Major 5G Waveform Candidates: Overview and Comparison

The 5G mobile communication system is now being intensively prepared. This chapter presents the major multicarrier modulation (MCM) candidates for 5G and their categorization. It devotes to high-level comparisons of these candidate algorithms in terms of performance, efficiency, complexity, compatibility and integration. The chapter discusses the waveform proposals by separating them into three groups: subcarrier filtered MCM using linear convolution, subcarrier filtered MCM using circular convolution, and sub-band windowed MCM. Orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) is the simplest MCM system, and is widely adopted in many applications. To improve the spectrum localization, a subcarrier filtering is used on the top of OFDM basis, leading to some advanced MCM schemes, such as filter bank multicarrier (FBMC)/offset QAM (OQAM) and filtered multitone (FMT). The CB-FMT scheme adopts circular filtering on the top of traditional FMT modulation. The chapter discusses the future work on the design and implementation of MCM schemes for 5G standardization and deployment.