Method and apparatus for PAPR reduction of an OFDM signal

An apparatus and a method for peak-to-average power ratio reduction of an OFDM signal are disclosed. The method uses the interleaved characteristics of partial transmit sequences to partition input data x[n] of length N into several disjoint subblocks in time domain, and a complete N-point signal x[n] is composed after phase optimization, where N is the length of an OFDM signal and n=0, 1, . . . , N-1. Accordingly, the apparatus comprises an N-point inverse fast Fourier transform (N-IFFT), a de-multiplexer, a combiner, a set of memory and an adder. This invention uses only one N-IFFT, whereby it can achieve significant computation reduction. This invention requires (N/2)log2 N complex multiplications and N memory units. It also preserves the inherent property as well as advantages of an OFDM system.