Filter Bank Multicarrier Modulation for Future Wireless Systems

Future wireless systems will be characterized by a large range of possible use cases. This requires a flexible allocation of the available time-frequency resources, which is difficult in conventional Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). Thus, modifications of OFDM, such as windowing or filtering, become necessary. Alternatively, one can employ a different modulation scheme, such as Filter Bank Multicarrier Modulation (FBMC). In this thesis, I provide a unifying framework, discussion and performance evaluation of FBMC and compare it to OFDM based schemes. My investigations are not only based on simulations, but are substantiated by real-world testbed measurements and trials, where I show that multiple antennas and channel estimation, two of the main challenges associated with FBMC, can be efficiently dealt with. Additionally, I derive closed-form solutions for the signal-to-interference ratio in doubly-selective channels and show that in many practical cases, one-tap equalizers are sufficient. For the rare cases where this is not true, I propose enhanced methods to deal with such harsh environments, including channel estimation and equalization. Finally, on top of a conventional FBMC system, I develop a novel precoding method based on a pruned Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) in combination with one-tap scaling. This scheme offers a low peak-to-average power ratio, enables low latency transmissions and has a high spectral efficiency.