Abstract
Uncoded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission technique applied in a multipath environment has a bit error rate (BER) comparable with a narrowband radio channel because the fading of each subcarrier is frequency-nonselective. To overcome this behaviour and to reduce the BER, a combination of OFDM and CDMA has been proposed recently. In an OFDM-CDMA system the energy of each information symbol is spread over several subcarriers. Therefore a diversity gain can be obtained in a broadband fading channel.
In this paper we discuss the performance of OFDM-CDMA with coherent QPSK signalling over a frequency-selective Rayleigh fading channel. Channel estimation and demodulation are integral parts that determine the performance of the system. The method for channel estimation presented in this paper is based on a two-dimensional array of pilot symbols with second-order regression in the time domain and interpolation in the frequency domain. Quantitative comparison of four different detection algorithms in frequency-selective Rayleigh fading with noisy channel state information (CSI) will be presented in this paper: conventional correlation (equal gain correlation, EGC), orthogonality restoring correlation (ORC), ORC with a threshold in order to suppress subcarriers with low signal strength (TORC), and an iterative improvement based on a maximum likelihood approach. With TORC and iterative improvement a gain of approximately 9 dB over conventional OFDM can be obtained at a BER of 10−3 in Rayleigh fading.
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Mueller, T., Brueninghaus, K. & Rohling, H. Performance of coherent OFDM-CDMA for broadband mobile communications. Wireless Pers Commun 2, 295–305 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01099337
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01099337