Linear GFDM: A Low Out-of-band Emission Configuration for 5G Air Interface

This paper explores the flexibility of generalized frequency division multiplexing (GFDM) for achieving the same performance as filter bank multicarrier (FBMC). We present a GFDM configuration where the good spectral containment of FBMC is also achieved through a modification in the GFDM transmission scheme. For evaluating the scheme’s performance, we estimate the bit error ratio (BER) under three channel models: i) pure additive Gaussian AWGN; ii) time-invariant frequency-selective; iii) time-variant frequency-selective (doubly dispersive). The spectral containment is measured through the power spectral density. Furthermore, the complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF) of the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) is also estimated. The Linear GFDM waveform shows identical performance when compared to FBMC in the above test scenarios.