Fourier transform communication system

The development of rapid algorithms for computation of the discrete Fourier transform has encouraged the use of this transform in the design of communication systems. Here we describe and analyze a data transmission system in which the transmitted signal is the Fourier transform of the original data sequence and the demodulator is a discrete Fourier transformer. This system is a realization of the frequency division multiplexing strategy known as “parallel data transmission”, and it is constructed in this manner so that the data demodulator, after analog to digital conversion, may be a computer program employing one of the fast Fourier transform algorithms. The system appears attractive in that it may be entirely implemented by digital circuitry. We study the performance of this system in the presence of typical linear channel characteristics. It is shown, via computer simulation and computation of the variances of errors, how the system corrects linear channel distortion.