T. Padmavathi, Kusma Kumari Cheepurupalli, and R. Madhu
Performance Evaluation of FBMC with optimal subcarrier spacing for 5G & beyond Communications
In 5G New Radio (NR) Release 15, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Physical Layer Modulation for downlink and uplink communications, the Cyclic Prefix OFDM (CP-OFDM) is used. A wide range of potential use cases will describe future wireless networks. In order to achieve this, time-frequency resources must be dynamically assigned, which is difficult for traditional Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). Therefore, OFDM improvements like filtering or windowing are needed. On the other hand, a multicarrier method like Filter Bank Multi-Carrier (FBMC) can be employed. Several prototype filters, including Hermite, PHYDYAS, and Root Raise Cosine (RRC), are used in this work to develop the framework for FBMC. Time-frequency efficiency will be determined for each user in the same band by adjusting the subcarrier spacing. The performance of the Signal to Interference Noise Ratio (SIR) is calculated for FBMC using varying subcarrier spacing and compared with different multicarrier transmission methods such as f-OFDM (filtered OFDM), CP-OFDM, UFMC (Universal Filter Multi Carrier), Weighted Overlap and Add (WOLA). FBMC outperforms CP OFDM, UFMC, f-OFDM, and WOLA in terms of Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise Ratio (SIR), especially when subcarrier spacing is short (15 kHz, 30 kHz), where spectral leakage is most noticeable. The PHYDYAS filter performed better than the other ones, reducing intercarrier interference and increasing spectral efficiency by 20–30% even in asynchronous transmission scenarios. Furthermore, FBMC improved bandwidth economy by maintaining excellent performance without requiring a cyclic prefix. According to these indings, FBMC is a strong contender for upcoming 5G upgrades and 6G networks that require flexible waveform design, low outof- band emissions, and support for a variety of service classes, such as mMTC, URLLC, and non- orthogonal transmissions.
Reference:
DOI: 10.36244/ICJ.2025.4.7
Please cite this paper the following way:
T. Padmavathi, Kusma Kumari Cheepurupalli, and R. Madhu "Performance Evaluation of FBMC with optimal subcarrier spacing for 5G & beyond Communications", Infocommunications Journal, Vol. XVII, No 4, December 2025, pp. 49-57., https://doi.org/10.36244/ICJ.2025.4.7