System level performance of multi-user detection for W-CDMA

Multi-user detection (MUD) techniques have the potential to provide significant capacity and quality of service benefits for DS-CDMA systems such as UMTS. To date, most studies have focussed on the link level performance of MUD techniques, involving a limited number of users. This study assesses the system capacity benefits provided by multi-user detection for the uplink, which forms the limiting factor in many scenarios. A W-CDMA system level simulator has been developed (see Lister D., et al., IEE Int Conf. on 3G2000 Mobile Commun. Technologies, p.218-23, 2000) to determine the potential gain in uplink capacity obtained by employing multi-user detection. The evaluation is performed for a dense urban macrocellular environment, based on realistic GSM site and traffic density distributions.