On the use of cascade structure to correct impulsive noise in multicarrier systems

We propose a new decoding algorithm based on a cascade structure for impulsive noise correction in multicarrier systems such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based systems. This new cascade structure based algorithm has the advantage to lead on one hand to a reduced complexity implementation in an OFDM demodulator and on the other hand to overcome the lacks of other algorithms dedicated for impulsive noise correction. To do so, we start the derivation by investigating closed-form analytical expressions of the a priori probabilities used in hypotheses tests that are necessary for the different steps needed for the execution of the cascade structure based decoding algorithm. Such closed-form expressions for the a priori probabilities, result in efficient setups of the threshold values used for the execution of the decoding algorithm. Furthermore, we show that this cascade structure can be applied to efficiently cancel the impulsive noise in OFDM systems. As the clipping event, present in OFDM systems, can be seen as an additive impulsive noise, we prove that after introducing some minor modifications, we can apply the proposed cascade structure to significantly reduce the peak to average power ratio (PAPR) level in such systems. Simulation results are given to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed algorithm results in practical OFDM based communication systems such as Hiperlan 2.