Comparison and performance evaluation of orthogonal frequency and multi-carrier code division multiple access systems

Future mobile communication systems aim to provide extremely high speed data transmission, especially in the downlink. Broadband orthogonal frequency code division multiple access (OFCDMA) with two-dimensional (2D) time and frequency domain spreading is becoming a very promising technique for high speed wireless communications due to its advantages over multi-carrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA), direct sequence CDMA (DS-CDMA) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). This paper presents a comparison, through simulation, between the performance of OFCDMA and MC-CDMA systems operating under the same condition. The paper also explains the basic structure of multi-carrier direct sequence CDMA (MC-DS-CDMA) technique, its advantages and OFCDMA system structure. It is shown that OFCDMA is superior to the above mentioned systems.