On the Calculation of OFDM Error Performance with Phase Noise in AWGN and Fading Channels

Oscillator phase noise (PN) in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems can cause severe performance degradation. In contrary to the assumptions made previously, recent work has discovered that the intercarrier interference (ICI) distribution due to a wide range of PN strengths in fact deviates from Gaussian characteristics. Hence we have compared the accuracy of a theoretical Gaussian symbol error rate (SER) analysis to that of the simulated SER in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), frequency flat and frequency selective Rayleigh fading channels. In multipath channels the SER is evaluated jointly considering the fading effects on the OFDM signal and ICI. Our results indicate that modeling ICI due to PN as Gaussian in the AWGN channel can lead to pessimistic theoretical predictions. However in fading channels, the difference between the simulated and the theoretical results is marginal