Transmit power reduction through subcarrier selection for MC-CDMA-based indoor optical wireless communications with IM/DD

This research addresses the issue of average transmit optical power reduction in multi-carrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA)-based indoor optical wireless communications employing intensity modulation with direct detection. The problem is treated in a novel way by investigating pre- and post-equalization-based subcarrier selection for transmit power reduction in downlink transmissions. Analytical expressions are derived for upper bounds of the required fixed DC bias for both cases. The fixed DC bias is used to reduce the system complexity on one hand and to devise optimal subcarrier selection criteria on the other. Simulation results based on the proposed subcarrier selection reveal significant power reduction subject to the 10 −4 bit error rate (BER) requirement for 10-Mbps 64-subcarrier MC-CDMA-based indoor optical wireless communication systems. In addition, the BER performance obtained from pre-equalization is shown to be no higher than that obtained from post-equalization for the same transmit power.