FQAM-FBMC design and its application to machine type communication

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel waveform design which efficiently combines two air interface components: Frequency and Quadrature-Amplitude Modulation (FQAM) and Filter Bank Multicarrier (FBMC). The proposed approach takes the unique characteristics of FQAM into consideration and exploits the design of prototype filters for FBMC to effectively avoid self-interference between adjacent subcarriers in the complex domain, thus providing improved performance compared with conventional solutions in terms of self-interference, spectrum confinement and complexity with negligible rate loss. The resulting waveform properties are proven in this paper to be particularly suitable for Machine Type Communications (MTC) devices due to the observed reduced PAPR and lowered energy consumption. MTC has created a new eco-system that gives rise to a plethora of interesting applications and new business opportunities in the fifth-Generation (5G) mobile system and services — the enabling technology for the emerging paradigm of Internet of Things (IoT).