Performance analysis of multicarrier frequency-hopping (MC-FH) code division multiple-access systems: uncoded and coded schemes

We consider the multiuser capacity of a multicarrier frequency-hopping (MC-FH) CDMA system as first introduced by Lance and Kaleh (1997). We propose to use a practical low-rate convolutional error correcting code in this system which does not require any extra bandwidth further than needed by the frequency-hopping spread-spectrum modulation. We provide a multiuser performance analysis of the system for both uncoded and coded schemes in AWGN and fading channels based on a Gaussian distribution assumption for the multiuser interference term. We also derive the exact bit error rate (BER) of the system in an AWGN channel. Our numerical results first indicate that the coded scheme significantly outperforms the uncoded scheme in both AWGN and fading channels. Moreover, it shows that the Gaussian analysis in some cases does not predict accurately the number of users supported by the system.