Performance Evaluation of Quantization Effects on Multicarrier Modulated Signals

The numerical accuracy in the discrete Fourier transform (DFT)/inverse DFT operations can have a significant impact on multicarrier (MC) modulated signals. This accuracy can be modeled by including appropriate quantization devices in the transmission chain. In this paper, we present an analytical approach for analyzing the impact of the quantization effects on MC signals. For this purpose, we statistically characterize the signal along the transmission chain, taking advantage of the Gaussian behavior of MC signals with a high number of subcarriers and employing well-known results on Gaussian signals and memoryless nonlinearities. This statistical characterization can then be used for performance evaluation of given quantization characteristics, in a simple and computationally efficient way, as well as for its optimization.