Performance Evaluation of GFDMA Systems using an Analytical Tool

This paper analyzes the bit error rate (BER) performance of grouped frequency division multiple access (GFDMA) using a tool known as finite length analytical tool (FLAT). We derive the equations of the FLAT method including the variance of the equalizer output signal for different iterations. We use this value to calculate the BER of the equalizer output when a specific set of sub-carriers are assigned to more than one user. Through comparative performance evaluation, we show that the proposed FLAT method can accurately evaluate the BER of the GFDMA system and the difference between the theoretical and simulated BER curves is at most 0.1 dB. Thus, we can efficiently utilize the FLAT method to design the GFDMA system and avoid extensive simulations required to determine the number of users transmitting over the same sub-carriers simultaneously.