An Analysis of the EIC Method for OFDM/OQAM Systems

OFDM/OQAM is a multi-carrier modulation scheme that, differently from conventional OFDM, does not require any guard interval. Indeed, the interference that results from a transmission over time and/or frequency selective channels can be partly contained if the pulse shape has been appropriately selected. Nevertheless, for certain transmission conditions, a simple zero-forcing (ZF) equalization is not enough to cancel this interference. In this paper, we propose an Equalization with Interference Cancellation (EIC) to counteract the performance floor that characterizes OFDM/OQAM systems using a simple ZF equalization. The basic principle rests on an accurate computation of the interference term taking into account the channel and the prototype filter coefficients. The simulation results illustrate the efficiency of the EIC method.