MIMO-UFMC Transceiver Schemes for Millimeter-Wave Wireless Communications

The universal filtered multicarrier (UFMC) modulation is among the most considered solutions for the realization of beyond orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) air interfaces for future wireless networks. This paper focuses on the design and analysis of a UFMC transceiver equipped with multiple antennas and operating at millimeter-wave carrier frequencies. This paper provides the full mathematical model of an MIMO-UFMC transceiver, taking into account the presence of hybrid analog/digital beamformers at both ends of the communication links. Then, several detection structures are proposed, both for the case of single-packet isolated transmission and for the case of multiple-packet continuous transmission. In the latter situation, this paper also considers the case in which no guard time among adjacent packets is inserted, trading off an increased level of interference with higher values of spectral efficiency. At the analysis stage, several considered detection structures and transmission schemes are compared in terms of bit-error rate, root-mean-square error, and system throughput. The numerical results show that the proposed transceiver algorithms are effective and that the linear minimum mean-square error (MMSE) data detector is capable of well managing the increased interference brought by the removal of guard times among consecutive packets, thus yielding throughput gains of about 10%-13%. The effect of phase noise at the receiver is also numerically assessed, and it is shown that the recursive implementation of the linear MMSE exhibits some degree of robustness against this disturbance.