Overloaded Minimum Total Squared Correlation Signatures Based Pilot Aided System for MC-CDMA and STBC MC-CDMA

Abstract

This paper proposes multiple-access schemes based on Overloaded Minimum Total Squared Correlation (TSC) signatures, namely Pilot Aided Multi-Carrier Code-Division Multiple-Access (MC-CDMA) and Pilot Aided Space Time Block Codes (STBC) MC-CDMA. Since overloaded minimum TSC signatures were used as the spreading codes, a number of sub-channels in the MC-CDMA and STBC MC-CDMA schemes were not utilized for data transmission. These empty sub-channels can be exploited for comb-type pilot signaling. To maintain low system complexity, for the pilot sub-channels Least Square (LS) estimation was employed and for interpolating the characteristics of the data sub-channels linear interpolator was applied. The validity of the schemes is confirmed by comparing them with the original MC-CDMA method using Walsh-Hadamard orthogonal codes and also with Walsh-Hadamard based STBC MC-CDMA with block-type pilot. All systems use Equal Gain Combining (EGC) or Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC) in the MC-CDMA block at the receiver. The simulation result shows that although the spreading codes of interest are not fully orthogonal codes, for a low number of users the systems under investigation performed better than their Walsh-Hadamard based counterpart. This will be valuable for Wireless Personal Area Network (PAN) where the number of users is typically low. © 2007 Asian Network for Scientific Information.