Effect of frequency offset on the performance of asynchronous MC-CDMA systems in a correlated Rayleigh fading channel

The effect of frequency offset on the performance of asynchronous MC-CDMA systems in a correlated Rayleigh fading channel is investigated. Numerical results show that MC-CDMA systems can allow a frequency offset of up to 10 percent of the frequency spacing between adjacent subcarriers without significant performance loss. We also find that maximal ratio combining (MRC) performs better than equal gain combining (EGC) for asynchronous MC-CDMA systems with frequency errors.