CPM schemes for adaptive modulation based coded MC-CDMA systems

Multicarrier transmission techniques like multicarrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) is the strongest contender for the future generation wireless networks which is supposed to cater to the need of very high data rate with mobility and at the same time combat multipath and intersymbol interference in a spectrally efficient manner. To enhance the spectral efficiency further, some form of adaptive modulation is being proposed (Wasantha et al. (2002)). In this paper, first of all, we simulate the performance of various single-h continuous phase modulation (CPM) schemes in an MC-CDMA system by varying the two CPM parameters - size of symbol alphabet (M) and modulation index (h). The parameter sets considered are {M=2, h=0.5}, {M=2, h=0.875}, {M=4, h=0.5} and {M=4, h=0.875}. Simulation results show that the higher order modulation schemes (M=4) need better channel conditions than the lower order schemes (M=2) for a given bit error rate (BER). Moreover, as expected (Xiong (2000)), h=0.875 (approximate optimum value) gives a better BER performance than h=0.5 for a given BER. Based on these simulation results, we then design two adaptive modulation based systems, one considering h=0.5 and the other with h=0.875, each with M=2 and 4. Results of the adaptive systems clearly indicate that the adaptive switching of the modulation formats in each of these two systems increases the system capacity per given bandwidth (spectrum efficiency) effectively without sacrificing the expected BER performance. Also, it is seen that the adaptive system with h=0.875 is superior to the h=0. 5 system, both in terms of BER performance and the number of simultaneous users, but obviously at the cost of reduced bandwidth efficiency as higher the value of h, the higher bandwidth it requires.