Efficient Power Control for MC-CDMA based W-LANs

Besides reducing energy consumption, efficient power control (PC) is essential for a good performance of wireless networks. This applies especially to code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, where the capacity is limited by receiver's ability to extract the intended signal from the received one. In such a network, a reliable PC function combined with a good multiuser detector (MUD) can boost its performance. In this paper we present and evaluate a new PC method based on the interference estimation by mobile stations, using the minimum mean square error (MMSE) MUD. The system for which we provide simulation results, is a modified version of the IEEE 802.11a wireless local area network (W-LAN), which uses the distributed coordination function (DCF), adapted to spread spectrum systems, with a multi-carrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) physical layer.