Peak-to-average power ratio versus instantaneous-to-average power ratio for OFDM

In the literature, peak-to-average power ratio (PAR) is often used as an indicator for the dynamic range of OFDM signals. PAR is an extreme value statistic and can present an overly pessimistic view of the signal. Instantaneous-to-average power ratio (IAR), on the other hand, reflects more accurately the characteristics of the sample population. In this paper, we show that depending on whether clipping is allowed to occur, PAR or IAR may be a more suitable metric.