Reduction of PAPR of OFDM Signals Using Nonlinear Companding Transform

Abstract

In this paper, we propose and evaluate a novel nonlinear companding transform (NCT) scheme for peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) reduction in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The key idea of the proposed scheme is to transform the original Gaussian-distributed OFDM signals into a specific statistics form, whose target probability density function is defined by a piecewise function with an inflexion point. By properly choosing the transform parameters, this scheme can enable more flexibility and freedom in the companding form so that a favorable tradeoff between PAPR reduction and bit error rate (BER) performance can be achieved. Moreover, compared to existing NCT techniques, this scheme dramatically decreases the impact of companding distortion on the BER performance to reach a given PAPR level. The analytical expressions regarding the achievable transform gain in PAPR, complementary cumulative density function, attenuation coefficient, and selection criteria of transform parameters are derived. Simulation results justify the significance and accuracy of the analytical expressions presented.