IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, VOL. 12, NO.
9, SEPTEMBER 2008
Out-of-Band Power Suppression in OFDM
Jaap van de Beek, Member, IEEE, and Fredrik Berggren, Member, IEEE
Abstract—In this letter we show that judicious modulation of
non-data subcarriers renders a transmitted OFDM signal and
a few of its higher-order derivatives continuous at the OFDM
symbol boundaries. This novel approach results in reduced
out-of-band emission: typically, it achieves over 30 dB power
suppression at adjacent-channel center-frequencies.
Index Terms—OFDM, out-of-band emission, tone reservation.
I. I NTRODUCTION
O FDM subcarriers can be modulated for the sole purpose
of accommodating the transmitted signal with a certain
desirable statistical property. Along with one set of data
subcarriers the modulating weights of subcarriers in another,
reserved subcarrier set are then adaptively chosen such that
the composite signal facilitates, for instance, lower power
emissions at certain selected frequencies [1] or improved
signal power dynamics [2]. The price of this approach is
typically paid in reduced data rate, increased signal bandwidth
or decreased available transmit energy per information symbol
but, in a proper design, this price is more than compensated for
by the benefits associated with the desirable property imposed
on the emitted signal.
We adopt this approach here to reduce the out-of-band
emission of the transmitted OFDM signal. Specifically, we will
shape the power spectrum of the (lowpass-equivalent) signal
∞
 symbol such that it succeeds the previous OFDM symbol in a
s(t) = si (t − i(Ts + Tg )),
i=−∞
composed of OFDM symbols defined as
 
k
dk,i ej2π Ts t +
k
wk,i ej2π Ts t
si (t) =
k∈ID k∈IW
on −Tg ≤ t < Ts , while si (t) = 0 elsewhere. We do this by
judiciously choosing the complex weights wk,i modulating a
set of reserved subcarriers indexed by k ∈ IW , for given data
symbols dk,i on subcarriers indexed by k ∈ ID . We assume
here that IW and ID are disjoint sets of subcarrier indices –
the data and weight components of the OFDM signal are then
orthogonal and separation at the receiver is straightforward.
The power spectrum of (1) is determined by the shape of its
OFDM base-signals, finite-length exponentials, on one hand
and by the correlation properties of the modulation symbols on
the other. While numerous spectrum-shaping approaches have
been reported based on manipulating the OFDM pulse shape,
little has been published based on shaping the modulating
Manuscript received April 14, 2008. The associate editor coordinating the
review of this letter and approving it for publication was G. Mazzini.
The authors are with Huawei Technologies Sweden, P.O. Box 54, SE-164
94 Kista, Sweden (e-mail: {jaap.vandebeek, fredrik.b}@huawei.com).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LCOMM.2008.080587.
1089-7798/08$25.00 
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609
symbols’ correlation. In [3]–[5] the weights wk,i in an OFDM
symbol si (t) depend on the values of dk,i in that OFDM
symbol in such a way that the Fourier transform of si (t) is
forced to zero at a number of well-chosen target frequencies.
In effect, the modulation symbols within one OFDM symbol
are given a correlation that beneficially affects the spectrum.
In this letter we extend this approach and change the cor-
relation of modulation symbols between consecutive OFDM
symbols by forcing the OFDM signal s(t) to be continuous
at the transition time instants between OFDM symbols. Our
transmitter improves performance over the prior work in [3]–
[5] in two ways. First, the performance of our approach
does not exhibit sensitivity to the length of the cyclic pre-
fix. More importantly, our approach accomplishes significant
suppression even at distant frequencies, where the effect of the
methods in [3]–[5] is limited. Simulations results illustrate that
for an adjacent-carrier leakage-ratio of 45 dB, the system’s
spectrum efficiency is significantly higher and substantially
smaller frequency guardbands could be employed between
adjacent channels.
II. A N EW C RITERION FOR S PECTRAL S UPPRESSION
The new criterion in this letter distinguishes absence of
continuity between subsequent symbols in an OFDM signal
as an important cause for its out-of-band emission. Hence,
we wish to modulate the reserved subcarriers in one OFDM
(1) continuous way. Concretely, we require that the 0th-order and
a few higher-order derivatives are continuous at the transition
time instant between the ith and (i − 1)th OFDM symbol,
dn  dn 
(2)  
s i (t) = s i−1 (t) , (3)
dtn t=−TG dtn t=Ts
for n ∈ IN , the index set of target derivative-orders. With (2)
we write these requirements as a set of |IN | linear equations
in the weights wk,i ,
 
an,k wk,i + an,k dk,i =
k∈IW k∈ID
 
bn,k wk,i−1 + bn,k dk,i−1 , (4)
k∈IW k∈ID
for all i and for n ∈ IN , where the coefficients
Tg
an,k = k n ej2πk Ts and bn,k = k n , (5)
describe the contribution of a modulated OFDM subcarrier
k to the nth derivative of the OFDM symbol si (t) at time
t= − Tg and t=Ts , respectively. After collecting the weights
wk,i , k ∈ IW and data symbols dk,i , k ∈ ID in vectors wi
and di , the conditions (4) can be written in matrix-form as
Aw wi + Ad di = Bw wi−1 + Bd di−1 , (6)
c 2008 IEEE
 610 IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, VOL. 12, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2008

di -10
si (t)
wi OFDM modulator Plain OFDM
-20

Power spectral density [dBm/Hz]

solve (6) IN ={0}
-30 IN ={0, 1}
wi−1 IN ={0, 1, 2}
delay -40 IN ={0, 1, 2, 3}
di−1
-50
Fig. 1. Active spectrum suppression based on a solution of (6). -60
-70
where the entries of the |IN | × |ID | matrices Ad and Bd are -80
the values an,k and bn,k associated with n ∈ IN and k ∈ ID , -90
while the entries of the |IN | × |IW | matrices Aw and Bw are
-100
the values an,k and bn,k associated with n ∈ IN and k ∈ IW .
Solutions to (6) yield the transmitter structure shown in Fig.1. -110
-4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
If such solutions exist, the Moore-Penrose pseudoinverse Frequency offset from carrier [MHz]
A†w of Aw yields the minimum-energy solution
Fig. 2. OFDM power spectral density for transmitters employing spectral
wi = A†w ei , (7) suppression (7).

where ei = −Ad di +Bw wi−1 +Bd di−1 . If no solution to (6)

exists, (7) provides the weights that minimize the Eucledian
distance between the right-hand and left-hand side of (6).
In the following we investigate transmitters employing
weights (7). Such transmitters are uniquely determined by
the particular choice of the index sets IW , ID and IN .
Unfortunately however, not every choice yields a practically
relevant transmitter. The average power of the solution weight
vector wi in (7) may reach unacceptable levels, even though
(7) minimizes the weight vector’s energy wi 22 among all
the solutions of (6). In order to keep the total transmit power
within limits, the number of reserved subcarriers |IW | and the
number of equations |IN | must be chosen with care. Provided
that |IW | ≥ |IN |, the probability that A†w yields a practical,
low-energy solution increases with the dimension |IW | − |IN |
of the subspace of solutions.
As a result of the time-domain nature of the criterion (3), the
weights (7) cause the emitted power at any non-data frequency
to reduce, regardless of its position. Although we will focus on
out-of-band characteristics, the index sets IW , ID and IN may
well be chosen to represent a (spectrum-aggregating) system
where in-band frequencies are to be suppressed.
The choice of the reserved subcarriers’ actual spectral
locations in IW is beyond the scope of this letter. Simulations
not shown here indicate that performance is better when the
reserved subcarriers are spread in frequency rather than being
clustered, for instance at the edges of the signal’s frequency
band. In the evaluation, we take the indices in IW from a uni-
form distribution over all the signal’s |ID |+|IW | subcarriers
and, moreover, vary these locations from one OFDM symbol
to the next in order to avoid pronounced spectral ripples.
III. T RANSMITTER P ERFORMANCE
We evaluate transmitter performance for the signal (1) with
1 9
Ts = 15 ms, Tg = 128 Ts ms and |ID | =300 data subcarriers
(excluding DC: 0 ∈/ ID ). This signal complies in essence with
3GPP’s latest E-UTRA/LTE downlink specifications [6].
The 300 data subcarriers are each assigned an equal portion
of 46.0 dBm total average power. Hence, received energy
per data symbol is independent of the varying number of
modulated reserved subcarriers or the average power they
carry; no price is paid in terms of higher error rates or reduced
throughput. Instead, our cost evaluation focuses on how much
the transmitted signal’s total average power increases and how
its power dynamics are affected.
Fig. 2 shows an estimate of the OFDM signal’s power
spectral density Ps (f )1 for transmitters employing different
criteria sets IN , while using the same number |IW | =30 of
reserved subcarriers (modulated with the weights (7)). For
instance, by requiring continuity for n ∈ IN ={0, 1, 2}, 31 dB
spectral suppression is accomplished at an adjacent channel’s
center frequency 5 MHz from the signal’s carrier frequency,
compared to plain OFDM transmission.
As a measure of how efficiently a transmitter employs the
spectrum we further evaluate at what channel spacing Δf an
adjacent OFDM signal can be transmitted, while maintaining
an adjacent-channel leakage-ratio, defined in [7] as
 B2
−B s
P (f )df
ACLR(Δf ) =  Δf +2 B , (8)
2
B Ps (f )df
Δf − 2
of at least 45 dB (see the requirements in [7]). Fig. 3 shows
this minimum adjacent channel spacing for a filter bandwidth
B=(|ID |+|IW |)/Ts . Note that the minimum channel spacing
is smaller not only as more derivatives are incorporated but
also as fewer reserved subcarriers |IW | are employed. The
linear slopes indicate that as we increase |IW | the signal’s
power spectrum does not change – each additional reserved
subcarrier simply increases the minimum channel spacing with
the system’s subcarrier spacing, 15 kHz. While fewer reserved
subcarriers thus seems beneficial, there are, in practice, lower
limits to this number as the total average transmit power and
the transmitted signal’s PAPR-increase for a 0.1% clipping
rate also increase, see Fig. 3. A transmitter employing 30
subcarriers and 3 derivatives achieves Δf =5.08 MHz channel
1 We estimate P (f ) by sampling the signal with a sample period of
s
Tsamp = Ts /2048 = Tg /144 and then employing Welch’s averaged
periodogram method with a 4096-sample Hanning window, a 512-sample
overlap and an observation time of 1 s.

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 VAN DE BEEK and BERGGREN: OUT-OF-BAND POWER SUPPRESSION IN OFDM 611

7 -10
Channel spacing [MHz] IN ={0} Plain OFDM
-20

Power spectral density [dBm/Hz]

6.5 IN ={0, 1} Time criterion (7)
IN ={0, 1, 2} -30 Frequency criterion
6 IN ={0, 1, 2, 3}
-40
5.5 -50
5 -60
-70
4.5
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 -80
Number of reserved subcarriers
6 -90
IN ={0} -100
Power increase [dB]

5 IN ={0, 1}
IN ={0, 1, 2} -110
4 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
IN ={0, 1, 2, 3} Frequency offset from carrier [MHz]
3
Fig. 4. Spectrum of the new time-domain based solution (7) compared with
2 a method based on the frequency-domain criterion in [5].

1
0 in both methods, 1 dB and 0.2 dB, respectively. The power
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Number of reserved subcarriers spectral densities are illustrated in Fig. 4. Note how the method
0.5 based on [5], while achieving a very steep initial power drop,
IN ={0} fails to significantly affect more distant frequencies. It allows
PAPR increase [dB]

0.4 IN ={0, 1} Δf =7.45 MHz adjacent channel spacing to obtain 45 dB

0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 10 20 30 40 50
Number of reserved subcarriers
Fig. 3. Minimum adjacent channel spacing achieving ACLR = 45 dB (top),
increase of the total average transmit power (middle) and the transmitted
signal’s PAPR-increase for a 0.1% clipping rate (bottom).
spacing with a modest increase of its average power by 1 dB
and its PAPR by 0.2 dB.
Finally, we compare the performance with a method based
on the frequency-domain criteria presented in [5]. Here the
idea of enforcing spectral notches at a set of well-chosen target
frequencies fm yields a mathematical problem similar to (6). It
can be shown that [5] employs (4) with coefficients bm,k = 0
and
sin(π( Tks −fm )(Ts +Tg ))
am,k = ejπ( Ts −fm )(Ts −Tg ) ,
π( Tks −fm )(Ts +Tg )
describing the spectral contribution of a modulated OFDM
subcarrier k to a frequency fm . The weights are then chosen
as the solution of a least-squares optimization problem subject
to an energy constraint.
We employ 30 reserved subcarriers in both methods and
for the method based on [5] reserved subcarriers are located
contiguously at the band edges. In this method, we choose 10
target frequencies located at the first 5 sidelobes at either side
of the signal’s spectrum, along with an energy constraint such
that the increased power and the increased PAPR are the same
IN ={0, 1, 2} ACLR, while the suppression weights computed by (7) allows
IN ={0, 1, 2, 3} for Δf =5.08 MHz, an improvement of over 30%.
IV. C ONCLUSION
An OFDM transmitter that modulates a set of reserved
subcarriers with weights (7) emits significantly less out-of-
60 70 band power than a traditional OFDM transmitter. Forcing
continuity of the signal and its first two derivatives typically
yields over 30dB power suppression in the adjacent channel.
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