On Multicarrier Detection and Coherent CDMA Mobile Receiver Radio Systems with Joint Antenna Diversity

The combination of code division multiple access(CDMA) and multicarrier (MC) transmission techniques,termed MC-CDMA, is considered a promising alternative toconventional DS (direct sequence)-CDMA. For this reason, recent research activities haveconcentrated on the application of MC-CDMA to mobileradio systems. In this paper an MC-CDMA concept which iswell suited for mobile radio applications is described. The described MC-CDMA concept overcomesdisadvantages of previously proposed concepts. InMC-CDMA mobile radio systems, signal reception isimpaired by time-varying multipath propagation. Theimpairments can be reduced by applying diversitytechniques. Coherent receiver antenna diversity (CRAD)is especially attractive because only the signalprocessing at the receivers must be modified. In thiscommunication, the application of CRAD in combination withjoint detection (JD) techniques to the more criticaluplink of MC-CDMA mobile radio systems is investigated.It is explained that the deployment of JD techniques for CRAD is an effective countermeasure againstthe influence of the mobile radio channel on the systemperformance. Four JD techniques for CRAD which areapplicable to MC-CDMA are presented. Their performances are studied in bad urban, typical urban, andtypical macrocellular environments. It is shown thatMC-CDMA allows a favorable performance compared to otherCDMA concepts.