Actualment estem entrant a una nova era de la informació amb gran demanda de sistemes de comunicació sense fils. Nous serveis com dades i video requereixen transmissions fiables d'alta velocitat, fins i tot en escenaris d'alta mobilitat. A més a més, la dificultat d'assignar el limitat espectre radioelèctric juntament amb la necessitat d'incrementar el temps de vida de les bateries dels terminals mòbils, requereix el diseny de transceptors que usin la potència i l'ampla de banda disponibles de manera eficient. Les comunicacions multiportadora basades en OFDM són capaces de satisfer la majoria d'aquests requeriments. Però, entre altres reptes, reduir la sensibilitat a la amplificació no-lineal és un factor clau durant el diseny. En aquesta tesi doctoral s'analitza la sensibilitat dels sistemes multiportadora basats en OFDM a l'amplificació no-lineal i es consideren formes eficients per superar aquest problema. La tesi s'enfoca principalment al problema de reduir les fluctuacions de l'envolupant del senyal transmès. En aquest sentit es presenta també un estudi de les mètriques de l'envolupant del senyal, PAPR i CM. A més a més, basant-nos en l'anàlisis presentat es proposen noves tècniques per sistemes OFDM i MC-SS. Per MC-SS, també es tracta el diseny d'una tècnica de postprocessament en forma de detector multiusuari per canals no-lineals. / Actualmente estamos entrando en una nueva era de la información donde se da una gran demanda de sistemas de comunicación inalámbricos. Nuevos servicios como datos y vídeo requieren transmisiones fiables de alta velocidad, incluso en escenarios de alta movilidad. Además, la dificultad de asignar el limitado espectro radioeléctrico junto con la necesidad de incrementar el tiempo de vida de las baterías de los terminales móviles, requiere el diseño de transceptores que usen eficientemente la potencia y el ancho de banda disponibles. Las comunicaciones multiportadora basadas en OFDM son capaces de satisfacer la mayoría de dichos requerimientos. Sin embargo, entre otros retos, reducir su sensibilidad a la amplificación no-lineal es un factor clave durante el diseño. En esta tesis se analiza la sensibilidad de los sistemas multiportadora basados en OFDM a la amplificación no-lineal y se consideran formas eficientes para superar dicho problema. La tesis se enfoca principalmente al problema de reducir las fluctuaciones de la envolvente. En este sentido también se presenta un estudio de las métricas de la señal, PAPR y CM. Además, basándonos en el análisis presentado se proponen nuevas técnicas para OFDM y MC-SS. Para MC-SS, también se trata el diseño de un detector multiusuario para canales no-lineales. / We are now facing a new information age with high demand of wireless communication systems. New services such as data and video require achieving reliable high-speed transmissions even in high mobility scenarios. Moreover, the difficulty to allocate so many wireless communication systems in the limited frequency band in addition to the demand for long battery life requires designing spectrum and power efficient transceivers. Multicarrier communications based on OFDM are known to fulfill most of the requirements of such systems. However, among other challenges, reducing the sensitivity to nonlinear amplification has become a design key. In this thesis the sensitivity of OFDM-based multicarrier systems to nonlinear amplification is analyzed and efficient ways to overcome this problem are considered. The focus is mainly on the problem of reducing the envelope fluctuations. Therefore, a study of the signal metrics, namely PAPR and CM, is also presented. From the presented analysis, several new techniques for OFDM and MC-SS are proposed. For MC-SS, the design of a post-processing technique in the form of a multiuser detector for nonlinearly distorted MC-SS symbols is also addressed.

Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) is a multiple access transmission scheme that has been adopted in the 4th generation 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) of cellular systems. In fact, its relatively low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) makes it ideal for the uplink transmission where the transmit power efficiency is of paramount importance. Multiple access among users is made possible by assigning different users to different sets of non-overlapping subcarriers. With the current LTE specifications, if an SC-FDMA system is operating at its full capacity and a new user requests channel access, the system redistributes the subcarriers in such a way that it can accommodate all of the users. Having less subcarriers for transmission, every user has to increase its modulation order (for example from QPSK to 16QAM) in order to keep the same transmission rate. However, increasing the modulation order is not always possible in practice and may introduce considerable complexity to the system. The technique presented in this thesis report describes a new way of adding more users to an SC-FDMA system by assigning the same sets of subcarriers to different users. The main advantage of this technique is that it allows the system to accommodate more users than conventional SC-FDMA and this corresponds to increasing the spectral efficiency without requiring a higher modulation order or using more bandwidth. During this work, special attentions wee paid to the cases where two and three source signals are being transmitted on the same set of subcarriers, which leads respectively to doubling and tripling the spectral efficiency. Simulation results show that by using the proposed technique, it is possible to add more users to any SC-FDMA system without increasing the bandwidth or the modulation order while keeping the same performance in terms of bit error rate (BER) as the conventional SC-FDMA. This is realized by slightly increasing the energy per bit to noise power spectral density ratio (Eb/N0) at the transmitters.

Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) is a multiple access transmission scheme that has been adopted in the 4th generation 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) of cellular systems. In fact, its relatively low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) makes it ideal for the uplink transmission where the transmit power efficiency is of paramount importance. Multiple access among users is made possible by assigning different users to different sets of non-overlapping subcarriers. With the current LTE specifications, if an SC-FDMA system is operating at its full capacity and a new user requests channel access, the system redistributes the subcarriers in such a way that it can accommodate all of the users. Having less subcarriers for transmission, every user has to increase its modulation order (for example from QPSK to 16QAM) in order to keep the same transmission rate. However, increasing the modulation order is not always possible in practice and may introduce considerable complexity to the system. The technique presented in this thesis report describes a new way of adding more users to an SC-FDMA system by assigning the same sets of subcarriers to different users. The main advantage of this technique is that it allows the system to accommodate more users than conventional SC-FDMA and this corresponds to increasing the spectral efficiency without requiring a higher modulation order or using more bandwidth. During this work, special attentions wee paid to the cases where two and three source signals are being transmitted on the same set of subcarriers, which leads respectively to doubling and tripling the spectral efficiency. Simulation results show that by using the proposed technique, it is possible to add more users to any SC-FDMA system without increasing the bandwidth or the modulation order while keeping the same performance in terms of bit error rate (BER) as the conventional SC-FDMA. This is realized by slightly increasing the energy per bit to noise power spectral density ratio (Eb/N0) at the transmitters.