Group-orthogonal multicarrier CDMA

In the presence of frequency-selective multipath fading channels, code-division multiple access (CDMA) suffers from multiuser interference (MUI) and intersymbol interference (ISI); but when properly designed, it enjoys multipath diversity. Orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) is MUI-free, but it does not enable the available channel diversity without employing error-control coding. On the other hand, coded OFDMA may achieve lower diversity than a CDMA system employing the same error-control codes. In this paper, we merge the advantages of OFDMA and CDMA to minimize MUI effects, and also enable the maximum available diversity for every user. In our group orthogonal multicarrier CDMA (GO-MC-CDMA) scheme, groups of users share a set of subcarriers. By judiciously choosing group subcarriers, we guarantee that every user transmits with maximum diversity. MUI is only present among users in the same group, and is suppressed via multiuser detection, which becomes practically feasible because we assign a small number of users per group. Performance is analyzed, and simulations are carried out to illustrate the merits of GO-MC-CDMA relative to existing alternatives.