Simulation of MC-CDMA in the Presence of Timing Errors

In this paper, new multiple access schemes based on the combination of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) and Multicarrier (MC) modulation (also known as OFDM) are reviewed. A description of a simulation platform developed to analyse the performance of such systems in the presence of timing errors is included. It is shown that the MC-CDMA system is very sensitive to a clock frequency offset, and the system performance rapidly degrades for an increasing number of carriers. It is also shown that the timing jitter gives rise to a performance degradation that is essentially independent of the number of carriers.