Frequency-Domain Multi-Stage Soft Interference Cancellation for DS-CDMA Uplink Signal Transmission

It is well-known that, in DS-CDMA downlink signal transmission, frequency-domain equalization (FDE) based on minimum mean square error (MMSE) criterion can replace rake combining to achieve much improved bit error rate (BER) performance in severe frequencyselective fading channel. However, in uplink signal transmission, as each user’s signal goes through a different channel, a severe multi-user interference (MUI) is produced and the uplink BER performance severely degrades compared to the downlink. When a small spreading factor is used, the uplink BER performance further degrades due to inter-chip interference (ICI). In this paper, we propose a frequency-domain multi-stage soft interference cancellation scheme for the DS-CDMA uplink and the achievable BER performance is evaluated by computer simulation. The BER performance comparison of the proposed cancellation technique and the multiuser detection (MUD) is also presented. key words: DS-CDMA, frequency-domain equalization (FDE), MUI cancellation, multi-user detection (MUD)