Performance Analysis of Modulation Techniques for 5G Networks

Abstract

The new 5G cellular network systems will feature several innovative strategies as compared to existing LTE systems, such as extensive adoption of small cells, use of mm-wave communications for short-range links, large scale antenna arrays installed on macro base stations, cloud-based radio access network, cognitive radio etc. All these strategies will be impacted by the modulation format used at the physical layer. At the same time, 5G cellular networks will have more stringent requirements than LTE in terms of latency, energy efficiency and data rates, which again are impacted by the adopted modulation scheme. Hence, proper selection and utilizing efficient modulation scheme is critical. The current modulation technique such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) suffers from high peak to average power ratio which results in low efficiency of power amplifier and increases the battery consumption. Moreover, the OFDM spectrum has high out of band side lobes or side lobe leakage causing problem of low spectral efficiency. Therefore, OFDM can fulfill the requirements of 5G wireless networks in a limited way. In order to overcome some of these drawbacks of OFDM, new modulation techniques for 5G communication systems are considered. Among them, Filter bank multicarrier (FBMC), and Universal filtered multicarrier (UFMC) are expected be in race to be considered for the selection. In this paper, we perform the performance analysis of OFDM, UFMC, and FBMC in terms of its spectral efficiency (SE), power spectral density (PSD), peak to average power ratio (PAPR), and bit error rate (BER) using the MATLAB software tools. We analyze the results by varying the parameters of the modulation techniques which affects the performance of OFDM, UFMC, and FBMC. The plot shows that, FBMC has better SE for large burst durations but for small burst duration the SE of UFMC is better. In terms of PSD and BER FBMC is better. In terms of PAPR UFMC is better. The result of this research will play a significant role in selecting efficient modulation scheme for the upcoming 5G cellular networks