Achieving Enhanced Spectral Efficiency for Constant Envelope Transmission in CP-OFDMA Framework

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) has been adopted as the baseline waveform for sixth-generation (6G) networks owing to its robustness and high spectral efficiency. However, its inherently high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) limits power amplifier efficiency and causes nonlinear distortion, particularly in power- and cost-constrained 6G scenarios. To address these challenges, we propose a constant-envelope cyclic-prefix OFDM (CE-CP-OFDM) transceiver under the CP-OFDMA framework, which achieves high spectral efficiency while maintaining low PAPR. Specifically, we introduce a spectrally efficient subcarrier mapping scheme with partial frequency overlap and establish a multiuser received signal model under frequency-selective fading channels. Subsequently, to minimize channel estimation error, we develop an optimal multiuser CE pilot design by exploiting frequency-domain phase shifts and generalized discrete Fourier transform-based time-domain sequences. For large-scale multiuser scenarios, a joint delay-frequency-domain channel estimation method is proposed, complemented by a low-complexity linear minimum mean square error (LMMSE) estimator in the delay domain. To mitigate inter-symbol and multiple-access interference, we further design an iterative frequency-domain LMMSE (FD-LMMSE) equalizer based on the multiuser joint received-signal model. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed CE-CP-OFDM transceiver achieves superior bit-error-rate performance compared with conventional waveforms while maintaining high spectral efficiency.