Multicarrier waveforms with I/Q staggering: uniform and nonuniform FBMC formats

Starting from the well-known uniform filter bank multicarrier (FBMC) format with Nyquist spectral shaping of frequency-limited orthogonal (FLO) subchannels and its dual time-frequency, time-limited orthogonal (TLO) form, we introduce an orthogonal frequency division multiplex of nonuniformly spaced subchannels with unequal width. The orthogonality conditions for nonuniform FBMC (Nu-FBMC) were evaluated through simulations using the ‘extended orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)’ framework, as well as through analytical derivation in a rather pragmatic manner. The referent filter bank impulse responses were defined in frequency domain by straightforward aggregations of the pertaining uniform filter bank subchannels spectral shapes for FLO and by transforming the frequency domain of appropriately aggregated time-limited referent impulse responses of uniform TLO configuration. Nonsymmetrical spectral shaping of subchannels in the FLO case format has also been proposed. The spectral efficiency has been evaluated in the presence of nonlinear distortions caused by high power amplifier (HPA), and results have been given in accordance with power spectral density (PSD) constraints defined by IEEE 802.11a standard.