On the Waveforms for 5G Mobile Broadband Communications

To realize the vision of ubiquitous mobile broadband where radio access performance should not be a limiting factor for user experience, we need to access very large bandwidths, and thus consider higher frequency bands up to the millimeter wave region. Air interface design, including waveforms, is a very important component for the success of 5G mobile broadband (MBB) in terms of flexibility, energy efficiency and cost efficiency. In this paper, we compare two waveforms, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and filter bank multicarrier (FBMC), in terms of these requirements. We show that OFDM is a suitable waveform for MBB due to reasonably low overhead, low cost and latency; whereas FBMC loses its spectral properties when non-linear power amplifier is used.