Statistical modelling and reduction of multiple access interference power in wideband DS-CDMA and MC-CDMA communications systems

With code division multiple access (CDMA) systems being the prominent multiple access scheme for the air interface for 3G cellular systems, most standardisation bodies have based their terrestrial cellular systems on DS-CDMA (W-CDMA, UMTS, cdma2000). With 4G systems fast approaching, bringing with them improved services and quality of service standards, there is growing interest in further investigating and developing more efficient multiple access techniques such as multicarrier CDMA (MC-CDMA) systems. MC-CDMA combines multicarrier modulation (MCM), namely OFDM, with CDMA profiting from the benefits of both multiplexing techniques; as such, MC-CDMA is emerging as a possible candidate for the air interface multiple access scheme for 4G cellular systems. \ud \ud \ud \ud Multiple access interference (MAI) is a limiting factor of CDMA systems in terms of system capacity as orthogonally designed spreading sequences lose their orthogonality in the presence of timing misalignments amongst mobile subscribers in a cell; such is the case over the uplink channel. Ensuring orthogonal code properties minimises the MAI over synchronous environments, however, it is when the users are allowed to transmit asynchronously, as is the case over the uplink channel, that MAI inflicts significant performance degradation. In CDMA systems, all subscribers are active on the same frequency band simultaneously and signal separation is facilitated upon reception via the properties of the assigned spreading codes. Under asynchronous conditions the code properties alone do not provide the necessary separation and an additive MAI term remains in the detection process. In addition to the separation abilities of the spreading codes, a further method of deciphering the desired subscriber signal from the interfering subscriber signals is sought. \ud \ud \ud \ud In this thesis we propose a statistical model for both the probability density function (pdf) of the total MAI power and the corresponding bit-error rate (BER) observed during asynchronous CDMA transmission. The modelling offers the full statistic the MAI power and resulting BER, not just the first and second order statistics. In addition to statistically quantifying the MAI power, the thesis also proposes a technique for the successful reduction of MAI caused by asynchronous transmission. This interference reduction technique is derived from an ambiguity domain analysis of the asynchronous CDMA detection problem and its application to both the DS-CDMA and MC-CDMA multiplexing techniques is presented and the results show significant MAI reduction, and thus an improved the BER.\ud \ud \ud \ud A methodology for the approximation of the total MAI power pdf and the resulting BER pdf is proposed for the asynchronous DS-CDMA and MC-CDMA techniques. This methodology is derived for the use of Walsh-Hadamard (WH) and Gold spreading sequences, however, it is applicable to any given set of deterministic spreading sequences. The total MAI power pdfs of both systems are statistically modelled as being Nakagamim distributed and the corresponding BER modelling is derived from the Nakagami-m formulation offering the full statistic of both the incurred MAI power and the achievable BER. \ud \ud \ud \ud The proposed pdf acquisition methodology and statistical models can be used as analysis tools to assess the relative performances of the DS-CDMA and MC-CDMA techniques for a variety of communications environments. Here the asynchronous uplink channel is considered in the absence of fading and the results show a clear distinction between the BER performances of the MC-CDMA and DS-CDMA systems, for which the MC-CDMA system offers a superior performance for the purely asynchronous channel considered. The results suggest a higher resistance to MAI in the MC-CDMA technique in comparison to the DS-CDMA system for the considered transmission scenario. \ud \ud \ud \ud Following ambiguity function analysis of the asynchronous CDMA detection problem, the concept of dual-frequency switching is introduced to the existing DS-CDMA and MC-CDMA techniques giving rise to the proposed dual-frequency DS-CDMA (DF/DSCDMA) and dual-frequency MC-CDMA (DF/MC-CDMA) schemes. Periodically switching the carrier frequency between dual frequency bands at consecutive symbol boundaries facilitates partial CDMA signal separation upon asynchronous reception. Such switching of the carrier frequency induces a separation in frequency between offset interference signals and the reference signal; this is equivalent to shifting the energy concentration of the interference signals away form the ambiguity domain origin (representing the decision variable of the matched filter). Further MAI reduction is demonstrated through careful design of the dual carrier frequencies. \ud \ud \ud \ud The newly proposed DF systems clearly outperform the standard DS-CDMA and MC-CDMA systems when adopting equivalent spreading factors. The DF/DS-CDMA technique in particular achieves the most MAI reduction and in doing so, surpasses all other considered techniques to offer the best BER performance for the purely asynchronous channel considered. In terms of bandwidth usage, the DF/DS-CDMA band width is 1.5 times that of the DF/MC-CDMA system and from the BER results presented, one may argue that DF/MC-CDMA offers the better BER given the bandwidth usage. The multicarrier systems presented, MC-CDMA and DF/MC-CDMA, offer attractive BER performances for the bandwidth used and it is concluded that MC-CDMA is a genuine candidate for the uplink air interface multiple access scheme for future mobile cellular technologies