Detection techniques for fading multipath channels with unresolvedcomponents

In this paper we consider noncoherent detection structures for multipath Ricean/Rayleigh fading channels. The multipath components are assumed to be unresolved, with known delays. These delays could have been estimated, for example, by using super-resolution techniques or sounding the channel with a wide-band pulse. We show that the Rayleigh channel optimum receiver (R OPT) consists of an “orthogonalization” (or decorrelation) stage and then it implements an optimum decision rule for a resolved multipath channel. Since the optimum decision rule over Ricean channels is in general too complex for implementation, we propose several suboptimum structures such as the quadratic decorrelation receiver (QDR) and the quadratic receiver (QR). The QDR scheme exploits the decorrelation performed on the input samples. The nonlinear term due to the Ricean specular term is replaced by a quadratic form that is more suitable for implementation. Single-pulse performance of these schemes are studied for commonly used binary modulation formats such as FSK and DPSK. This paper shows that it is possible to have diversity-like gains over Ricean/Rayleigh multipath fading channels with unresolved components even if the channel is not fully tracked. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates the importance of using generalizations of RAKE receivers designed to handle the unresolvability condition. For two-path mixed-mode Ricean/Rayleigh channels, it is shown that improved performance can be obtained by using receivers that know the strength of the Ricean specular term     

Optimum Pilot Symbol Assisted Modulation

Optimum detectors for pilot symbol assisted modulation (PSAM) signals in Rayleigh and Rician fading channels are derived. Conventional PSAM as used on Rayleigh fading channels is also employed on Rician fading channels. It is shown that the conventional PSAM receiver is optimal for binary phase shift keying in Rayleigh fading but suboptimal for Rician fading and suboptimal for 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation in Rayleigh fading. The optimum PSAM signal detector uses knowledge of the specular component and also jointly processes the pilot symbols and the data symbol. The performance of the optimum detector is analyzed and compared with that of the conventional detector. It is concluded that substantial gains can be achieved by exploiting knowledge of the specular component while joint processing of the data symbol with the pilot symbols may offer small benefits.     

Error performance analysis of an energy sequence estimation receiver for binary FSK on frequency-selective fading channels

Energy detection of frequency-shift keying (FSK) signals is the optimum noncoherent detection technique yielding a minimum bit-error rate (BER) on the additive white Gaussian noise channel. It is usually used when carrier phase estimation is difficult. When FSK signals are passed through a frequency-selective multipath fading channel, the multipath delay in the channel results in a multitone waveform being received during each signaling interval. An effective practical sequence estimation receiver for this situation is proposed. It makes use of energy detectors followed by a Viterbi (1979) or sequence estimator that uses an energy difference metric. Statistical properties of the detection variable are derived. Analytical upper and lower bounds on the BER are derived and the results compared with computer simulations to show the effectiveness of the technique.     

Performance of Noncoherent Direct-Sequence Spread-Spectrum Communications Over Specular Multipath Fading Channels

The performance of noncoherent reception in direct-sequence spread-spectrum communications over specular multipath fading channels is investigated. Analytical and numerical results on the average probability of error are presented for direct-sequence spread-spectrum systems employing binary orM-ary frequency-shift-keying modulation with noncoherent demodulation and differential phase-shift-keying modulation with differentially coherent demodulation.     

Diversity combining for coherent and differential M-PSK in fading and class-A impulsive noise

In this paper, optimum and suboptimum diversity combining schemes for coherent and differential M-ary phase-shift keying (M-PSK) transmission impaired by general Ricean fading and impulsive Class-A noise are derived and analyzed. The proposed suboptimum coherent combining (SCC) and suboptimum noncoherent combining (SNC) schemes yield similar performance as the corresponding optimum combining schemes but require a lower computational complexity. In addition, the novel SCC and SNC strategies achieve large performance gains over conventional maximum ratio combining (MRC) and equal gain combining (EGC), respectively. For MRC and EGC, respectively, we also provide a performance analysis for coherent and differential M-PSK transmissions over general Ricean fading channels with Class-A noise. Furthermore, tight performance upper bounds for the proposed optimum and suboptimum combining schemes are derived.     

Complex noncoherent receivers for GMSK signals

Noncoherent demodulators are very attractive for high performance radio LAN (HIPERLAN) systems because of their low implementation costs and their inherent robustness against frequency and carrier phase offsets. However, when the channel is time dispersive, the nonlinear intersymbol interference (ISI) introduced by these demodulators precludes the use of conventional linear equalization strategies. We present an alternative noncoherent receiver structure followed by a nonlinear equalizer, which includes a RAM and a Viterbi detector, capable of equalizing nonlinear multipath fading channels. In addition, we also present a new algorithm specifically for noncoherent demodulators, which allows estimation of all useful signal values at the input of the equalizer to be stored in the RAM. By means of computer simulations, we report the performance and computational complexity tradeoffs of the receiver/equalizer structure, including antenna diversity. We show that demodulators which consist of a complex receiver and a Viterbi detector are much more robust against multipath fading channels than traditional real noncoherent demodulators. The results suggest that in a typical HIPERLAN scenario, where the channel delay spread is less than 50 ns and a reliable line of sight component exists, it is feasible to combat multipath effects using noncoherent demodulation     

Data-aided linear prediction receiver for coherent DPSK and CPMtransmitted over Rayleigh flat-fading channels

In this paper, a new data-aided linear prediction receiver for coherent differentially encoded phase-shift keying (DPSK) and coherent continuous phase modulation (CPM) over Rayleigh flat-fading channels is presented, This receiver uses the previously detected symbols to estimate the carrier-phase reference and predict the channel gain continuously and therefore makes the optimal coherent detection of DPSK and CPM. The receiver has a simple structure and can be implemented easily. This is due partly to the fact that the linear predictors used for channel estimation do not depend on the autocorrelation function of the fading process. Simulation results on the bit error performance of QDPSK and minimum-shift keying (MSK) with the new receiver are given for both the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and the Rayleigh flat-fading channels. The results show that the proposed receiver provides almost the same bit error rate (BER) performance as the ideal coherent receiver in an AWGN channel, is very robust against large carrier frequency offset between transmitter and receiver, and can provide a reasonably good BER performance in a fast Rayleigh fading channel. Finally, a multisample receiver is discussed and its error rate performance is evaluated by means of computer simulations. The results show that the multisample receiver provides good BER performance for higher fading rate     

A new method for phase synchronization and automatic gain controlof linearly modulated signals on frequency-flat fading channels

An optimal phase synchronization and automatic gain control (AGC) scheme for coherent reception of linearly modulated signals on frequency-flat mobile fading channels is presented. The channel model and receiver performance are described. It is shown that using the technique allows the irreducible error floors (due to random FM) known from the noncoherent methods to be practically eliminated. Depending on the fastness of the fading, large power gains over the noncoherent methods are achieved. Unfavorable analog signal processing and/or the high bandwidth inefficiency of the FDM-pilot coherent methods are also avoided     

Selection diversity for wireless communications in Nakagami-fadingwith arbitrary parameters

By means of analytical and numerical methods, the probability of error and the outage probability of a selection diversity RAKE receiver system employing direct sequence/code division multiple access (DS/CDMA) is derived. A noise-limited propagation environment is modeled as a Nakagami (1960)-fading channel with arbitrary fading parameters and unequal mean power at the receiver. New analytical expressions are derived for the average probability of error and outage probability. Binary detection schemes are considered including binary phase-shift keying (PSK) and frequency-shift keying (FSK). Both coherent and noncoherent detection is considered as well as identical and arbitrary fading. It is shown that the effect of arbitrary fading on system performance is significant and may not be ignored     

Optimal detection of coded differentially encoded QAM and PSKsignals with diversity reception in correlated fast Rician fadingchannels

The optimal sequence estimator for digital signals received over Λ different channels is derived. Each of these channels corrupts the transmitted signal by a mixture of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and frequency-nonselective, correlated, fast Rician fading. By analysis it is shown that for the lth (1⩽l⩽Λ) diversity channel, the basic hardware structure of the optimal receiver consists of a combination of envelope, multiple differential, and coherent detectors. In order to reduce the overall implementation complexity, suboptimal, e.g., having a small number of differential detectors and equal combining diversity structures, versions of the optimal receivers are proposed and evaluated. Two modulation schemes are chosen in order to evaluate the overall performance of the proposed reduced-complexity diversity receivers: the π/4-shift 8-DQAM (differential quadrature amplitude modulation) and the 8-DPSK (differential phase shift keying). Bit-error-rate (BER) performance evaluation results are given. By means of computer simulation, the effect of correlation between the fading processes on the Λ diversity channels is investigated     

Interference cancellation technique using channel parameterestimation in DS/CDMA system with M-ary orthogonal modulation

A channel estimation technique in the uplink of a noncoherent DS/CDMA system with M-ary orthogonal signalling over multipath fading channels is considered. This method is used for the multiuser interference cancellation with coherent detection. The performance of the proposed multiuser detector is compared with that of a conventional detector and a significant improvement of performance is shown     

Error floors in the satellite and land mobile channels

In a satellite mobile channel (SMC) and land mobile channel (LMC) because of fading and nonlinear power amplifiers, constant envelope modulation and noncoherent detection methods may outperform other schemes. It is shown how to compute the error floor for four noncoherent digital communication systems in satellite and land mobile channels. Differential phase shift keying (DPSK) with differential phase detection (DPD) or frequency shift keying (FSK) with DPD, limiter discriminator integrator detection. (LDID), or limiter discriminator detection (LDD) are studied. The error floor is the residual error probability when SNR is infinity, i.e. the error probability in the system is limited by the error floor. The error floor is computed as a function of Doppler frequency, modulation index, and ratio of powers in the specular and diffuse signal components for DPSK-DPD, FSK-DPD, FSK-LDID and FSD-LDD systems     

Performance of an S-CDMA system with noncoherent spread-spectrumMSK modems

Simplified noncoherent and differentially coherent spread-spectrum (SS) minimum shift keying (MSK) receiver structures are presented. It is shown that an optimal noncoherent SS receiver for pure (with rectangular baseband pulses) offset QPSK signals can serve as a suboptimal (performance loss ≃0.9 dB) noncoherent receiver for SS MSK signals. The conditions of orthogonality of SS MSK signals are derived in synchronous and quasi-synchronous code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems. Computer simulation results evaluate the performance of the CDMA system with suggested receivers under certain conditions     

Performance of trellis-coded CPM with iterative demodulation anddecoding

Interleaved trellis-coded systems with full response continuous-phase modulation (CPM) are considered. Upper bounds on the bit-error rate performance are derived for coherent detection on the additive white Gaussian noise and flat Rayleigh fading channels by considering the trellis code, interleaver, and CPM modulator as a serially concatenated convolutional code. A coherent receiver that performs iterative demodulation and decoding is shown to provide good bit error performance. Finally, a noncoherent iterative receiver is proposed and is shown to perform close to the coherent iterative receiver     

Performance of Coherent Direct-Sequence Spread-Spectrum Communications Over Specular Multipath Fading Channels

The performance of coherent direct-sequence spread-spectrum communications over specular multipath fading channels is investigated. The average probability of error of the correlation receiver is derived for an arbitrary number of paths with deterministic or random gain coefficients. The gain coefficients, delays, and phase angles of any two distinct paths are modeled as mutually independent random variables. Numerical results for several values of the system and channel parameters are presented.     

Analysis of equal gain diversity on Nakagami fading channels

An infinite series for the complementary probability distribution function (CDF) of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the output of L -branch equal-gain (EG) diversity combiners in Nakagami (1960) fading channels is derived. The bit error rate for a matched filter receiver is analyzed for the L-branch EG combiner and different fading parameters. Both coherent phase shift keying (CPSK) and differential coherent phase shift keying (DCPSK) are considered. The effects of gain unbalance between branches on the probability distribution of the SNR and on the bit error rates are investigated. Bit error rate results are also obtained for coherent and noncoherent reception of frequency shift keying (FSK). The effects of gain unbalances on FSK modulations are also investigated. Bit error rates for EG combining on Rayleigh fading channels are obtained for L>2. These results are presented as a special case of the more generalized Nakagami fading model     

Optimal noncoherent detection of FSK signals transmitted overlinearly time-selective Rayleigh fading channels

Linearly time-varying fading models are used to investigate noncoherent detection of frequency shift keying (FSK) signals transmitted over frequency-flat fading channels. The structure of the optimal noncoherent FSK detector is derived and a novel analytical technique is proposed to compute the error performance of noncoherent FSK detectors in fast fading. Error performance results obtained by computer simulation are in excellent agreement with the analytical predictions     

On the performance of iterative noncoherent detection of codedM-PSK signals

Differential encoding is often used in conjunction with noncoherent demodulation to overcome carrier phase synchronization problems in communication systems employing M-ary phase-shift keying (M-PSK). It is generally acknowledged that differential encoding leads to a degradation in performance over absolutely encoded M-PSK systems with perfect carrier synchronization. In this paper, we show that when differential encoding is combined with convolutional encoding and interleaving, this degradation does not necessarily occur. We propose a novel noncoherent receiver for differentially encoded M-PSK signals that is capable of significantly outperforming optimal coherent receivers for absolutely encoded M-PSK using the same convolutional code. This receiver uses an iterative decoding technique and is based on a multiple differential detector structure to overcome the effect of the carrier phase error. In addition, to better illustrate the benefits of the powerful combination of convolutional encoding, interleaving, and differential encoding, we also present an iterative coherent receiver for differentially encoded M-PSK     

Successive Interference Cancelers for Multimedia Multicode DS-CDMA Systems Over Frequency-Selective Fading Channels

Noncoherent and coherent multicode direct-sequence code-division multiple access (DS-CDMA) systems with successive interference cancellation (SIC) for multimedia reverse links over frequency-selective fading channels are studied. Followed by a RAKE receiver, the SIC scheme is applied for combating the multiple access interference. The bit error rate (BER) using the SIC technique over Nakagami-m fading channels is derived. Simulation results show that the multicode DS-CDMA system with SIC has demonstrated better performance than that without SIC under the multipath fading environment, while their corresponding numerical results from performance analyses are also provided for verifications. Furthermore, the coherent receiver could achieve a more satisfactory BER than the noncoherent counterpart at the expense of synchronization.     

Improving differential detection of MDPSK by nonlinear noiseprediction and sequence estimation

A new technique is proposed to improve the performance of differential detection (DD) of M-ary differential phase-shift keying (MDPSK) significantly, applying sequence estimation. In order to obtain an appropriate representation of the received signal, a nonlinear time-variant finite impulse response or infinite impulse response prediction-error filter is used. For both filter structures the optimum coefficients are derived, assuming transmission over an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. Delayed decision-feedback sequence estimation (DDFSE) is employed to estimate the transmitted symbol sequence. It is shown by simulations that even for decision-feedback equalization, which is a simple special case of DDFSE, a significant performance improvement of conventional DD under AWGN conditions results. In contrast to other noncoherent low-complexity receivers proposed in literature, this receiver is very robust under flat fading (Rayleigh and Ricean) conditions