Performance evaluation of multicast MISO-OFDM systems

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the performance of multicast orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems with single and multiple transmit antennas. We show that the resource allocation that includes the subcarrier allocation, bit loading, and the precoding vector selection in the multiple-input single-output (MISO) case is a difficult optimization problem. Consequently, we propose suboptimal algorithms based on the maximization of the sum data rate and the maximization of the minimum user data rate criteria. For practical application, we consider a complete transmission chain by combining powerful erasure codes with the proposed algorithms. Using this scheme, we guarantee that each user receives the same amount of information to decode the same data. Simulation results show that, for both single-input single-output (SISO)-OFDM and MISO-OFDM cases, the proposed multicast OFDM systems achieve gains over the worst user case algorithm.