Trade-Off Between Diversity and Channel Estimation Errors in Asynchronous MC-DS-CDMA and MC-CDMA

This paper investigates the trade-off between diversity and channel estimation errors for asynchronous multi-carrier CDMA (MC-CDMA) and multicarrier direct-sequence CDMA (MC-DS-CDMA). We construct a side-by-side comparison between the two systems by assuming equal operating and channel conditions. Both systems perform pilot-symbol- aided channel estimation and maximal ratio combining at the receiver, where the weighting coefficients are determined by the channel estimates at each sub-carrier. Closed-form expressions for the probability of error of both systems are derived under two separate channel scenarios. These two scenarios assume a frequency-selective Rayleigh fading channel, where the coherence bandwidth is equal to either the bandwidth of a MC-DS-CDMA sub-band or the bandwidth of a MC-CDMA sub-band. Finally, we compare the bit error rates of the two systems for different information rates, number of users, and number of pilot symbols used in each channel estimate.