Link Performance Models for System Level Simulations of Broadband Radio Access Systems

This paper provides an overview of various link performance models as an important means to determine the link packet error rate (PER) in system level simulations at reduced complexity. A subset of link performance models is evaluated in terms of PER prediction accuracy focusing on a single receive and transmit antenna OFDM link with different coding options and channel characteristics. The results demonstrate that a mutual-information based metric, which accounts for the modulation alphabet, is preferable under the conditions considered and, furthermore, applicable for the large class of linear multiple receive and transmit antenna techniques.