Root-Raised Cosine versus Optimal Finite Pulses for

Faster-than-Nyquist Generation

Anton Gorlov, Aleksandr Gelgor, Nguyen Van Phe

Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, St. Petersburg, Russia
a_gelgor@mail.ru, anton.gorlov@yandex.ru, nvphe1905@gmail.com

Abstract. In the paper we compare two approaches of intentional introduction

of inter-symbol interference (ISI) into single-carrier signal to improve its band-
width efficiency. The first approach is “faster-than-Nyquist” signaling (FTN)
with infinite rrc-pulses. The second approach is generation of multicomponent
signals (MCS) utilizing optimal finite pulses. In the optimization problem, we
used a criterion of minimal bandwidth comprising 99 percent of signal power,
the maximal level of ISI and peak-to-average power ratio were used as addi-
tional constraints. The comparison of optimal MCS and FTN is given in the
bandwidth and energy consumptions plane for the fixed computational com-
plexity of the receiver. In addition, we considered modified energy consump-
tions taking values of PAPR into account. It is shown that optimal MCS provide
lower consumptions with respect to FTN with rrc-pulses.

Keywords: faster-than Nyquist, optimal finite pulses, multicomponent signals,

bandwidth efficiency, energy efficiency.

Introduction

A trend of data transmission rate increase can be explicitly observed in the changing
of generations of digital communication. In simplified terms, the second generation
(2G) has tried to provide a bitrate up to 1 Mbits/s for a single user, in the third genera-
tion (3G) an upper bound has been increased to 10 Mbits/s, and it has been wished for
the fourth generation (4G) standard to provide a 100 Mbits/s bitrate. It is also known
that the changing of generations of telecommunication systems imply an improve-
ment of other network parameters such as latency, a throughput, a flexibility of time-
frequency resource allocation, and a reduction of physical size of devices.
In the evolution from the 2G to the 4G the rise of user bitrate is reached by follow-
ing means: a signal constellation size increase, new efficient forward error correction
schemes, wider occupied bandwidth, and efficient methods for inter-symbol-
interference (ISI) cancellation. Almost all of these systems utilize orthogonal signals:
there is no intentional ISI in 3G and 4G systems.
Similar changes took place in other telecommunication standards. For instance, Eu-
ropean standards for satellite digital video broadcasting DVB also has two genera-
tions: DVB-S1 and DVB-S2. The changes of physical layer are utilization of larger

adfa, p. 1, 2011.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011
signal constellations, and more efficient forward error correction schemes. These
standards do not define any means for ISI cancellation since, with a good approxima-
tion, the channel can be considered with a single-path propagation. The DVB stand-
ards also define orthogonal signaling.
It was shown by Mazo in 1975, that a transition from orthogonal signals to signals
with controlled ISI is an efficient way to improve spectral efficiency [1]. The results
were obtained for orthogonal signals with linear modulation:

y (t ) = å Ck a(t - kT ), (1)
k

where Ck are symbols uniformly chosen from a M-symbols constellation, T is a sym-

bol transmission period, and a(t) is a pulse which meets the orthogonality condition:
¥

ò a (t )a (t - kT )dt = 0, k = ±1,
-¥
± 2, ... . (2)

Signals based on pulses which meet the condition (2) are called full response signals
(FRS), otherwise the term partial response signals (PRS) is used.
For signals (1) Mazo proposed to increase symbol transmission rate making it
higher than in the case of FRS. These signals can be written as:

y (t ) = å Ck a(t - kt T ), (3)
k

where τ = 1 for original signals without ISI (FRS), and τ < 1 for signals with con-
trolled ISI (PRS). Mazo showed that in this approach, for BPSK constellation and
sinc-pulse used in (3), a 25% gain of spectral efficiency is possible with zero losses of
energy efficiency with respect to orthogonal signals; it corresponds to a transition
from τ = 1 to τ = 0.8.
The power spectrum of sinc-pulse and, hence, power spectrum of random sequence
(3) has rectangular shape. Thus, in the 1/T bandwidth, it is possible to transmit and
detect symbols with the 1.25/T symbol rate that more than the theoretical Nyquist
limit of 1/T symbols per second. According to this fact, Mazo proposed the term
“Faster-than-Nyquist” signaling (FTN).
Obviously, a transition to PRS leads to a necessity of utilization of more computa-
tionally complex detection algorithms. For instance, for signals with linear modula-
tion the Viterbi algorithm can be employed instead of a conventional matched filter
receiver.
Despite the Mazo results, the FTN approach has not been implemented in tele-
communication systems. A possible reason is the high computational complexity of
receivers which must perform real time signal processing. Nevertheless, there are
some publications which claim that the prospective systems (such as systems of fifth
generation (5G)) will utilize signals with controlled ISI [2].
Apparently, a development of signal processing units has made it possible to im-
plement complex algorithms for PRS detection. In particular, a candidate for physical
layer of 5G systems is SE-FDM technique [3]. The SE-FDM signals can be derived
from OFDM signals by allocation of subcarrier signals closer to each other, with a
frequency spacing lower than in the orthogonal mode. Obviously, each subcarrier
spectrum has shape of sinc function, and such signals are frequency-domain analog of
Mazo signals.
Since the first FTN publication, some new papers developing this approach have
appeared. In particular, Liveris and Georghiades [4] have proposed utilization of rrc-
pulses

1 sin{(p t / T )(1 - a )} + (4a t / T ) cos{(p t / T )(1 + a )}

a (t ) = , 0 £ a £ 1, (4)
T 1/2 (p t / T ){1 - (4a t / T ) 2 }

(the sinc pulse is a particular case of (4) with α = 0), which are widely used in many
communications standards for definition of orthogonal signals. It has been shown in
[4], that introduction of ISI into signals with rrc-pulses similarly to (3) can also im-
prove spectral efficiency with zero energy efficiency losses.
We should notice that for any non-zero value of roll-off α, the rrc-pulse spectrum is
not rectangular. Therefore, the signal bandwidth computed with any criterion can be
larger than 1/T. It means that utilization of τ < 1 does not necessarily lead to exceed-
ing the Nyquist limit, and, to be meticulous, we can deal with “PRS without FTN” or
with “PRS with FTN”. Nevertheless, we will use the term “FTN with rrc-pulses” to
refer the signal generation technique (3) with rrc-pulses. To highlight the case τ = 1
we will use the term “FRS with rrc-pulses”.
In [5] it has been suggested to generate PRS with optimal pulses instead of the
generation technique (3) with conventional rrc- or sinc-pulses. The optimal pulses
provided maximal free Euclidean distance (Dfree) for signal sequences based on a
chosen signal constellation, and for a chosen ISI window length and for a bandwidth
W99%, comprising 99% of signal power. The free Euclidean distance is similar to free
distance of convolutional codes but the former is computed with Euclidean metric
instead of Hamming metric. This term is correct since a PRS generator can be consid-
ered as a finite state machine and described by a trellis. As a result, authors obtained
characteristics of PRS outperforming characteristics of signals from [1] and [4].
All of noted works consider infinite pulses. On the one hand, it increases gains in
spectral and energy efficiencies, but on the other hand, the problem of practical im-
plementation of shaping filters remains relevant. It also remains unknown how spec-
tral characteristics vary with pulses truncation which takes place in practice.
In [6], [7], to overcome negative effects of pulse truncation we proposed formula-
tion and numerical solving of optimization problem for finite pulses for linear modu-
lation (1):

a(t ) = 0, t > LT / 2, (5)

where L is a natural number showing pulse duration as a number of symbol periods T.

This approach allows to obtain shaping filter impulse response with no additional
transformations of infinite pulses. We utilized a criterion of minimal bandwidth W99%.
As an additional constraint, we introduced a signal peak-to-average power ratio
(PAPR) as a ratio of the maximal signal power Pmax to the average power Pav:
 PAPR = Pmax / Pav . (6)

The value of PAPR is especially critical in a design of satellite telecommunication

standards. Finally, we introduced ISI measure called maximal group correlation
MGC. The value of MGC gives the maximal normalized power of ISI noise at a
matched filter output at reference time instants:
L -1
MGC = ACF (0) -1 å
k =- L +1
ACF (k ) ,
k¹0
(7)
LT / 2
ACF (k ) = ò
- LT / 2
a(t )a (t - kT )dt.

The introduction of this ISI measure instead of the conventional free Euclidean dis-
tance allowed significant reduction of a number of problem constraints.
The utilization of finite pulses in a linear modulation makes it possible to write a
convenient decomposition of signal into separate components:
L -1 L -1 L -1
y (t ) = å yL( p ) (t ) = åå Ck( p ) a L( p ) (t , k ) = åå Ck( p ) a(t - pT - kLT ). (8)
p=0 p =0 k p=0 k

A peculiarity of each component is in non-overlapping neighboring pulses. Thus,

there is no ISI in a single component, but signals of different components interfere.
To refer such cases of linear modulation with finite pulses we introduced the term
“multicomponent signals” (MCS). In cases of optimal pulses utilization, we will call
our signals as optimal multicomponent signals.
For estimation of optimal MCS gain in [6], [7] we compared bandwidth and energy
consumptions of these signals with consumptions of conventional signals with or-
thogonal rrc-pulses. Since the optimal signals provided minimal values of bandwidth
W99%, we computed the bandwidth consumptions as:
b F = W99% / R, (9)

where R is a transmission bitrate (bits/s). The energy consumptions were computed as

a signal-to-noise ratio required for the fixed value of bit error rate (the value
BER = 10–4 was considered in [6], [7]):

b E = h 2 = E bit / N 0 . (10)

Since the optimization problem included additional constraints of signal PAPR, we

also considered the modified energy consumptions:

b E* = PAPR × b E . (11)

A comparison of βE values is a conventional approach, and, for instance, it allows

an estimation of gain provided by ISI introduction with respect to increase of signal
constellation size. A comparison of β*E values allows a gain estimation with signal
PAPR variation taken into account, that is important for a design of power amplifiers.
We have shown in [6], [7] that the optimal 8-component signals based on QPSK
constellation provide a significant gain with respect to orthogonal signals based on
QPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM constellations. Thus, we have confirmed Mazo results
and proved that the introduction of ISI is more effective than the increase of signal
constellation size. The penalty for bandwidth and energy efficiency gain is a signifi-
cant increase of receiver’s computational complexity.
The objective of this paper is a comparison of bandwidth and energy consumptions
for FTN with rrc-pulses and for optimal MCS with a fixed receiver’s computational
complexity. In other words, our goal is the comparison of two approaches for PRS
generation: the utilization of optimal finite pulses (MCS) and non-optimal infinite rrc-
pulses (FTN). The retention of receiver’s computational complexity, at first, is re-
quired for the correct comparison of these two approaches. At second, the results will
be closer to practical implementation, whereas some other works represent asymptoti-
cal characteristics of signals.
If the optimal MCS outperform FTN, we will show a way to improve SE-FDM
signals characteristics, which is in the transition from sinc-pulses to optimal finite
pulses. If successful, the optimal MCS will be a candidate for prospective communi-
cations standards including 5G systems.

1. Simulation details

For comparison of optimal MCS with FTN with rrc-pulses in terms of energy con-
sumptions, we implemented a simulator, which performed a generation, a passing
through a channel with additive white Gaussian noise, and a detection of these sig-
nals. In all modes we considered QPSK constellation, and needed values of band-
width consumptions were set by handling of ISI. For optimal MCS, stronger ISI was
set by increase of MGC from the minimal value MGC = 0, or by reduction of Dfree
from the maximum Dfree = 2 . For FTN a stronger ISI corresponds to a reduction of
τ from the maximal value τ = 1.

1.1. MCS parameters

We considered five sets of pulses for optimal MCS. In all sets, the optimization was
done with the criterion of minimal bandwidth W99%, comprising 99% of signal power.
A numbers of components and, hence, pulses’ durations were equal in all sets: L = 8.
These sets were obtained under different types of additional constraint. The values of
MGC, Dfree, and signal PAPR were bounded, and pulse’s symmetry was or was not
required (table 1).
For the PAPR constraint, we considered only symmetric pulses because for this
type of constraint a utilization of asymmetric pulses do not lead to any different signal
characteristics in comparison with the case of symmetric pulses [7]. Each set con-
tained optimal pulses obtained for several values of particular constraint from an al-
lowed range. The detailed technique of pulse optimization and some particular pulse
shapes are represented in [6], [7].

Table 1. Additional constraints for five sets of optimal pulses

Set number Constraint type Pulse’s type Notation

1 MGC Symmetric SMGC-pulses
2 MGC Asymmetric AMGC-pulses
3 Dfree Symmetric SDfree-pulses
4 Dfree Asymmetric ADfree-pulses
5 PAPR Symmetric PAPR-pulses

1.2. FTN parameters

For FTN with rrc-pulses we considered 11 values of roll-off factor α: from 0 to 1 with
a 0.1 step. For each value of roll-off we considered 11 values of τ: from 1 down to 0.5
with a 0.1 step, and from 0.5 down to 0.25 with a 0.05 step (1, 0.9, 0.8, 0.7, 0.6, 0.5,
0.45, 0.4, 0.35, 0.3, 0.25).
It is known, that rrc-pulses are infinite, and a shape of rrc-pulse in time domain is
utilized as shaping filter impulse response in both of FRS and FTN modes. In order to
design a shaping FIR-filter for these schemes an original pulse is multiplied by a fi-
nite window function. Additionally, this truncation procedure provides a transfor-
mation from FRS and FTN with infinite rrc-pulses to MCS since pulses become fi-
nite.
We performed the truncation of pulse with a rectangular window with a duration
equal to integer number of symbol periods T. A particular window durations were
chosen by a criterion of comprising no less than EPART = 99.9% of energy of original
infinite pulse in its truncated version. To clarify this criterion, we should remind that
the signal efficiency was estimated in (βF, βE) and (βF, β*E) planes, and we tried to
make the truncation which does not deteriorate these consumptions values with re-
spect to the case of infinite pulses. It was required, that the values of W99%, PAPR and
h2 for the chosen BER do not change after the truncation. As we can see from table 2,
the values of W99% do not change after EPART = 99%, the limit values of h2 can be
reached with EPART = 99.9% (there is only a slight 0.1 dB loss for α = 0, 0.1). The
PAPR value is increased with an increase of EPART, but the difference is small for all
values of roll-off α > 0 at the transition from EPART = 99% to EPART = 99.9%. Thus,
the truncation with EPART = 99.9% provides limit values of W99% and h2; and, for this
truncation mode, the values of PAPR are reduced especially for the roll-off α = 0.
This reduction of PAPR can be considered as a some gain from pulses’ truncation.
Notice that non-rectangular window functions can also be utilized for the trunca-
tion. On the one hand, these window functions can reduce a level of spectrum side
lobs, that has small effect on the occupied bandwidth W99%. On the other hand, a
choice of particular window function can be considered as a kind of pulse optimiza-
tion thus representing an independent problem. However, in this work, we intend to
compare optimal MCS with conventional FTN with rrc-pulses.
 Table 2. A dependence of W99%, h2, and PAPR from the trucation parameter EPART

α
EPART
0 0,1 0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,6 0,7 0,8 0,9 1
W99%
90% 1,22 1,29 1,26 1,26 1,23 1,28 1,34 1,40 1,48 1,55 1,63
95% 1,08 1,06 1,08 1,13 1,20 1,26 1,34 1,41 1,48 1,56 1,63
99% 0,99 1,02 1,07 1,13 1,20 1,27 1,34 1,41 1,48 1,56 1,63
99,9% 0,99 1,02 1,07 1,13 1,20 1,27 1,34 1,41 1,48 1,56 1,63
99,99% 0,99 1,02 1,07 1,13 1,20 1,27 1,34 1,41 1,48 1,56 1,63
h2 (dB) for BER = 10–4
90% 14,4 13,6 12,8 11,9 11,1 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4
95% 10,3 9,8 9,2 11,9 11,1 10,4 9,7 9,2 8,4 8,4 8,4
99% 8,9 8,9 8,7 9,1 8,6 8,4 8,4 9,2 8,8 8,5 8,4
99,9% 8,5 8,5 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4
99,99% 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4 8,4
PAPR (dB)
90% 2,54 3,60 3,35 3,02 3,11 2,87 3,16 3,10 3,31 3,51 3,56
95% 5,41 5,68 5,27 4,25 3,43 3,29 3,41 3,34 3,46 3,57 3,70
99% 8,82 7,38 5,81 4,62 3,67 3,44 3,53 3,44 3,53 3,63 3,77
99,9% 12,45 7,68 5,95 4,72 3,74 3,48 3,57 3,47 3,55 3,65 3,78
99,99% 15,05 7,71 5,97 4,73 3,75 3,49 3,57 3,48 3,56 3,65 3,79

Let us consider a utilization of truncated rrc-pulses for FTN generation. For in-
stance, if τ = 1 and some pulse of duration LT is utilized, then modulation symbols go
to shaping filter with a 1/T rate, and output signal contains L components. Now, if we
increase symbols rate and send them to the shaping filter 1/τ times faster (τ < 1), it
means a reduction of symbol period: T′ = τT < T. As a result, a new pulse duration is
increased in terms of number of symbol periods: L′ = L/τ > L. Therefore, the transition
from FRS with rrc-pulses (or, equally, from MCS with truncated rrc-pulses of dura-
tion LT) to FTN with a factor of bandwidth consumptions reduction τ is equal to the
increase of number of components from L to L/τ. In general, to obtain a new integer
number of components with no losses of pulse’s definition accuracy the value
L′ = ceil(L/τ) should be utilized, where ceil( ) is a rounding to the right nearest integer.
The particular L values depending from τ and α are represented in table 3 for the trun-
cation with EPART = 99.9%.
To sum up, our simulation for FTN was done with finite pulses. Thus, in both cases
of optimal MCS and FTN a shaping filter had finite impulse response.

1.3. Detection algorithm details

A generation of L-component signal is similar to an encoding by convolutional code
with L – 1 constraint length [6], [7]. During the MCS generation, fragments of pulse
modulated by information symbols are sent to a “shift register” instead of information
bits in the encoding. The signal is generated by summation of all modulated frag-
ments stored in the register. According to this analogy between linear modulation and
convolutional encoding, for MCS detection we implemented the Viterbi algorithm
which is usually utilized for decoding of convolutional codes. This algorithm comput-
ed Euclidean metrics for each branch in a trellis. These metrics are Euclidean distanc-
es between the received and ideal sequences of samples.

Table 3. A duration of rrc-pulse as a number of symbol periods L depending on roll-off factor α

and factor of bandwidth consumptions reduction τ for the truncation with EPART = 99.9%

α
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
τ
1 203 15 9 7 5 5 4 4 4 3 3
0.9 226 17 10 8 6 6 5 5 5 4 4
0.8 254 19 12 9 7 7 5 5 5 4 4
0.7 290 22 13 10 8 8 6 6 6 5 5
0.6 339 25 15 12 9 9 7 7 7 5 5
0.5 406 30 18 14 10 10 8 8 8 6 6
0.45 452 34 20 16 12 12 9 9 9 7 7
0.4 508 38 23 18 13 13 10 10 10 8 8
0.35 580 43 26 20 15 15 12 12 12 9 9
0.3 677 50 30 24 17 17 14 14 14 10 10
0.25 812 60 36 28 20 20 16 16 16 12 12

The MCS signal was generated in frames of N modulation symbols. During the
demodulation by the Viterbi algorithm, the initial and the final states of shift register
were known. Decisions about transmitted sequences were made after a processing of
entire frames, in other words, the traceback depth was set to TBLen = N + L – 1. It
was done in order to obtain the best performance because in this mode the Viterbi
algorithm actually performs a computationally efficient exhaustive search detection.
The initialization and the termination of shift register can be implemented by insertion
of pilot symbols or guarding intervals between neighboring frames. For analogy, for
signals generated in frequency domain (SE-FDM signals), these procedures are pro-
vided by guarding frequency intervals.
Taking into account the chosen TBLen value and utilization of QPSK constellation
in all modes, the computational complexity of the receiver was O((N + L – 1)22(L – 1)).
As we can see from the table 3, the complexity of the Viterbi algorithm is extremely
high for some combinations of α and τ. Because of this fact, we decided to estimate
energy consumptions of MCS and FTN with the fixed complexity of the receiver.
Since the optimal pulses for MCS were obtained for the L = 8 duration, it was decided
to implement the Viterbi algorithm with 28 – 1 states no matter which pulse duration
had been utilized during the generation. This reduced-complexity detection can be
implemented by consideration of 8-component signal instead of LTX-component sig-
nal, where 8 ≤ LTX. In other words, we truncated the pulse at the detection stage
whereas the finite pulse with larger duration was utilized in the transmitter. In this
technique, in the receiver it is reasonable to consider a central part of pulse since rrc-
pulses contain stronger oscillations with higher amplitudes in the center, and this cen-
tral part causes stronger ISI with respect to pulse’s edges.

2. Simulation results

During the simulation, we obtained a lot of numerical results for different modes of
FTN and optimal MCS. A direct comparison of the results in form of BER curves is
rather complicated. In this section, we represent the results on the (βF, βE) and the
(βF, β*E) planes for the fixed BER = 10–4 and for the frame length N = 1000 unless
other values of N are defined.
At first, we consider the results for FTN with rrc-pulses. As we can see from fig. 1,
the asymptotic characteristics from [1] have not been reached for the α = 0: the energy
loss for τ = 0.8 is about (13.5 – 8.4) = 5.1 dB. For τ = 1, a utilization of the Viterbi
algorithm instead of matched filter receiver has led to a 0.4 dB energy loss. These
energy losses can be explained by small ISI window length used in the receiver and
by the fact that we analyzed energy consumptions corresponding to the BER = 10–4.
In addition, by the transition from L = 8 to L = 10 and 12 in the receiver we obtained a
3.4 and 2.5 dB reduction of energy losses respectively for τ = 0.8. Nevertheless, re-
sultant values of energy consumptions were far from asymptotic characteristics [1].
With L = 8 a transition from BER = 10–4 to BER = 10–5 led to a 10 dB increase of
energy loss, and BER-curve did not reach BER = 10–6.

Fig. 1. Bandwidth and energy consumptions curves for FRS with rrc-pulses for a matched filter
receiver (FRS, QPSK and FRS, 16-QAM), and for FTN with rrc-pulses for the Viterbi receiver
with L = 8
 Another way to reduce energy losses is a reduction of the frame size N to values
near or less than L. For the reduced frame size, the ISI caused by non-orthogonal
pulse can not be “accumulated” to the maximal possible level. By initialization and
termination of the trellis, an additional energy gain can be obtained. For instance, for
the frame size N = 10 and α = 0 roll-off, the energy losses were 0.8 and 0.3 dB for
τ = 0.8 and 1 respectively. A reduction of N is more reasonable for frequency-domain
ISI (in SE-FDM signals) than for time-domain because in time-domain it leads to a
significant increase of percentage of pilot symbols or guard intervals.
In addition, we can see from fig 1 that better results can be reached with increase
of α. For instance, for α = 0.2 and τ = 0.8, energy losses are about 0.1 dB with respect
to signals with zero ISI.
For further comparison, we chose the combinations of α and τ that provide minimal
consumptions for FTN with rrc-pulses. These minimal consumptions are shown in
fig. 2. Notice, that most of the “optimal” combinations contain values of roll-off near
0.5.

Fig. 2. An illustration of choice of “optimal” α and τ combinations for FTN with rrc-pulses

Let us compare FTN with rrc-pulses and optimal MCS. It follows from fig. 3, that
the choice of MGC constraint is not reasonable because FTN signals outperform op-
timal MCS in the range βF > 0.35. Optimal MCS outperform FTN only in the range of
strong ISI (βF < 0.2), and in the range 0.2 < βF < 0.35 there is no apparent advantage
of optimal MCS over FTN.
 Fig. 3. A comparison of FTN with rrc-pulses and MCS with SMGC and AMGC-pulses in the
consumptions plane

We can see from fig. 4, that the optimal pulses obtained with the Dfree constraint
provide the best results in the (βF, βE) plane.

Fig. 4. A comparison of FTN with rrc-pulses and MCS with SDfree and ADfree-pulses in the
consumptions plane

In some cases, FTN and optimal MCS with SDfree-pulses have equal consump-
tions, but FTN never outperform optimal MCS. Thus, consumptions of MCS with
SDfree-pulses correspond to ultimate consumptions for FTN with rrc-pulses. A transi-
tion to ADfree-pulses for MCS leads to an additional energy gain. We can see, that
optimal MCS with Dfree constraint, as well as MCS with MGC constraint, provide a
significant energy gain with respect to FTN in the range of strong ISI (βF < 0.2). In
general, the energy gain of optimal MCS varies from 0.2 to 2 dB.
We should notice, that for the constraint Dfree = 2 the potential energy character-
istics of orthogonal pulses have not been reached by MCS with SDfree as well as with
ADfree-pulses. It can be explained by the fact that the Dfree give an asymptotic BER
performance, and the values of energy consumptions will be equal for FRS and PRS
in the range of very low values of BER.
It follows from fig. 5, that consumptions of MCS with PAPR-pulses correspond to
ultimate consumptions of FTN in the (βF, β*E) plane. This observation is similar to the
case of SDfree-pulses in the (βF, βE) plane. In other words, in the (βF, β*E) plane, the
consumptions of MCS with PAPR-pulses are lower than for FTN with rrc-pulses. The
energy gain of optimal MCS varies in different ranges of βF. The maximal values of
energy gain can be observed in βF < 0.2 and βF > 0.45 ranges, they are about 2 and 0.9
dB respectively.

Fig. 5. A comparison of FTN with rrc-pulses and MCS with PAPR-pulses in the modified
consumptions plane

From fig. 5 we can also see that, in the (βF, β*E) plane, ISI introduction is more ef-
ficient than constellation order increase. However, from fig. 3-4 it follows that, in the
(βF, βE) plane, ISI introduction provides gain only with respect to FRS with QPSK.
Conclusions

A utilization of optimal MCS provides lower values of bandwidth and energy con-
sumptions with respect to FTN with rrc-pulses for the fixed computational complexity
of the receiver. There are optimal combination of α and τ for FTN with rrc-pulses, but
these combinations can be found by an exhaustive search procedure. The advantage of
MCS is that the rigorous constraints can be included in the optimization problem, and
combinations of different types of constraints are also allowed. Finally, the optimal
pulses for MCS are finite that is important for practical implementation.

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