Comparison of optimised multicarrier and equalised single carrier transmission

Optimisation of the performance of multicarrier transmission over a given linear channel is presented. The optimum data and power assignments to the carriers are derived for both the error probability measure used by Kalet (1987) and Bingham (1990) and a new criterion, the mean-square signal separation, based on mean-square error. Lower bounds are derived and are used to compare multicarrier performance with conventional equalised single carrier transmission for QAM modulation; it is demonstrated that the multicarrier system can provide a significant improvement at low and intermediate channel SNRs.<>