Multicarrier CDMA for future generation mobile communication

Future generations of wireless communication systems will be designed with the aim of making the best possible use of the limited radio spectrum in order to further increase throughput as well as user-capacity. In this paper, the application of multicarrier CDMA (code division multiple access) within mobile communication systems is discussed. An overview of the main types of multicarrier spread-spectrum systems is given. The multicarrier CDMA system is described in detail, including its relationship with OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing), its general performance in comparison with direct sequence CDMA and some specific implementation problems. The paper also presents some results comparing the performance of a selection of algorithms that can be used to isolate the individual signal of each user. Potential capacity increases achievable with adaptive loading in time and frequency slots is briefly demonstrated. By allocating users multiple codes, very high data rates can be achieved, and the paper gives a comparison of multicode, multicarrier CDMA with OFDM-based wireless LAN systems.