BER Performance of Single-Carrier transmission with Frequency-domain Equalization in A Channel Having Fractionally Spaced Time Delays

Recently, single-carrier transmission with frequencydomain equalization (SC-FDE) is attracting attention since the good transmission performance is achieved in a severe frequency-selective fading channel. Most of studies on SC-FDE assumed a propagation channel having sample-spaced time delays. However, the real propagation channel has fractionally spaced time delays. Under such an environment, the inter-symbol interference (ISI) is produced. In this paper, we examine, by computer simulation, the impact of fractionally spaced time delays on the bit error rate (BER) performance of SC transmission in a frequency-selective Rayleigh fading channel and compare it with that of OFDM. Keywords—Frequency-selective fading channel, fractionally spaced time delays, Nyquist filter, frequency-domain equalization, pilot assisted channel estimation, single-carrier