Performance analysis of multirate MC-CDMA in Rayleigh-fading channels with delay power spectrum exceeding the guard interval

Multicarrier code-division multiple access (MC-CDMA) is a promising multiplexing technique for future mobile radio systems, which require multirate transmission capability to efficiently support various services with wide range of data rates. In this paper, a generic performance analysis for the multicode and variable spreading factor multirate schemes in MC-CDMA is presented. Results comparing and pointing out notable differences in the error rate performance of these multirate schemes in conjunction with six different combining techniques are presented for the synchronous downlink and both the synchronous and asynchronous uplink. Furthermore, the analysis takes into account also the intersymbol interference caused by the multipath delay components exceeding the guard interval, which is commonly omitted in the literature.