DS-CDMA, MC-CDMA and MT-CDMA

for Mobile Multi-Media Communications

Shinsuke Harat and Ramjee Prasad-J

t Department of Communication Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Osaka University,

2-1, Yamada-oka, Suita-shi, Osaka 565 Japan,
$Telecommunications and Traffic-Control Systems Group, Delft University of Technology,
P.O.Box 5031, 2600GA, Delft, The Netherlands

-
Abstract- In this paper, we present the comparison be- by the auto-correlation characteristic of the spreading
tween Direct Sequence Code Division Multiple Access (DS- codes.
CDMA), Multi-Carrier (MC-) CDMA and Multitone (MT-
) CDMA schemes in terms of the transmitter and receiver
structure. We discuss their down-link bit error rate per-
formance in a frequency selective Rayleigh fading channel
by computer simulation.
I. INTRODUCTION (a) Transmitter
In mobile radio communications systems, much atten-
tion has been paid to code division multiple access (CDMA) fo frequency
scheme due to its own capabilities to provide higher capac- (b) Power Spectrum of Transmitted Signal
ity over conventional time division multiple access (TDMA)
and frequency division multiple access (FDMA) schemes,
to cope with asynchronous nature of multi-media data
traffic, and to combat the adverse channel frequency se-
lectivity. Direct Sequence (DS-) CDMA scheme could be
a candidate to support multi-media services in third gen-
eration mobile radio systems such as Future Public Land
Mobile Telecommunication Systems (FPLMTS) and Uni-
versal Mobile Telecommunications Systems (UMTS).
Recently, new CDMA schemes using orthogonal fre- (c) Rake Receiver C(t) Path Gain GDS
quency division multiplexing (OFDM) technique have been
proposed, such as Multi-Carrier (MC-) CDMA[l]-[3]and Fig. 1. DS-CDMA scheme:transmitter (a), power spectrum of its
transmitted signal (b) and receiver (c)
Multitone (MT-) CDMA[4] schemes. With the remark-
able advance in digital signal processing techniques, they
have become a topic of research. Fig.1 (a) and (b) show the CD-CDMA transmitter for
In this paper, we discuss the advantages and disadvan- binary phase shift keying/coherent detection (CBPSK)
tages of these Multi-Carrier based CDMA schemes, with scheme and the power spectrum of the transmitted sig-
a DS-CDMA scheme, and show some numerical results nal with the processing gain G ~ s = 4 respectively.
,
on the down-link bit error rate (BER) performance. The transmitted signal for the j-th user is written as
11. TRANSMITTER
STRUCTURES
A . DS-CDMA Scheme iz-00 7n=l

DS-CDMA transmitter spreads the original data stream .pc(t - (m - l)Tc - iT,)cos(27rf0t), (1)
using a given spreading code in the time domain. The ca-
where u j ( i ) (= +1 or -1) and ;$ are the i-th input binary
pability of suppressing multiple access interference (MAI)
information and the m-th chip of the spreading code for
is determined by the cross-correlation characteristic of the
the j-th user, respectively, and T,, Tc (= T,/GDs) and
spreading codes. Also, a frequency selective fading chan-
fo are the symbol duration, the chip duration and a cer-
nel is characterized by the superimposition of several sig-
tain carrier frequency, respectively, and p c ( t ) is the pulse
nals with different delays in the time domain. Therefore,
waveform defined as:
the capability of distinguishing one component from other
components in the composite received signal is determined

0-7803-3157-5196 $5.00 0 1996 IEEE 1106

B. MC-CDMA Scheme
MC-CDMA transmitter spreads the original data stream
over different subcarriers using a given spreading code,
in a sense, in the frequency domain[l]-[3]. In a down-
link channel, we can use the Hadamard Walsh codes as
an optimum orthogonal set, because we do not have to
pay attention to the auto-correlation characteristic of the
spreading codes.
subcarrier before spreading operation can satisfy the or-
thogonality condition with the minimum frequency sepa-
ration[4]. Therefore, the resulting spectrum sf each sub-
carrier no longer satisfies the orthogonality condition. The
MT-CDMA scheme uses longer spreading mdes in pro-
portion to the number of subcarriers, as com'uared with a
normal (single carrier) DS-CDMA scheme, therefore, the
system can accommodate more users than the DS-CDMA
scheme.

+
-
cos(2nflt)

cos(2nfzt) '1

f1 f2 B f4 frequency
(b) Power Spectrum of Transmitted Signal
1'1 €2 f3 f4
(b) Power Spectrum of Transmitted Signal
cos(2nflt)

Recei
Signa
Receiu,
Signal

(c)Receiver cos(zRf4t) q4
(c) Receiver cos(Znf4t)
Fig. 2. MC-CDMA scheme:transmitter (a), power spectrum of its
transmitted signal (b) and receiver (c) Fig. 3. MT-CDMA scheme:transmitter (a), power spectrum of its
transmitbed signal (b) and receiver (c)

Fig.:! (a) and (b) show the MC-CDMA transmitter for

CBPSK scheme and the power spectrum of the transmit-
ted signal with the number of subcarriers Mc=4 and the
processing gain G ~ c = 4(= Nc),respectively.
The transmitted signal of the j-th user is written as
Fig.3 (a) and (b) show the MT-CDMA transmitter for
CBPSK scheme and the power spectrum o f t he transmit-
ted signal with the number of subcarriers M,:=4 and the
processing gain G M D = ~respectively.
~,
The transmitted signal is written as

i=-m m = l

*pd(t - iTd) c0s{27r(fo + m A f ) t } J (3) i=--m k = l m = l

.pc(t - ( m - l)Tc- iq)

where A f (= l/T8)is the subcarrier separation, and p , ( t )
is the pulse waveform defined as:
+
~0~8{27r(fo k A f ' ) t } , (5)
where Ti (:= Mc T,) and ,4
+ f' are the symbol duration at
each subcarrier and the subcarrier separation,respectively.
(4)
111. RECEIVER
STRUCTURES
C. MT-CDMA Scheme
A . DS-CD'MA Scheme
MT-CDMA transmitter spreads the Serial-to-Parallel
A single--user DS-CDMA Rake receiver contains multi-
(S/P) converted data streams using a given spreading
ple correlat,ors, each synchronized to a differe i t resolvable
code in the time domain so that the spectrum of each
1107
path in the received composite signal (see Fig.1 (c)). The
BER performance depends on how many fingers the Rake
receiver employs. Usually, 1, 2, 3 or 4-finger Rake re-
ceiver is used depending on hardware limitation. Also,
when the Nyquist filters are introduced in the transmit-
ter and receiver for base band pulse shaping, the Rake
receiver may wrongly combine paths. This is because
noise causing distortion in auto-correlation characteris-
tic often results in wrong correlation. In a DS-CDMA
system based on the Rake structure, the system capacity
is limited by MA1 and self-interference (SI) due to the im-
perfect auto-correlation characteristic of spreading codes.
On the other hand, in a multi-user detection (MUD)[5],
the receiver jointly detects those signals in order to miti-
gate the non-orthogonal properties of the received signals.
However, it can be concluded that it is dificult for the
DS-CDMA receivers to use all the received signal energy
scattered in the time domain.
B. MC-CDMA Scheme
In an MC-CDMA receiver, the received signal is com-
bined, in a sense, in the frequency domain, therefore, the
receiver can always use all the received signal energy scat-
tered an the frequency domain. However, through a fre-
quency selective fading channel, all the subcarriers have
different amplitude levels and different phase shifts (al-
though they have high correlations among subcarriers) ,
and it results in distortion of orthogonality among users.
Fig.2 (c) shows the MC-CDMA receiver of the j'-th
user, where after the down-conversion with subcarrier fre-
quency synchronization, the m-th subcarrier component
is multiplied by the gain qm to combine the received signal
energy scattered in the frequency domain. The transmit-
ted information is estimated by (omitting the subscription
i without loss of generality)
,=I
I
j=1
where y m , nm and z h are the complex baseband compo-
nent of the received signal, the complex additive Gaussian
noise and the complex envelop for the j-th user at the
m-th subcarrier, respectively. We can assume z i = z,
( j = 1 , 2 , . . . , J ) in a down-link channel.
B. 1 Orthogonality Restoring Combining (ORC)
In a down-link channel, choosing the gain qm as
q: = $;z;/lzm12, (7)
the receiver can eliminate the MA1 perfectly[3]:
m=l
1108
However, in Eq.(8), low-level subcarriers tend to be mul-
tiplied by the high gains, and the noise components are
amplified at weaker subcarriers. This noise amplification
effect degrades the BER performance. The estimation of
z, is required.
B.2 Equal Gain Combining (EGC) and Maximum Ratio
Combining (MRC)
The gains for the equal gain combining[l] and the max-
imum ratio combining[l] are respectively given by
(9)
In the case of one user, the maximum ratio combining
method can minimize the BER. The maximum ratio com-
bining requires the estimation of zm .
B.3 Minimum Mean Square Error Combining (MMSEC)
Based on the minimum mean square estimation (MMSE)
criterion, the error must be orthogonal to all the baseband
components of the received subcarriers:
.I
(a3 - d ' )'7J=rS, = 0 (m' = 1 , 2 , . . - , G ~ c ) . (10)
q i is given by
J
qg = c$p/(x 12 + No), (11)
j=1
where No is the noise power. The estimation of of z&,
the number of active users J and the noise power is re-
quired. Note that in a down-link channel, for small 1 . ~ ~ 1 ,
the gain becomes small to avoid the excessive noise am-
plification while for large Izml, it becomes in proportion
to the inverse of the subcarrier envelop z&/lzm12 in order
to recover orthogonality among users[3].
C. MT-CDMA Scheme
Fig.3 (c) shows a MT-CDMA receiver composed of Nc
Rake combiners, each of which has an optimum receiver
structure for an additive white Gaussian (AWGN) chan-
ne1[4].
The MT-CDMA scheme suffers from inter-subcarrier
interference, while the capabzlity to use longer spreadang
codes results in the reduction of the SI and MAI, as com-
pared with the spreading codes assigned to a normal DS-
CDMA scheme.
IV. BIT ERRORRATE COMPARISON
So far, some reports have been dedicated for the bit
error rate (BER) comparison between DS-CDMA and
MC-CDMA schemes [6]-[8]. In this paper, we show com-
puter simulation results on the down-link BER-versus-
the number of users performance of DS-CDMA, MC-
CDMA and MT-CDMA schemes.
 We assume a frequency selective slow Rayleigh fading
channel, where there are two paths in the multipath de-
lay profile and each path has the same average energy and
the delayed path uniformly ranges from 0 to T, (0, T d ) .
To make a fair comparison, we use the processing gains
GDS = 31 (Gold Codes), GMC = 32 (Hadamard Walsh
Codes), GMT = 63 ( N , = 2) and 127 ( N e = 4) (Gold
Codes), and also, we assume a perfect carrier synchroniea-
tion and a perfect estimation of channel state information
in the receivers.
It is crucial for Multi-Carrier transmission to have fre-
DS-CDMA Scheme
.Processing Gain=31 (Gold Codes)
-9- 2-fingerRake n
Frequency Selective Rayleigh Fading

quency non-selective fading over each subcarrier. There-

fore, if the original symbol rate is high enough to become
subject to frequency selective fading, the signal needs
to be first SIP-converted before spreading over the fre-
quency domain. Also, the proper choice of the number
1;
Izomputer Simulation
A-
Eb/No= 18dB I
of subcarriers and the guard interval is important in or-
der to increase the robustness against frequency selective
2" 21 :P 23 24 25
The Number of Users
fading. Given the property of a frequency selective fast
multipath fading, there exists an optimal value to mini- Fig. 4. BER performrince of DS-CDMA scheme
mize the BER in the number of subcarriers and the guard
interval. In this paper, we use an MC-CDMA scheme
with 1024 subcarriers and 1%guard interval[6], where the
symbol duration at each subcarrier is 32 x T,. -
It is well known that the BER performance depends on Rayleigh Fading
the covariance matrix of the channel, in other words, it is
uniquely determined by the eigenvalues[9]. Therefore, the
+ EGC

".t",, -+ MMSEC
BER of DS-CDMA scheme is determined by the eigenval-
ues of the time domain covariance matrix while the BER
of MC-CDMA scheme by the eigenvalues of the frequency
domain covariance matrix. We showed that the frequency
domain covariance matrix has all the same eigenvalues as
the time domain covariance matrix[6]. Therefore, given a
frequency selective channel, the best performance of DS-

'...... .
CDMA scheme (for a single user with a perfect auto- -4 .>. .I..

correlation characteristic of the spreading codes) is all the Lower Bound

same as that of MC-CDMA scheme (for a single user). It
also implies that we cannot assume an independent char-
acteristic at each subcarrier even if we employ an ideal fre-
quency interleaving and that, considering the FFT opem-
tion, the assumption results in a frequency selective fading
at each subcarrier.
The BER lower bound is given by (for 2-branch maxi-
mum ratio ratio combiner)
Also, the BER of an MC-FDMA scheme (where 32
subcarriers are assigned to different users) is given by
l o tComDuter Simulation Eb/No=I 8dB
1 ; L L - l
2" 2' :P 23 24 25
The Number of Users
Fig. 5 . BER performance of MC-CDMA scheme
In the following figures, we assume the avel'age signal-
to-noise energy ratio per bit EbINO = 18 [dBI.
Fig. 4 shows the BER of DS-CDMA scheme for 1-
finger and '2-finger Rake receivers. Even for the case of
one user, the 2-finger Rake receiver cannot achieve the
minimum BER because of the irreducible SI, and as the
number of users increases, the BER gradually degrades
because of the MAI. The 1-finger Rake receiver, which
selects a larger path, always misses a part of the received
signal energy, therefore, the performance is WOI-sethan the
2-finger receiver.
Fig. 5 shows the BER of MC-CDMA scheme for ORC,
EGC, MRC and MMSEC. As compared with the MC-

1109
FDMA scheme, the MC-CDMA scheme with ORC per- 1
forms worse, therefore, we should not use the ORC even Frequency Selective Rayleigh Fading
if we can perfectly estimate the sulbcarrier state informa- -1 -0- 2 Subcarriers
tion. The MRC can minimize the BER for the case of one
-
lo Processing Gain=63
user, however, as the number of users increases, the BER
abruptly degrades. The EGC, which requires only sub-
*4 Subcarriers
carrier synchronization, performs fairly well. The MMSE, 10 -
-2 Processing Gain=

which requires the estimation of subcarrier state informa- E5 Gold Codes

tion and noise power, and the knowledge of the number
of active users, can achieve the best BER performance.
Fig. 6 shows the BER of MT’CDMA scheme with MT-CDMA Scheme
2-finger Rake receiver for Nc=2 and Nc=4. The MT- ---------------
2-finger Rake
CDMA scheme with Nc=4 performs better than that with
Nc=2, because the SI reduction effect due to using longer
spreading codes affects more the detection process, as
A r

Lower Bound
,I Computer Simulation
/-- ---- -
Eb/No=18dB
II
compared with the inter-subcarrier interference, which ;in- ; 1
creases in proportion to the number of subcarriers. 20 21 22 23 24 25
Fig. 7 shows the BER comparison of DS-CDMA scheme The Number of Users
with 2-finger Rake receiver, MC-CDMA scheme with MM-
SEC and 4-subcarrier MT-CDMA. scheme with 2-finger Fig. 6. BER performance of MT-CDMA scheme
Rake receiver. It is evident from this figure that the MC-
CDMA scheme with MMSEC can achieve the best perfor-
mance, although it requires a little complexity in the re-
ceiver structure. The MT-CDMA scheme performs well,
however, the BER abruptly degrades as the number of
users increases.

V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we have discussed the advantages and dis-
advantages of DS-CDMA, MC-CDMA and MT-CDMA
schemes, and have shown their down-link BER perfor-
mance by computer simulation. The MT-CDMA and
DS-CDMA schemes cannot always use all the received sig-
nal energy scattered in the time domain, while the MC-
CDMA scheme can effectively combine all the received
signal energy scattered in the frequency domain. In a 2-
path frequency selective slow Rayleligh fading channel, the
MC-CDMA scheme with the combining method based on
the minimum mean square error criterion (MMSEC) can
achieve the best performance, although it requires the es-
timation of subcarrier state information and noise power,
and the knowledge of the number of active users.
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The Number of Users
Fig. 7. BER comparison
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