Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing with Subcarrier Power Modulation for Doubling the Spectral Efficiency of 6G and Beyond Networks

With the emergence of new applications (eg, extended reality [XR] and haptics), which require to be simultaneously served not just with low latency and sufficient reliability, but also with high spectral efficiency, future networks (ie, 6G and beyond) should be capable of meeting this demand by introducing new effective transmission designs. Motivated by this, a novel modulation technique termed as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing with subcarrier power modulation (OFDM-SPM) is proposed for providing highly spectral-efficient data transmission with low-latency and less-complexity for future 6G wireless communication systems. OFDM-SPM utilizes the power of subcarriers in OFDM blocks as a third dimension to convey extra information bits while reducing both complexity and latency compared to conventional schemes. In this article, the concept of OFDM-SPM is introduced and its validity as a future adopted modulation technique is investigated over a wireless multipath Rayleigh fading channel. The proposed system structure is explained, an analytical expression of the bit error rate (BER) is derived, and numerical simulations of BER and throughput performances of OFDM-SPM are carried out. OFDM-SPM is found to greatly enhance the spectral efficiency where it is capable of doubling it. In addition, OFDM-SPM introduces negligible complexity to the system, does not exhibit error propagation, reduces the transmission delay, and decreases the transmission power by half.