Performance Analysis of UCA-OAM Systems With Low-Resolution ADCs

This letter establishes a quantized uniform circular array-based orbital angular momentum (UCA-OAM) transmission model with finite-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). Based on the model, a bit error rate (BER) formula for quantized UCA-OAM systems is derived. The impact of the ADC resolution on the reliability of UCA-OAM systems is analyzed and evaluated. Results show that the quantization errors from ADCs have minimal effect on BER when the ADC resolution is above 5 bits. Additionally, with convolutional coding, UCA-OAM systems using 3-bit or 4-bit ADC can achieve BER performance comparable to systems with ideal ADC resolution.