Guardband Analysis for Distributed OFDMA with User Heterogeneity*

This paper presents an in-depth analysis of the interference strength and required guardband width between coexistent users for distributed orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA). In dynamic spectrum access networks, the cross-band interference between spectrally adjacent users is considered harmful with frequency guardbands inserted between spectrum blocks to eliminate the interference. However, the strength of the cross-band interference depends heavily on the user heterogeneity in different OFDM configurations. The cross-band interference due to the three user heterogeneity artifacts of power heterogeneity, sampling rate heterogeneity, and symbol length heterogeneity is investigated to determine the required guardband width. Analytical and simulation results show that the greater user heterogeneity requires larger guardbands with the sampling rate heterogeneity having the greatest effect. These results can be used to assist the design of spectrum allocation strategies.