Pilot tone design for peak-to-average power ratio reduction in OFDM

In orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), the composite time signal exhibits a high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). Due to non-linearities of the transmit power amplifiers, this high PAPR generates spectral spreading, in-band distortion and out of band noise (OBN) which degrades the bit-error rate (BER). In this paper, we propose a way to combat this problem without sacrificing channel estimation and frequency-offset tracking accuracy, by designing a sub-optimal configuration of the pilot tones. The effectiveness of the proposed method to reduce PAPR and improve BER is validated by computer simulations based on the conditions in the IEEE 802.11a standard.