Reduction of peak factor in orthogonal multicarrier modulation by amplitude limiting and coding

A main disadvantage of orthogonal multicarrier modulation is that it exhibits a high peak-to-average-power ratio (PAPR). Because of this, all circuits between the output of the modulator and the input of the demodulator must be linear within a large dynamic range to avoid distortions and spectral spreading. It is therefore desirable to limit the PAPR of the multicarrier signal. A method based on amplitude limiting and forward error correcting (AL-FEC) coding is proposed for reduction of the PAPR. The performance of the AL-FEC is compared to two methods, based on block coding, specially constructed to reduce the PAPR. The AL-FEC is superior as compared to the existing methods. Moreover, its practical realization is very simple for any number of carriers.