This concise volume provides a widely accessible introduction to OFDM and MC-CDMA. Based on the authors' experience in researching OFDM in the context of various applications, it systematically converts the lessons of Shannon's information theory into practical wireless system design examples. Comprehensive coverage of OFDM, MIMO-OFDM and MC-CDMA is presented, incorporating radically new research-oriented principles. A further strength of this primer is that it considers the ambitious aim of achieving near-maximum-likelihood multi-user MIMO-OFDM performance at a modest complexity, proposing an advanced extension of the Complex Sphere Detector (CSD). This technique allows the system to support a higher number of OFDM/MC-CDMA users than the number of antennas even in the case of high-throughput QAM schemes. The design and performance of OFDM modems are highlighted, covering both Gaussian and wideband fading channels, frequency domain synchronization as well as adaptive single- and multi-user OFDM Offers a comparative study of OFDM and MC-CDMA, discussing spreading sequences, adaptive modulation and the attainable performance in synchronous environments Contains an advanced section on genetic algorithm aided joint multi-user channel estimation techniques for multi-user SDMA-OFDM Introduces an avant-garde design principle, which aims for directly minimizing the bit error ratio (BER) at the output of the multi-user OFDM system

As an introductory treatment of the complex subject of OFDM, this primer text will be attractive to a wide readership, including postgraduate students, systems and development engineers, as well as communications managers and practitioner.