A multi-(users, carriers, antennas) IDMA receiver: A way to address the bandwidth scarcity issue

This paper deals with a system combining orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), interleave-division multiple access (IDMA) and space time block coding (STBC). Less investigated in the literature than multicarrier code division multiple access or OFDMA, OFDM-IDMA can be viewed as a promising technique to solve the problem of bandwidth scarcity. With a specific frame organization to estimate the carrier frequency offsets (CFO) and the channels, we suggest a new receiver architecture. Indeed, based on a modification of the standard IDMA receiver where a CFO correction is no longer necessary unlike common OFDM approaches, we show that the transmitted bits can be still recovered. When considering a STBC-OFDM-IDMA uplink system over different Rayleigh channels, simulation results show the efficiency of the proposed algorithm. These results confirm the utility of this technique as a mid-term solution to solve the constant increase of data rate and user density per cell in cellular systems.