The effect of blockwise transmission on higher-order modulation schemes for SC/FDE

This paper compares the performance of higher-order modulation schemes and coding rates for a single carrier system with frequency domain equalization (SC/FDE) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). The effects of cyclic prefix and blockwise equalization for SC/FDE are investigated in detail. It is shown that blockwise processing leads to a deterioration in terms of BER behavior - especially for higher modulation formats such as 16 QAM or 64 QAM. The most reliable solution to this problem is coding. Applying a high-rate code compensates the investigated effect completely. The achieved BER behavior is compared with the results of an OFDM system.