A DHT-based multicarrier modulation system with pairwise ML detection

This paper presents a complex-valued discrete multicarrier modulation (MCM) system based on the real-valued discrete Hartley transform (DHT) and its inverse (IDHT). Unlike the conventional discrete Fourier transform (DFT), the DHT cannot diagonalize multipath fading channels due to its inherent properties, and this results in mutual interference between subcarriers of the same mirror-symmetrical pair. We explore this interference pattern in order to seek an optimal solution to utilize channel diversity for enhancing the bit error rate (BER) performance of the system. It is shown that the optimal channel diversity gain can be achieved via pairwise maximum likelihood (ML) detection, taking into account not only the subcarrier's own channel quality but also the channel state information of its mirror-symmetrical peer. Performance analysis indicates that DHT-based MCM can mitigate fast fading effects by averaging channel power gains of each mirror-symmetrical pair of subcarriers. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme has a substantial improvement in BER over the conventional DFT-based MCM system.