Multicarrier systems are widely used today due to their robustness to multipath effects and efficient implementation using FFT. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) system is a class of multicarrier modulation which consists of splitting up a wide-band signal at a high symbol rate into several lower rate signals, each one occupying a narrower band. System performance improves because subcarriers experience flat fading channels and are orthogonal to one another. Recently, a number of papers have focused on a new alternative called Filter bank based multicarrier system (FBMC) which can offer a number of advantages over CP-OFDM system such as the improved spectral efficiency by not using a redundant CP and by having much better control of the out-of-band emission due to the time-frequency localized shaping pulses.Furthermore, asynchronism inherently exists in several communication systems due to many factors e.g. the propagation delays and the spatial distribution of users. As one of the most challenging issue in design of communication systems, the asynchronism can harmfully affect the system performance by causing the so-called asynchronous interference.In this dissertation, we investigate the impact of asynchronism on the performance of OFDM FBMC systems. First, we present a unified framework for multicarrier interference characterization and analysis in asynchronous environments. We propose a new family of interference tables that model the correlation between a given interfering subcarrier and the victim one, not only as a function of the spectral distance separating both subcarriers but also with respect to the timing misalignment between the subcarriers holders. These tables are derived for CP-OFDM, PHYDYAS-FBMC and IOTA-FBMC systems. Furthermore, the impact of the asynchronous interference on the average error rate and the average spectral efficiency of OFDM and FBMC systems is addressed. Based on computing the moment generating functions of the asynchronous interference power, simple new expressions for the exact evaluation of the average error rate and the average spectral efficiency are derived considering the frequency correlation fading between adjacent interfering subcarriers. These expressions significantly reduce the computation complexity of the performance evaluation.For each technique two scenarios are examined: fully-loaded network and partially loaded ones. The accuracy of the obtained expressions has been validated through different simulation results. In contrast to OFDM, FBMC waveforms are demonstrated to be less sensitive to timing asynchronism, due to the better frequency localization of the used prototype filters.
