ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a brief introduction to multi-carrier (MC) and single-carrier (SC) modulations. It presents several aspects such as the analytical characterization of each modulation type, and some relevant properties of each modulation. The chapter describes the Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) modulation. It explores the basic aspects of the SC with Frequency Domain Equalization (SC-FDE) modulation including the linear and iterative FDE receivers. Since the duration of each symbol is long, a guard interval is inserted between the OFDM symbols to eliminate inter-block interference. The chapter aims to compare the performance of OFDM and SC-FDE for severely time-dispersive channels. For both modulations special attention is given to the characterization of the transmission and receiving structures, with particular emphasis on the transmitter and receiver performances. In a conventional single carrier modulation, the energy of each symbol is distributed over the total transmission band.
