Quantifying the impact of the MC-CDMA physical layer algorithms on the downlink capacity in a multicellular environment

In this paper, we present an evaluation methodology for quantifying the impact of the MC-CDMA physical layer algorithms on the system capacity in the downlink of a multi-cellular environment. The methodology consists of a qualitative evaluation through a novel capacity indicator at the link level and a quantitative evaluation through a semi-analytical statistical approach at the system level. The qualitative and quantitative evaluations are complementary and lead to similar and consistent conclusions. They constitute an efficient tool that can be used for optimizing the MC-CDMA physical layer algorithms and identifying the most suitable configurations for a given environment.