Gain-Invariant Dirty Paper Coding for Hierarchical OFDM

A novel approach is here presented to superimpose a low-priority data stream on a high-priority data stream for OFDM systems. The main improvement with respect to conventional hierarchical modulation, which is included with the same purpose in various wireless technologies, is that the low-priority data stream can be decoded from the received subcarrier symbols without any previous equalization for multipath fading channels. As a consequence, the expected performance is nearly invariant of the channel estimation method used to equalize the channel. The low-priority stream is inserted adopting a gain-invariant dirty paper coding based on Rational Dither Modulation, which was proposed for data hiding applications. In this paper an analysis of the developed system is presented and several simulations have been carried out using DVB-T system parameters to verify the validity of the proposed approach. The experimental results show the better performance of the proposed method with respect to that of a conventional hierarchical modulation, particularly when the accuracy of the estimated channel response decreases.