly
well under noisy and fading channels, as theoretical those relating to CDMA) with insights due to Fourier
derivation states. This paper presents a (particularly those explaining why OFDM has
comprehensive analysis of MC-CDMA system over advantages in a dispersive channel) [1].
the AWGN (Additive White Gaussian Noise) and
Rayleigh channel for different number of subcarrier 2. MC-CDMA
and different number of users, system analysis is
performed by simulating the MC-CDMA using Multi-carrier CDMA is an enabling technology for
MATLAB program, and finally the paper also future mobile phones. Future mobile phone services
presents a comparison between simulated and are likely to be endowed with crystal-clear integrated
theoretical results. digital TV, digital Hi-Fi radio, high-speed internet
browsing as well as the video phone capabilities. All
Keywords these services require efficient transmission of
multimedia traffic. Multi-carrier CDMA is likely to
MC-CDMA, AWGN, SNR, BER. be the transmission method of future mobiles due to
its bandwidth efficiency and inherent diversity over
1. Introduction fading channel. However, the multi-carrier signals
show highly varying envelope power waveforms,
Multi Carrier Code Division Multiple Access (MC- which hinder the popular employment of multi-
CDMA) is a relatively new concept. Its development carrier CDMA. Our research focus is to study this
aimed at improved performance over multipath links. phenomenon and to provide some practical solutions
MC-CDMA is a modulation method that uses multi- for it. Another important topic is to use adaptive
carrier transmission (more precisely OFDM) of DS- modulation, exploiting the channel quality
CDMA-type signals [1]. fluctuations, so that more multimedia traffic can be
exchanged using the same bandwidth.
This scheme was first proposed at PIMRC '93 in
Yokohama by Linnartz, Yee (U. of California at
Berkeley) and Fettweis (Teknekron, Berkeley,
currently at U. of Dresden, Germany). Independently,
Fazal and Papke proposed a similar system. Linnartz
and Yee showed that MC-CDMA signals can also be
detected with fairly simple receiver structures, using
an FFT and a variable gain diversity combiner, in
which the gain of each branch is controlled only by
the channel attenuation at that subcarrier. Results
showed that a fully loaded MC-CDMA system, i.e.,
one in which the number of users equals the spread
factor, can operate in a highly time dispersive channel
with satisfactory bit error rate. These results appeared
in contrast to the behavior of a fully loaded DS-
CDMA link that typically does not work satisfactorily Fig 1. MC-CDMA and DS-CDMA

13
 International Journal of Advanced Computer Research (ISSN (print): 2249-7277 ISSN (online): 2277-7970)
Volume-1 Number-1 Issue-1 September 2011

Since the introduction of OFDM, there are many Walsh Hadamard codes may be used as it presents an
researches that have been focus to fully exploit the orthogonal set thereby taking care of the
benefits of OFDM either in improving the data rate, autocorrelation characteristic of the spreading code
the capacity or achieve better spectrum efficiency [4].Figure 3 shows the power spectrum of the
with the technique. Many researchers have proposed MCCDMA scheme. Here GMC is the Gain Margin.
the merger of OFDM [2] [3] and CDMA systems to
achieve better spectrum efficiency and also increase
the system capacity. This section takes a look at a
scheme widely proposed by researchers in this field
called the OFDM-CDMA system. This system is also
known as the MC-CDMA (Multi-carrier CDMA)
system. MCCDMA system achieves comparable
performance of DS-CDMA, however, the benefits of
the MC-CDMA system lies within its flexibility and
the relatively simple receiver design. Fig 3. Power Spectrum of the MC-CDMA scheme
Firstly an OFDM system is used to provide a number
3. The AWGN and Rayleigh Channel
of orthogonal carriers, free from ISI. Each carrier is
then modulated by an individual code chip to provide
We discuss the BER for BPSK in a Rayleigh
a spread spectrum system. In MC-CDMA the
multipath [5] channel. Rayleigh channel, wherein we
spreading code is based on the Walsh-Hadamard
stated that a circularly symmetric complex Gaussian
coding which ensures that the users do not clash, as
random variable is of the form,
the rows are mutually orthogonal. The core difference
between MC-CDMA and DS-CDMA is that the ,
codes that identify different users are modulated in where real and imaginary parts are zero mean
the frequency domain instead of in the time domain. independent and identically distributed (iid) Gaussian
Since the codes are introduced in the frequency random[6] variables with mean 0 and variance .
domain, there is no need for a rake receiver that The magnitude which has a probability density,
complicates the whole system. Therefore, this method
greatly simplifies the receiver design.

Although MC-CDMA system transmits the signal is called a Rayleigh random variable. This model,
over different sub-carriers, the overall bandwidth of called Rayleigh fading channel model, is reasonable
MC-CDMA is exactly the same as in DS-CDMA as for an environment where there are large numbers of
shown in Fig 2. Therefore, there is not any extra cost reflectors. System model The received signal
in term of bandwidth expansion between both the in Rayleigh fading channel is of the form,
systems. , where
is the received symbol,
The combination of OFDM signaling and CDMA is complex scaling factor corresponding
scheme has one major advantage that it can lower. to Rayleigh multipath channel
is the transmitted symbol (taking values +1’s and
-1’s) and
is the Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN)
Assumptions
1. The channel is flat fading – In simple terms, it
means that the multipath channel has only one tap.
So, the convolution operation reduces to a simple
multiplication.
2. The channel is randomly varying in time –
meaning each transmitted symbol gets multiplied by a
randomly varying complex number . Since is
modeling a Rayleigh channel, the real and imaginary
Fig 2. Bandwidth allocation in the DS and MC- parts are Gaussian distributed having mean
CDMA system 0 andvariance 1/2.
This scheme relies on spreading the original data 3. The noise has the Gaussian probability density
stream over different subcarriers using a given function with
spreading code in the frequency domain. Therefore,
each subcarrier carries a fraction of the symbol
corresponding to a chip of the spreading code. The
14
 International Journal of Advanced Computer Research (ISSN (print): 2249-7277 ISSN (online): 2277-7970)
Volume-1 Number-1 Issue-1 September 2011

with

and .
4. The channel is known at the receiver.
Equalization is performed at the receiver by dividing
the received symbol by the apriori known i.e.

where
is the additive noise scaled by the channel
coefficient.

Bit Error Rate

BER[7][8] computation in AWGN, the probability of
error for transmission of either +1 or -1 is computed
by integrating the tail of the Gaussian probability
density function for a given value of bit energy to

noise ratio . The bit error rate is,

Fig 4. BER for BPSK

. 4. Performance Simulation
However in the presence of channel , the effective
Computer simulations are done to simulate SNR vs.
BER performance of MC-CDMA for different
bit energy to noise ratio is . So the bit error channel noise conditions, different number of
probability for a given value of is, subcarriers and to analyze the effect of number of
users in BER. To make the results more useful, the
results are generated for varying number of users and
, for different number of subcarriers. Throughout the
simulation, the information symbol is BPSK
Where .
modulated at the transmitters and detected by using
To find the error probability over all random values
the maximum likelihood method in the demodulation
of , one must evaluate the conditional probability at the receiver. A cyclic prefix is added to protect the
symbol. Walsh codes are chosen as the spreading
density function over the probability density codes of the system. The simulation codes are written
function of . for MATLAB, and simulated on Pentium class
processor.
Simulation Model
It will be useful to provide a simple Matlab/Octave
example simulating a BPSK transmission and
5. Simulated Results
reception in Rayleigh channel. The script performs
the following (a) Generate random binary sequence
of +1’s and -1’s.(b) Multiply the symbols with the
channel and then add white Gaussian noise.
(c) At the receiver, equalize (divide) the received
symbols with the known channel.(d) Perform hard
decision decoding and count the bit errors.(e) Repeat

for multiple values of and plot the simulation

and theoretical results.

15
 International Journal of Advanced Computer Research (ISSN (print): 2249-7277 ISSN (online): 2277-7970)
Volume-1 Number-1 Issue-1 September 2011

Fig 7 SNR for three different path gain, with no of

users 2, subcarriers

Fig 5 SNR for single path, with no of users 2,

subcarriers

Fig 8. SNR for four different path gain, with no of

users 2, subcarriers

6. Conclusion
Analysis of the figures from 5.1 to 5.9 shows that
BER values for MC-CDMA that number of sub-
carriers decrease the BER about 10 (.01 to 0.001)
times, when sub-carriers varies from 4 to 64. It also
shows that the crowdedness of channel does not
Fig 6 SNR for two different path gains, with no of affect the performance of the system very much until
users 2, subcarriers the number of users remains within the system
capacity.
16
 International Journal of Advanced Computer Research (ISSN (print): 2249-7277 ISSN (online): 2277-7970)
Volume-1 Number-1 Issue-1 September 2011

References [6] S. Zhou, G. B. Giannakis, and C. L. Martret,

“Chip-interleaved block-spread code division
multiple access,” Communications, IEEE
[1] http://www.wirelesscommunication.nl/reference/c
Transactions on, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 235–248, Feb
haptr05/mccdma/mccdma.htm.
2002.
[2] http://wireless.per.nl/wireless.
[7] M. Ma, Y. Yang, H. Cheng, and B. Jiao, “A
[3] http://www2.electronicproducts.com/OFDM_carr
capacity comparison between MC-CDMA and
ies_the_future_of_wireless_networking-article-
CP-CDMA,” 2006,IEEE..
JULATH1-jul2002-html.aspx.
[8] S. Tsumura, S. Hara, and Y. Hara, “Performance
[4] F. Adachi, D. Garg, S. Takaoka, and K. Takeda,
comparison of MC-CDMA and cyclically
“Broadband CDMA techniques,” Wireless
prefixed DS-CDMA in an uplink channel,”
Communications, IEEE , April 2005.
Vehicular Technology Conference, 2004.
[5] A. Jamalipour, T. Wada, and T. Yamazato, “A
VTC2004-Fall. 2004 IEEE 60th, vol. 1, pp. 414–
tutorial on multiple access technologies for
418 Vol. 1, 26-29 Sept. 2004.
beyond 3G mobile networks,” Communications
Magazine, IEEE, Feb. 2005.

17