Advanced OFDM Modulators considered in the IST-WINNER framework for future wireless systems

The goal of this contribution1 is twofold: i) an overview on the vast literature on recent advances related to OFDM modulators is given: Cyclic-Prefix OFDM, Zero-Padded OFDM, PseudoRandom-Postfix OFDM and IOTA-OFDM; these are identified to be potential candidates for fourth generation mobile communication networks in the framework of the IST-WINNER project. ii) The advantages/disadvantages of the given OFDM derivates are discussed in terms of spectral efficiency, robustness to frequency selective fading and suitability to mobility scenarios requiring channel tracking. Simulation results are shown in order to illustrate differences in terms of robustness to fading and mobility contexts. As a conclusion, it is shown that the choice of the optimum modulation scheme depends on the considered scenario and in particular on desired trade-offs in terms of throughput increase (IOTA-OFDM) and simplicity of channel tracking without pilot overhead (PRP-OFDM).