Optimum Nyquist windowing in OFDM receivers

Abstract

Conventional orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing receivers disregard the guard interval in channels with small dispersion even though its unconsumed portion can be exploited for improved demodulation by applying a Nyquist-shaped window in the receiver. The transmitter does not need to be modified, subcarrier orthogonality in the receiver is preserved, and the receiver discrete Fourier transform size can be retained. Windowing can mitigate the joint effect of additive noise and intercarrier interference among subcarriers caused by the carrier frequency offset. A closed solution for optimum window coefficients suited to this scenario is derived.