Hierarchical wideband multicarrier CDMA systems: reverse link analysis

The reverse link performance of hierarchical wideband multicarrier code-division multiple-access (MC-CDMA) systems is studied. An MC-CDMA system divides the system bandwidth into several equal narrow subbands that are used to transmit multiple signal waveforms in parallel. MC-CDMA systems are known to be robust to multipath fading and narrowband interference. We propose a hierarchical MC-CDMA system where the microcell(s) occupies a fraction of the available subbands. It is shown that such an architecture is a viable way of supporting microcell traffic while protecting the existing macrocell traffic. The effects of microcell Nakagami fading and power control error are also studied.