Symbol error rate evaluation for OFDM systems with MPSK modulation

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is the most commonly used multiplexing method in multicarrier (MC) systems. In this paper, a new closed-form formula for the symbol error rate (SER) is derived for generic OFDM systems with M-ary phase shift keying (MPSK) modulation and the optimal phase detector for each subchannel over a fading channel. This new formula can be used to evaluate both discrete Fourier transform (DFT)-based OFDM and discrete wavelet multitone (DWMT) systems. It can also be adopted as a criterion for OFDM system design. Monte-Carlo numerical simulations are performed to verify the theoretical SER analysis, and it is shown that the theoretical results from the presented new formula is consistent with simulation results.