The Effect of Imperfect Carrier Frequency Offset Estimation on an OFDMA Uplink

In the uplink of Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) systems, the user carrier frequency offsets result in inter-carrier-interference (ICI) and multiple-user-interference (MUI), leading to a degradation of the bit error rate (BER). This paper treats this uplink scenario and derives the average uplink capacity and the BER using the signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) analysis. Adaptive power allocation is suggested to increase the capacity. When the frequency offsets are modeled as zero-mean Gaussian or Uniform random variables, the BER is derived as a closed-form infinite-series. The series requires at least 50 terms to ensure sufficient accuracy.