Effect of smooth nonlinear distortion on OFDM symbol error rate

Nonlinear distortion of OFDM signals can significantly increase the receive r symbol error rate (SER). Currently, distortion analyses rely on simulatio n, not yielding insight into the problem, or apply to specific nonlineariti es only. In this letter, general analytic results are presented on the erro rs resulting from distortion. The results are applicable to smooth nonlinea r distortion of an OFDM signal, which is the most common distortion. Simple analytical expressions are derived which allows a designer to determine th e SER before performing simulations. Further, it is shown that the error on each OFDM subcarrier is approximately equally large.