BER Analysis for Zero-Forcing SC-FDMA Over Nakagami-m Fading Channels

In this paper, we present an analytical study of the bit error rate (BER) for single-carrier frequency-division multiple access (SC-FDMA) transmission over frequency-selective fading channels when zero-forcing frequency-domain equalization is applied. SC-FDMA, which can be described as a precoded version of orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA), is regarded as a promising candidate for next mobile communication systems due its favorable envelope characteristics and low peak-to-average-power ratio (PAPR), compared with that of OFDMA. We focus on Nakagami-m fading channels and provide a method to calculate BER values with a single numerical computation. We provide a closed-form expression for the BER with binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) and square M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (M-QAM) under the assumption of independence among channel frequency responses for allocated subcarriers.