Performance of code division multiple access (CDMA) systems in Nakagami multipath fading channel

Multicarrier CDMA system is characterized by a simpler receiver structure than the conventional RAKE receiver. Most of previous studies evaluated the performance of the MC-CDMA system in a Rayleigh multipath fading channel. This paper compares the performance of a RAKE receiver and MC-CDMA system in a Nakagami multipath fading. The Nakagami model, known as the m-distribution model, is a generalized model as it includes Gaussian, Rayleigh and Rice fading as special cases by changing the Nakagami parameter m. On the other hand, the Nakagami model has been shown by many in the literature to be the closest model to the indoor mobile radio channel. According to our analysis, we found that the MC-CDMA system outperforms the practical RAKE receiver, in which the number of RAKE fingers is less than the maximum resolvable paths of the channel. Moreover, the MC-CDMA system outperforms the RAKE receiver in lower diffusive channels.