Diversity reception for OFDM systems using antenna arrays

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a multicarrier modulation scheme that achieves high spectral efficiency by using minimally densely spaced orthogonal subcarriers without increasing the transmitter and receiver complexities. Antenna arrays are a powerful means to exploit the spatial domain to provide an extra layer of co-channel interference cancellation and new ways of handling unwanted channel effects for more efficient utilization of spectrum and space at any time. An array-OFDM system integrates OFDM and antenna array technology to harness the spatial signatures of received signals. This provides space diversity in multipath channels, making it possible to realize high transmission rates envisioned for the next generation wireless communications. In this paper, a diversity reception algorithm is proposed for post-FFT OFDM systems employing an antenna array at the receiver. Simulation studies show that the proposed array-OFDM scheme outperforms the conventional multiple-element-OFDM receiver under various frequency-selective fading models.