On the Effect of Combined Equalization for MC-CDMA Systems in Correlated Fading Channels

Equalization techniques are considered in multi carrier-code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) systems to efficiently combine subcarriers contribution and improve the performance. In this paper we analytically investigate a combined equalization technique which consists in performing both pre- equalization at the transmitter and post-equalization at the receiver, by exploiting channel knowledge at both sides. To keep the framework as much general as possible, a parametric partial combining (PC) technique is considered. The analytical framework proposed allows the derivation of the bit error probability in correlated block fading channels and its dependence on the number of subcarriers, the number of active users, the mean signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) averaged over small-scale fading and, above all, the PC parameters, thus allowing the derivation of optimal equalization technique depending on fading levels.