OFDM for High Data Rate, High-Mobility, Wide-Area Wireless Communications

In recent years, there has been considerable growth in interest in wireless access to wide area data networks at high data rates. This growth has been fuelled by the simultaneous development of the high-speed wired data networks (e.g., the Internet), wide-spread availability of powerful mobile computing devices, rapidly dropping prices for increasingly sophisticated electronic devices, plus the global deployment of wireless voice systems. High-mobility wireless data access at near-LAN rates is likely to be an attractive option. The harsh cellular radio environment creates significant challenges when trying to provide access at high data rates, especially if high-mobility and wide-area availability are expected even more so when considering the constraints placed on the system design by terminal size and power constraints. This paper describes research into Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) techniques addressing high data rate access in representative mobile cellular-like environments.