Filter Bank Multicarrier Modulation Schemes for Future Mobile Communications

Future wireless systems will be characterized by a large range of possible uses cases. This requires a flexible allocation of the available time-frequency resources, which is difficult in conventional orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). Thus, modifications of OFDM, such as windowing or filtering, become necessary. Alternatively, we can employ a different modulation scheme, such as filter bank multi-carrier (FBMC). In this paper, we provide a unifying framework, discussion, and performance evaluation of FBMC and compare it with OFDM-based schemes. Our investigations are not only based on simulations, but are substantiated by real-world testbed measurements and trials, where we show that multiple antennas and channel estimation, two of the main challenges associated with FBMC, can be efficiently dealt with. In addition, we derive closed-form solutions for the signal-to-interference ratio in doubly-selective channels and show that in many practical cases, one-tap equalizers are sufficient. A downloadable MATLAB code supports reproducibility of our results.