This paper presents throughput performance along with power profiles in the time and frequency domains over 100 Mbps based on field experiments using the implemented Variable Spreading Factor-Orthogonal Frequency and Code Division Multiplexing (VSF-OFCDM) transceiver with a 100-MHz bandwidth in a real multipath fading channel. We conducted field experiments in which a base station (BS) employs a 120-degree sectored beam antenna with the antenna height of 50 m and a van equipped with a mobile station (MS) is driven at the average speed of 30 km/h along measurement courses that are approximately 800 to 1000 m away from the BS, where most of the locations along the courses are under non-line-of-sight conditions. Field experimental results show that, by applying 16QAM data modulation and Turbo coding with the coding rate of R = 1/2 to a shared data channel together with two-branch antenna diversity reception, throughput over 100 and 200 Mbps is achieved when the average received signal-to-interference plus noise power ratio (SINR) is approximately 6.0 and 14.0 dB, respectively in a broadband channel bandwidth where a large number of paths such as more than 20 are observed. Furthermore, the location probability for achieving throughput over 100 and 200 Mbps becomes approximately 90 and 20% in these measurement courses, which experience a large number of paths, when the transmission power of the BS is 10 W with a 120-degree sectored beam transmission.

This paper proposes the optimum design for adaptively controlling the spreading factor in Orthogonal Frequency and Code Division Multiplexing (OFCDM) with two-dimensional spreading according to the cell configuration, channel load, and propagation channel conditions, assuming the adaptive modulation and channel coding (AMC) scheme employing QPSK and 16QAM data modulation. Furthermore, we propose a two-dimensional orthogonal channelization code assignment scheme to achieve skillfully orthogonal multiplexing of multiple physical channels. We first demonstrate the reduction effect of inter-code interference by the proposed two-dimensional orthogonal channelization code assignment. Then, computer simulation results show that in time domain spreading, the optimum spreading factor, except for an extremely high mobility case such as for the fading maximum Doppler frequency of fD = 1500 Hz, becomes SFTime = 16. Furthermore, it should be decreased to SFTime = 8 for such a very fast fading environment using 16QAM data modulation. We also clarify when the channel load is light such as Cmux/SF = 0.25 (Cmux and SF denote the number of multiplexed codes and total spreading factor, respectively), the required average received signal energy per symbol-to-noise power spectrum density ratio (Es/N0) is reduced as the spreading factor in the frequency domain is increased up to say SFFreq = 32 for QPSK and 16QAM data modulation. When the channel load is close to full such as when Cmux/SF = 0.94, the optimum spreading factor in the frequency domain is SFFreq = 1 for 16QAM data modulation and SFFreq = 1 to 8 for QPSK data modulation according to the delay spread. Consequently, by setting several combinations of spreading factors in the time and frequency domains, the near maximum link capacity is achieved both in cellular and hotspot cell configurations assuming various channel conditions.

This paper presents a performance comparison of the channel-interleaving method in the frequency domain, i.e., bit interleaving after channel encoding, symbol interleaving after data modulation, and chip interleaving after spreading, for Variable Spreading Factor-Orthogonal Frequency and Code Division Multiplexing (VSF-OFCDM) wireless access with frequency domain spreading, in order to reduce the required average received signal energy per symbol-to-background noise power spectrum density ratio (Es/N0) and achieve the maximum radio link capacity. Simulation results show that, for QPSK data modulation employing turbo coding with the channel coding rate R=3/4, the chip-interleaving method decreases the required average received Es/N0 the most for various radio parameters and propagation model conditions, where the number of code-multiplexing, Cmux, the spreading factor, SF, the r.m.s. delay spread, σ, the number of multipaths, L, and the maximum Doppler frequency, fD, are varied as parameters. For example, when Cmux=12 of SF=16, the improvement in the required average received Es/N0 from the case without interleaving at the average packet error rate (PER) of 10-2, is approximately 0.3, 0.3, and 1.4 dB for the bit, symbol, and chip interleaving, respectively, in a L=12-path exponential decayed Rayleigh fading channel with σ of 0.043 µsec and fD of 20 Hz. This is because the chip interleaving obtains a higher diversity gain by replacing the chip assignment over the entire bandwidth. Meanwhile, in 16QAM data modulation with R=1/2, the performance of the chip interleaving is deteriorated, when Cmux/SF>0.25, due to the inter-code interference caused by different fading variations over the spreading duration since the successive chips during the spreading duration are interleaved to the separated sub-carriers. Thus, bit interleaving exhibits the best performance although the difference between bit interleaving and symbol interleaving is slight. Consequently, we conclude that the bit-interleaving method is the best among the three interleaving methods for reducing the required received Es/N0 considering the tradeoff between the randomization effect of burst errors and the mitigation of inter-code interference assuming the application of adaptive modulation and channel coding scheme in OFCDM employing frequency domain spreading.

This paper proposes Variable Spreading Factor-Orthogonal Frequency and Code Division Multiplexing (VSF-OFCDM) as the most promising forward link wireless access method in broadband packet wireless transmission using an approximate 50 to 100 MHz bandwidth. The proposed OFCDM employing VSF can flexibly realize near optimum wireless access satisfying higher radio link capacity both in isolated cell environments such as hot-spot areas and indoor offices and in multi-cell environments such as cellular systems by adaptively changing the appropriate spreading factor, SF, in the frequency domain based on the cell structure, radio link conditions such as the delay spread, and major radio link parameters such as the data modulation scheme and channel coding rate. Furthermore, by establishing SF=1, i.e., no spreading mode, VSF-OFCDM can be used as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). Computer simulation results demonstrate that, while SF=1 (OFDM) achieves higher link capacity than SF>1 in an isolated-cell environment, OFCDM with the optimized SF value over 1 achieves approximately 1.4 times higher capacity compared with OFDM in a multi-cell environment associated with the advantageous one-cell frequency reuse. Consequently, VSF-OFCDM can provide seamless deployment of broadband packet wireless access with higher radio link capacity, that is, OFDM in an isolated-cell environment, and OFCDM with the adaptively optimized SF value over 1 in a multi-cell environment according to the major radio link conditions and radio link parameters, by only changing the spreading factor.