PAPR reduction for improving performance of OFDM system

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals have a generic problem of high peak to average power ratio (PAPR) which is defined as the ratio of the peak power to the average power of the OFDM signal. The drawback of the high PAPR is that the dynamic range of the power amplifiers (PA) & digital-to-analog (D/A) converters required during the transmission and reception of the signal is higher. As a result, the total cost of the transceiver increases, with reduced efficiency. This paper includes an idea of the PAPR constraint, along with the implementation and analysis of some specific algorithms for PAPR reduction of the OFDM signals. All the PAPR reduction algorithms are implemented and tested in the OFDM transceiver designed using Matlab. Analyzing some specific algorithms, we propose a novel algorithm by combining the subcarrier phase adjustment and linear combination of the time domain OFDM signals. Simulation results for a OFDM system employing Quadrature Amplitude Shift Keying (QASK) symbols and Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) can achieve a PAPR reduction of 5 dB.