Orthogonal Chirp-Frequency Division Multiplexing

This paper introduces a multicarrier communication technique termed orthogonal chirp-frequency division multiplexing (OCFDM). It relies on a unitary transform named discrete modular chirp transform. The proposed OCFDM amalgamates characteristics from the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and orthogonal chirp division multiplexing (OCDM), partitioning the frequency spectrum into distinct subbands and populating each of them with orthogonal chirps. By deriving the reconstructed signal at the receiver, the paper shows that the normalized signal-to-noise ratio exhibits changes across subbands, allowing the use of resource allocation, for instance, for power allocation or bit-loading. Moreover, it is shown that the OCFDM introduces an additional degree of freedom through its tile geometries, allowing it to be configured to perform in between OFDM and OCDM and, consequently, to offer novel and balanced trade-offs among symbol error rate, data rate, and robustness to interference. Numerical analyses illustrate those trade-offs and confirm the versatility and efficacy of the OCFDM.