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among the subcarriers in the OFDM scheme. As shown in Figure 4.12(b), the first received
symbol (plotted in a solid line) is mixed up with the second received symbol (plotted in a dotted
line), which incurs the ISI. It is obvious that all subcarriers are no longer orthogonal over the
duration of each OFDM symbol. To war rant a performance of OFDM, there must be some
means of dealing with the ISI effect over the multipath channel. As discussed in the sequel, a
guard interval between two consecutive OFDM symbols will be essential.
4.2.2.2 Cyclic Prefix (CP)
The OFDM guard interval can be inserted in two different ways. One is the zero padding (ZP)
that pads the guard interval with zeros. The other is the cyclic extension of the OFDM symbol
(for some continuity) with CP (cyclic prefix) or CS (cyclic suffix). CP is to extend the
OFDM symbol by copying the last samples of the OFDM symbol into its front. Let T
G
denote
the length of CP in terms of samples. Then, the extended OFDM symbols now have the duration
of T
sym
¼ T
sub
þT
G
. Figure 4.13(a) shows two consecutive OFDM symbols, each of which has
the CP of length T
G
, while illustrating the OFDM symbol of length T
sym
¼ T
sub
þT
G
.
Meanwhile, Figure 4.13(b) illustrates them jointly in the time and frequency domains.
Figure 4.13(c) shows the ISI effects of a multipath channel on some subcarriers of the OFDM
symbol. It can be seen from this figure that if the length of the guard interval (CP) is set longer
than or equal to the maximum delay of a multipath channel, the ISI effect of an OFDM
symbol (pl otted in a dotted line) on the next symbol is confined within the guard interval so that
it may not affect the FFTof the next OFDM symbol, taken for the duration of T
sub
. This implies
that the guard interval longer than the maximum delay of the multipath channel allows for
maintaining the orthogonality amo ng the subca rriers. As the continuity of each delayed
subcarrier has been warranted by the CP, its orthogonality with all other subcarriers is
maintained over T
sub
, such that
1
T
sub
ð
T
sub
0
e
j2pf
k
ðtt
0
Þ
e
j2pf
i
ðtt
0
Þ
dt ¼ 0; k 6¼ i
for the first OFDM signal that arrives with a delay of t
0
, and
1
T
sub
ð
T
sub
0
e
j2pf
k
ðtt
0
Þ
e
j2pf
i
ðtt
0
T
s
Þ
dt ¼ 0; k 6¼ i
for the second OFDM signal that arrives with a delay of t
0
þT
s
.
Figure 4.14 shows that if the length of the guard interval (CP) is set shorter than the maximum
delay of a multipath channel, the tail part of an OFDM symbol (denoted by a quarter circle)
affects the head part of the next symbol, resulting in the ISI. In practice, symbol timing offset
(STO) may occur, which keeps the head of an OFDM symbol from coinciding with the FFT
window start point. In this context, Figure 4.15 shows that even if the length of CP is set longer
than the maximum delay of the multipath channel, ISI and/or ICI may occur depending on the
timing of the FFT window start point. More specifically, if the FFT window start point is earlier
than the lagged end of the previous symbol, ISI occurs; if it is later than the beginning of a
symbol, not only ISI (caused by the next symbol), but ICI also occurs [78].
128 MIMO-OFDM Wireless Communications with MATLAB