Fifth-generation (5G) cellular communications promise to deliver the gigabit experience to mobile users, with a capacity increase of up to three orders of magnitude with respect to current long-term evolution (LTE) systems. There is widespread agreement that such an ambitious goal will be realized through a combination of innovative techniques involving different network layers. At the physical layer, the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation format, along with its multiple-access strategy orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), is not taken for granted, and several alternatives promising larger values of spectral efficiency are being considered. This article provides a review of some modulation formats suited for 5G, enriched by a comparative analysis of their performance in a cellular environment, and by a discussion on their interactions with specific 5G ingredients. The interaction with a massive multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) system is also discussed by employing real channel measurements.

This paper presents results on the achievable spectral efficiency and on the energy efficiency for a wireless multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) link operating at millimeter wave frequencies (mmWave) in a typical 5G scenario. Two different single-carrier modem schemes are considered, i.e., a traditional modulation scheme with linear equalization at the receiver, and a single-carrier modulation with cyclic prefix, frequency-domain equalization and FFT-based processing at the receiver; these two schemes are compared with a conventional MIMO–OFDM transceiver structure. Our analysis jointly takes into account the peculiar characteristics of MIMO channels at mmWave frequencies, the use of hybrid (analog-digital) pre-coding and post-coding beamformers, the finite cardinality of the modulation structure, and the non-linear behavior of the transmitter power amplifiers. Our results show that the best performance is achieved by single-carrier modulation with time-domain equalization, which exhibits the smallest loss due to the non-linear distortion, and whose performance can be further improved by using advanced equalization schemes. Results also confirm that performance gets severely degraded when the link length exceeds 90–100 meters and the transmit power falls below 0 dBW.

Non-terrestrial networks will play a crucial role in future wireless 6G systems to ensure ubiquitous connectivity and to complement terrestrial networks. With reference to a LEO constellation, this letter performs a comparison in terms of pragmatic capacity between the OFDM and the OTFS modulation in a scenario where multi-satellite diversity is employed to ensure a more uniform throughput and to increase the system reliability against unforeseen blockages. The considered scenario is akin to a cell-free system, wherein each user may be jointly served by multiple satellites for better and more stable performance. Numerical results reveal that multi-satellite diversity is effective in increasing the link performance and that OTFS provides a better performance and is thus more robust to the impairments caused by the heavy Doppler shifts.

In this paper, we consider the design of spiral constellations for channels affected by phase noise. The strength of the proposed constellations resides both on the performance and on the extreme simplicity of the design. The symbols can in fact be expressed in analytical form, and are uniquely defined through a single parameter that accounts for the phase and thermal noise variances. The structure of the proposed constellations allows to easily determine the points that are closest to any point in the complex plane, therefore we also propose a low complexity detector that is suitable for phase noise channels in medium-high signal-to-noise ratio conditions. The performance of the proposed constellations are assessed in terms of information rate and error rate. Despite their simplicity, the new spiral constellations have excellent performance, especially when the constellation size grows large.

In this paper, the performance of a reference medium earth orbit (MEO) satellite constellation system operating at Ka-band and employing single links to ground is compared with next generation advanced systems in higher RF or optical bands employing multiple diversity links. The fill rate of existing MEO constellations offering broadband and trunking services in Ka-band is growing fast, rendering the search for additional spectrum of vital importance. Therefore, this paper reports on the results of a system study investigating the option of using Q/V-band, or even optical wavelengths, instead of Ka-band, to deliver substantially higher system capacity. The system study takes a holistic approach covering from atmospheric channel impairments to waveform optimization and system analysis for realistic assumptions. After proposing a sophisticated channel model to generate spatio-temporal time series of atmospheric attenuation, an optimization of the performance at physical layer is performed to derive the inputs necessary to the system analysis. Five different advanced high frequency RF and optical systems are compared in terms of outage capacity and availability for various locations of single ground stations, multiple ground stations (site diversity) and from multiple satellites (orbital diversity). For maximizing the realism of the comparison, similar on board satellite resources (mass, power) are assumed for all scenarios.