Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform-Discrete Fourier Transform Techniques for Generating and Receiving Spectrally Efficient Frequency Division Multiplexing Signals

Problem statement: Spectrally Efficient Frequency Division Multiplexing (SEFDM) system promises bandwidth savings by multiplexing overlapped non-orthogonal sub-carriers. However, the loss of orthogonality results in increasing the complexity of generation and detection of the signal. In this work, we propose simple framework for the generation of the SEFDM signal based on the Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform (IDFT). Approach: This study further proposes the use of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) as the receiver front end, specifically for extracting the statistics of the signal needed for recovering the transmitted signal. The proposed transmitter designs employ similar building blocks as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) based systems, hence, would facilitate an easy migration and/or coexistence with OFDMon the transmitter side. Furthermore, the proposed framework may facilitate the IDFT design for any Frequency Division Multiplexed (FDM) signal with arbitrary sub-carriers spacing. Results and Conclusion: The equivalence of the IDFT generated signal and the modulators based signal is proved mathematically, nonetheless, numerical simulations were performed to verify that equivalence and to test for the performance of the digitally generated signal in AWGN channel. Numerical results confirmed the required spectrum compression and Bit Error Rate (BER) performance at a much reduced complexity.