A Study of BER Degradation Caused by Phase Noise in OFDM Transmission

Digital terrestrial television broadcasting began in Japan in December 2003. The phase noise of the local oscillator degrades the bit error rate of the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) transmission. We have conducted indoor experiments to find the relationship between the phase noise level and the bit error rate. We found that the degradation of the bit error rate could be altered by the offset frequency of the phase noise, and the OFDM receiver could suppress the phase noise in the low offset frequency of-20dB/dec. In this paper, we also propose new methods of regulating the phase noise level in the local oscillator.