Performance evaluation of multicarrier CDMA uplink system with antenna array and multiuser detection over correlated multipath channel

MC-CDMA with performance enhancement techniques is proposed as the signaling technique for future generation broadband wireless networks. The performance of an asynchronous MC-CDMA uplink system with antenna array and multiuser detection technique is studied over a correlated frequency selective slow Rayleigh fading channel. A simplified array-processing algorithm is discussed to overcome the problem associated with eigenanalysis in slow fading situations. The effect of channel correlation in the performance of the system in conjunction with an antenna array is discussed. Based on the simulation results, the performance in an asynchronous uplink of the system is found to improve dramatically with the use of antenna arrays and multiuser detection techniques. The simplified algorithm studied is found to give similar performance to the eigenvector method. The effect of channel correlation is severe when antenna elements are spatially correlated. The necessity of joint analysis of channel correlation, antenna array processing and multiuser detection is highlighted.