Coexistence of 5G Candidate Waveforms with 3G, 4G, and PAN Waveforms, Part 1

This is the first of a two-part series on the coexistence of 5G candidate waveforms with 3G, 4G, and PAN waveforms. Today's spectrum is very crowded and complex. The demand for more data is driving research to potentially utilize centimeter-wave and millimeter-wave frequency bands for 5G high data throughput applications. These frequency bands offer the potential for contiguous blocks of additional spectrum that is not available in today's sub 6 gigahertz frequency band. However, there is also interest in utilizing today's sub 6 gigahertz spectrum more efficiently for 5G applications. This is driving research for new 5G candidate waveforms to improve out-of-band spectrum suppression, and to utilize spectrum more efficiently. There are many waveforms being researched for 5G applications, but several of the candidate waveforms. The first one is orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), which is currently used in 4G and, for that reason and more, it is under consideration for 5G through the use of filtered OFDM. The second one is FBMC, or filter bank multicarrier. The third one is UFMC, or universal filtered multicarrier.