Cyclic Prefix and Zero-Padding Spectrally Efficient FDM with Sector Antennas for Rayleigh Fading Channel

Spectrum scarcity has become a critical issue due to the rapid deployment of fifth-generation (5G) networks and the explosive growth of future wireless data traffic. Spectrally Efficient Frequency Division Multiplexing (SEFDM) is a promising technique to enhance spectral efficiency by compressing subcarrier spacing and allowing spectral overlap; however, it suffers from severe inter-carrier interference (ICI) caused by the loss of orthogonality. In particular, under Rayleigh fading channels, the combined effects of ICI and multipath fading lead to significant degradation in bit error rate (BER) performance. Conventional SEFDM systems employing a cyclic prefix (CP) encounter an unavoidable error floor due to residual interference stemming from non-orthogonality. On the other hand, while zero-padding (ZP)-based SEFDM offers superior multipath tolerance, further enhancement in communication quality is still desired. This paper proposes a novel receiver architecture utilizing sector antennas to spatially separate multipath components based on the angle of arrival (AoA). Furthermore, we investigate and compare sector selection algorithms specifically tailored for SEFDM systems. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method, employing a sector selection scheme based on the maximum channel response power, effectively suppresses inter-symbol interference (ISI) and improves BER performance for both CP-SEFDM and ZP-SEFDM. Furthermore, our quantitative evaluations confirm that the proposed architecture successfully achieves the theoretical maximum spectral efficiency even in higher-order modulation schemes (16QAM), while maintaining a low computational complexity compared to conventional spatial diversity techniques.