An analysis of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing for mobile radio applications

Using static and time-varying channel impulse responses, the authors analyze the performance of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) on multipath fading channels. They show that, provided it employs a frequency domain equalizer, single-carrier transmission substantially outperforms OFDM signalling, a result that contradicts the usual claims that OFDM signalling is more resistant to multipath fading than is standard single-carrier transmission. This finding is supported by computer simulation results and analytical arguments related to the decision process. The implication of the results is that not only OFDM signalling increases the system sensitivity to nonlinear distortion and carrier synchronization errors, but it also turns out to offer no performance advantage on fading radio channels