Performance Analysis of Multicarrier Systems in the Presence of Smooth Nonlinearity

<p>Most of the performance studies devoted to the analysis of multicarrier systems in the presence of nonlinear distortion assume that the multicarrier signal can be modeled as a random Gaussian process regardless of modulation format, guard interval duration, and number of subcarriers. On the contrary, we present an analysis based on the discrete model of the multicarrier signal. It is shown that the discrete model provides more accurate signal-to-distortion ratio and out-of-band spectrum prediction if the number of subcarriers is small. Only the effect of third-order nonlinearity is studied; however results can also be extended to the fifth-order polynomial model. Simulation results are provided which confirm analytical derivations.</p