Experimental Validation of Improved Exponential Companding Technique for SC-FDMA Systems Using WARP Hardware

Abstract

As single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) is used in long-term evolution (LTE) uplink communications, high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) increases power consumption in mobile devices. It is severe when localized subcarrier mapping is used with higher-order modulations. Companding is an attractive technique that offers a tradeoff between PAPR and bit error rate (BER) performances. This paper proposes an exponential companding technique that uses two companding levels based on a threshold, to reduce PAPR in SC-FDMA systems. It does not increase the average power level of transmitted signal and maintains the BER level without significant degradation from the original system. The proposed scheme has three parameters that can be adjusted for a tradeoff between PAPR, BER, and power spectral density (PSD) performances. Hence it offers more flexibility than the conventional exponential companding scheme. We also present scatter plots to find the optimum threshold value and companding levels. Finally, we verify the proposed technique considering a real-time indoor channel by using a wireless open-access research platform (WARP).