Peak-to-Average Power Ratio Reduction in OFDM Systems

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technology promises to be a key technique for achieving the high data capacity and spectral efficiency requirements for wireless communication systems of the near future. However, OFDM poses high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) problem, as a consequence of independently modulated carriers, that causes degradation on the error performance of the system, low efficiency of the power amplifier, and increases the complexities of the system. Reducing the PAPR can be regarded as an important issue to realize efficient and affordable communication services. This study proposes efficient PAPR reduction methods for OFDM signals by decreasing the possibility of peaks of the subcarriers signals to occur at the same time. The achieved results confirm that the proposed methods are capable of reducing the PAPR significantly and, therefore, of improving error performance of the system. The proposed methods were applied to multicarrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA.