Error Rate Analysis for Coded Multicarrier Systems over Quasi-Static Fading Channels

Abstract: Several recent standards such as IEEE 802.11a/g, IEEE 802.16, and ECMA Multiband Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MB-OFDM) for high data-rate Ultra-Wideband (UWB), employ bit-interleaved convolutionally-coded multicarrier modulation over quasi-static fading channels. Motivated by the lack of appropriate error rate analysis techniques for this popular type of system and channel model, we present two novel analytical methods for bit error rate (BER) estimation of coded multicarrier systems operating over frequency-selective quasi-static channels with non-ideal interleaving. In the first method, the approximate performance of the system is calculated for each realization of the channel, which is suitable for obtaining the outage BER performance (a common performance measure for e.g. MB-OFDM systems). The second method assumes Rayleigh distributed frequency-domain subcarrier channel gains and knowledge of their correlation matrix, and can be used to directly obtain the average BER performance. Both methods are applicable to convolutionally-coded interleaved multicarrier systems employing Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM), and are also able to account for narrowband interference (modeled as a sum of tone interferers). To illustrate the application of the proposed analysis, both methods are used to study the performance of a tone-interference-impaired MB-OFDM system.