Apparatus and method for reducing inter-subcarrier interference in OFDMA system

Abstract

An apparatus and method for reducing inter-subcarrier interference (ICI) in an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) system are provided. The method includes determining a correction frequency from uplink intermediate frequency (IF) signals subjected to analog-to-digital conversion when an uplink radio frequency (RF) signal is input through an antenna of a base station and each uplink IF signal (I(n)+j1(n)) is input,; and correcting the uplink IF signal so as to correspond to the determined correction frequency. Thereby, it is possible to reduce the ICI of each terminal caused by mismatching of the interval of the inter-subcarrier center frequency of each terminal that constitutes the uplink signal in the OFDMA system.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate transmission carrier signals transmitted by terminals;

FIG. 1C illustrates an uplink radio frequency (RF) signal that an OFDMA system receives from terminals;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating the construction of an apparatus for reducing inter-subcarrier interference (ICI) in an OFDMA system according to the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a detailed construction of the successive interference cancellation (SIC) corrector in the apparatus for reducing ICI in an OFDMA system according to FIG. 2;

FIG. 4A is a block diagram illustrating a construction for processing in parallel an sub-carrier of each terminal in the apparatus for reducing ICI in an OFDMA system according to FIG. 2;

FIG. 4B is a block diagram illustrating a construction for processing in series a sub-carrier of each terminal in the apparatus for reducing ICI in an OFDMA system according to FIG. 2;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a method for reducing ICI in an OFDMA system according to the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating in detail the first step S1 in the method for reducing ICI in an OFDMA system according to FIG. 5;

FIG. 7A illustrates a sub-carrier demodulated through a conventional OFDMA system; and

FIG. 7B illustrates a sub-carrier demodulated through the apparatus and method for reducing ICI in an OFDMA system according to FIGS. 2 and 5.

Claims

1. An apparatus for reducing inter-subcarrier interference (ICI) in an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) system, the apparatus comprising: a successive interference cancellation (SIC) corrector that, when each uplink intermediate frequency (IF) signal subjected to analog-to-digital conversion of a radio frequency (RF) signal is received through an antenna of a base station, determines an average correction frequency of terminals from the uplink IF signals, and corrects the uplink IF signals so as to correspond to the average correction frequency.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the SIC corrector is performed in a time domain.

3. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the SIC corrector comprises: a sub-carrier selector for searching information of an uplink mapping table when the uplink IF signal is input, and selecting a corresponding terminal;a correction frequency detector for estimating a frequency offset between a transmission carrier signal of each terminal searched through the sub-carrier selector and a center frequency of the base station, and then determining an average value of the estimated frequency offsets of all terminals as the correction frequency; anda frequency corrector for correcting a transmission carrier frequency of the terminal which is to be restored using the correction frequency determined through the correction frequency detector.

4. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the frequency corrector processes in parallel the transmission carrier frequency of each terminal through at least one frequency corrector.

5. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the frequency corrector further comprises a data storage in order to process in series the transmission carrier frequency of each terminal.

6. The apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the frequency corrector further comprises a data storage in order to process in series the transmission carrier frequency of each terminal.

7. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the frequency corrector multiplies the transmission carrier frequency of each terminal by exp(−j2πΔfcorrnTS)where Δfcorr is the correction frequency, n is the index of the terminal to be restored and TS is the sampling period of the receiver.

8. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the frequency corrector selects the terminal to be restored.

9. A method for reducing inter-subcarrier interference (ICI) in an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) system, the method comprising the steps of: determining a correction frequency from uplink intermediate frequency (IF) signals subjected to analog-to-digital conversion, when an uplink radio frequency (RF) signal is input through an antenna of a base station and the uplink (IF) signals are input; andcorrecting the uplink IF signals so as to correspond to the determined correction frequency.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein correcting the uplink IF signals is performed in a time domain.

11. The method according to claim 9, wherein determining a correction frequency from the uplink IF signals further comprises: searching information of an uplink mapping table when the uplink IF signals are input, and selecting a corresponding terminal; andestimating a frequency offset between a transmission carrier signal of each terminal when searching the information and a center frequency of the base station, and determining an average value of the estimated frequency offsets of all terminals as the correction frequency.

12. The method according to claim 9, wherein correcting the uplink IF signals so as to correspond to the determined correction frequency further comprises processing in parallel the transmission carrier frequency of each terminal through at least one frequency corrector.

13. The method according to claim 12, wherein correcting the uplink IF signals so as to correspond to the determined correction frequency further comprises temporarily storing data in order to process in series the transmission carrier frequency of each terminal.

14. The method according to claim 9, wherein correcting the uplink IF signals so as to correspond to the determined correction frequency comprises temporarily storing data in order to process in series the transmission carrier frequency of each terminal.

15. The method according to claim 9, wherein correcting the uplink IF signals so as to correspond to the determined correction frequency further comprises multiplying the transmission carrier frequency of each terminal by exp(−j2πΔfcorrnTS)where Δfcorr is the correction frequency, n is the index of the terminal to be restored and TS is the sampling period of the receiver.

16. The method according to claim 9, wherein correcting the uplink IF signals so as to correspond to the determined correction frequency further comprises selecting the terminal to be restored.