A comparison of the performance of linearly equalized single carrier and coded OFDM over frequency selective fading channels using the random coding technique

Different attempts have been made to compare the performance of coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (COFDM) and a corresponding single carrier system employing a linear equalizer often by comparing the average bit error rates. The random coding technique is used to analyze the performance of these systems for signaling over piecewise constant channels. The probabilities that the cutoff rates are less than a desired rate are calculated and compared. It is shown that for low SNRs and low code rates, the cutoff rates of both systems are approximately the same. With an increasing SNR the cutoff rate for the linearly equalized system, however, converges faster to its maximum value than the cutoff rate for the COFDM system. Simulation results for the outage probability are presented for the two-ray Rayleigh fading channel with QPSK as the fundamental modulation technique. For code rates close to one or for uncoded transmission, the linearly equalized single carrier system substantially outperforms the COFDM system. For low to medium code rates COFDM and a linearly equalized single carrier system perform approximately identically.