Asymptotic performance of M-ary orthogonal modulation ingeneralized fading channels

The asymptotic (M→∞) probability of symbol error P_e,_m for M-ary orthogonal modulation in a Nakagami-m fading channel is given by the incomplete gamma function P(m, mx) where x=In 2/(E_b/N₀) and E_b is the average energy per bit. For large signal-to-noise ratio this leads to a channel where the probability of symbol error varies as the inverse mth power of E_b/N₀. These channels exist for all m⩾1/2. The special case of m=1 corresponds to Rayleigh fading, an inverse linear channel     

Optimal probability-of-error thresholds and performance for twoversions of the sign detector

Expressions are obtained for specifying the optimal error probability (minimum P_e) thresholds λ₀₁ and λ₀₂ for the traditional and modified sign detectors, respectively. These thresholds are shown to depend on the parameters p, P₁, and M where: M is the number of observations z_i used in the test statistic; P₁=P(H₁ ) is the prior probability for hypothesis H₁ that signal s₁ is present and 1-P₁ =P(H₀) corresponds to the hypothesis H₀ that signal s₀ is present; and p=Pr{z_i⩾0|H₁} with s₀=0 for the traditional sign detector and p=Pr{z_i⩾λ|H₁ }=Pr{z_i<λ|H₀} with λ =(s₀+s₁)/2 for the modified sign detector. The expressions for λ₀₁ and λ₀₂, are given explicitly, and shown to be independent of P₁ for sufficiently large M. Optimal P_e versus M performance curves, corresponding to both versions of the sign detector, are obtained for a representative range of values for p and P₁     

Statistical inference under multiterminal rate restrictions: adifferential geometric approach

A statistical inference problem for a two-terminal information source emitting mutually correlated signals X and Y is treated. Let sequences Xⁿ and Yⁿ of n independent observations be encoded independently of each other into message sets M_X and M_Y at rates R₁ and R ₂ per letter, respectively. This compression causes a loss of the statistical information available for testing hypotheses concerning X and Y. The loss of statistical information is evaluated as a function of the amounts R₁ and R ₂ of the Shannon information. A complete solution is given in the case of asymptotically complete data compression, R₁, R₂→0 as n→∞. It is shown that the differential geometry of the manifold of all probability distributions plays a fundamental role in this type of multiterminal problem connecting Shannon information and statistical information. A brief introduction to the dually coupled e-affine and m-affine connections together with e -flatness and m-flatness is given     

Burst error statistics of simulated Viterbi decoded BPSK on fadingand scintillating channels

The author presents and analyzes burst error statistics of a soft-decision Viterbi decoder when the transmitted signal is encoded with the 313 (3, 1/2) or 31123 (5, 1/2) convolutional codes, modulated via coherent binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) for the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, and subjected to slow and nonselective scintillation/fading modeled by the Nakagami-m distribution. These statistics were generated by Monte-Carlo simulations, and presented in terms of burst error length average and quantile (90 and 99%) statistics versus SNR (E_b/N₀) parameterized by the fading intensity parameter m. The results indicate how Viterbi decoder burst error statistics vary with the fading/scintillation intensity m for Nakagami-m channels, and, consequently, provide information important to the design of interleaved or noninterleaved concatenated coding schemes for such channel environments     

Phase-difference distribution for a narrow-band non-Gaussian noiseand related statistics

A probability density function _Pm(R₁,R₂,Δ) is presented for a narrowband noise process in which R₁ and R₂ are two envelope samples and Δ is the phase difference. For m=1 the process is Gaussian, but for m=2,3, etc., it is non-Gaussian. New second-order statistical properties are identified for it as well as the density function for the resulting envelope when a signal is added to the noise. These results are given, though the major concern is with the density of the phase difference Δ and the density of &thetas;, the response of an FM detector fed with the noise     

Sequential decoding based on an error criterion

An analysis of sequential decoding is presented that is based on the requirement that a set probability error P_e be achieved. The error criterion implies a bounded tree or trellis search region: the shape of this is calculated for the case of a binary symmetric channel with crossover probability P and random tree codes of rate R. Since the search region is finite at all combinations of p and R below capacity, there is no cutoff rate phenomenon for any P_e>0. The decoder delay (search depth), the path storage size, and the number of algorithm steps for several tree search methods are calculated. These include searches without backtracking and backtracking searches that are depth- and metric-first. The search depth of the non-backtracking decoders satisfies the Gallager reliability exponent for block codes. In average paths searched, the backtracking decoders are much more efficient, but all types require the same peak storage allocation. Comparisons are made to well-known algorithms     

A fast algorithm for computing distance spectrum of convolutionalcodes

A fast algorithm for searching a tree (FAST) is presented for computing the distance spectrum of convolutional codes. The distance profile of a code is used to limit substantially the error patterns that have to be searched. The algorithm can easily be modified to determine the number of nonzero information bits of an incorrect path as well as the length of an error event. For testing systematic codes, a faster version of the algorithm is given. FAST is much faster than the standard bidirectional search. On a microVAX, d_∞=27 was verified for a rate R=1/2, memory M=25 code in 37 s of CPU time. Extensive tables of rate R=1/2 encoders are given. Several of the listed encoders have distance spectra superior to those of any previously known codes of the same rate and memory. A conjecture than an R=1/2 systematic convolutional code of memory 2M will perform as well as a nonsystematic convolutional code of memory M is given strong support     

Bounds for abnormal binary codes with covering radius one

The normality of binary codes is studied. The minimum cardinality of a binary code of length n with covering radius R is denoted by K(n,R). It is assumed that C is an (n,M)R code, that is, a binary code of length n with M codewords and covering radius R. It is shown that if C is an (n,M)1 code, then it is easy to find a normal (n ,M)1 code by changing C in a suitable way, and that all the optimal (n,M)1 codes (i.e. those for which M=K(n,1)) are normal and their every coordinate is acceptable. It is shown that if C is an abnormal (n,M) code, then n⩾9, and an abnormal (9118)1 code which is the smallest abnormal code known at present, is constructed. Lower bounds on the minimum cardinality of a binary abnormal code of length n with covering radius 1 are derived, and it is shown that if an (n,M)1 code is abnormal, then M⩾96     

Bayes estimation of reliability under a random environment governedby a Dirichlet prior

The reliability function of a component whose lifetime is exponentially distributed with a known parameter λ>0 is R (t|λ)=exp (-λt). If an environmental effect multiplies the parameter by a positive factor η, then the reliability function becomes R(t|η,λ)=exp(-ηλt). The authors assume that η itself is random, and its uncertainty is described by a Dirichlet process prior D(α) with parameter α=MG₀, where M>O represents an intensity of assurance in the prior guess, G₀, of the (unknown) distribution of η. Under squared error loss, the Bayes estimator of R(t|η,λ) is derived both for the no-sample problem and for a sample of size n. Using Monte Carlo simulation, the effects of n, M, G₀ on the estimator are studied. These examples show that: (a) large values of n lead to estimates where the data outweigh the prior, and (b) large values of M increase the contribution of the prior to the estimates. These simulation results support intuitive ideas about the effect of environment and lifetime parameters on reliability     

On linear structure and phase rotation invariant properties ofblock M-PSK modulation codes

Two important structural properties of block M(=2^' )-ary PSK modulation codes, linear structure and phase symmetry, are investigated. An M-ary modulation code is first represented as a code with symbols from the integer group S_M-PSK=(0,1,2,---,M-1) under modulo-M addition. Then the linear structure of block M-PSK modulation codes over S_M-PSK with respect to modulo- M vector addition is defined, and conditions are derived under which a block M-PSK modulation code is linear. Once the linear structure is developed, the phase symmetry of block M-PSK modulation codes is studied. In particular, a necessary and sufficient condition for a block M-PSK modulation code that is linear as a binary code to be invariant under 2^h/180°M phase rotation, for 1⩽h⩽l is derived. Finally, a list of short 8-PSK and 16-PSK modulation codes is given, together with their linear structure and the smallest phase rotation for which a code is invariant     

Asymptotic performance of M-ary orthogonal signals inworst case partial-band interference and Rayleigh fading

It is shown that for worst-case partial-band jamming, the error probability performance (for fixed E_b/N_I) becomes worse with increasing M for (M>16). The asymptotic probability-of-error is not zero for any E_b/N _I(>ln 2), but decreases inverse linearly with respect to it. In the fading case, the error-probability performance (for fixed E_b/N₀) improves with M for noncoherent detection, but worsens with M for coherent detection. For large E_b/N₀ the performance of the Rayleigh fading channel asymptotically approaches the same limit as the worst case partial-band jammed channel. However, for values of M at least up to 4096, the partial-band jammed channel does better. While it is unlikely that an M-ary orthogonal signal set with M>1024 will be used in a practical situation, these results suggest an important theoretical problem; namely, what signal set achieves reliable communication     

Performance of time diversity/convolutional coding scheme

A rate R=1/3 coding scheme, comprising a time diversity delay line and an R=2/3 convolutional code, is investigated. The bit error rate performance of the scheme on a binary symmetric channel and a burst error channel is presented     

Error performance of a digitally processed binary ESK frequencyhopping receiver in the presence of large Doppler

Analysis is made of the effects of Doppler on the error rate performance of a low data rate binary FSK frequency hopping receiver, employing a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) technique for baseband detection. Bit detection decision is made by locating the maximum of the DFT outputs which, in the frequency domain, are assumed to be separated by 1/T where T is the bit period. Both the worst case and average error performances are obtained and presented as a function of E_b/N₀ for various values of M where E_b/N₀ is the signal bit energy-to-noise density ratio and M is the degree of freedom associated with the Doppler uncertainty window. The E _b/N₀ degradation as a function of M is also presented     

Performance limits of coded multilevel DPSK in cellular mobileradio

Performance limits of coded multilevel differential PSK (MDPSK) in multipath Rayleigh fading channels are described. The simple Gaussian metric is assumed for reasons for practicality even though it is not the maximum likelihood. The channel cutoff rate, R₀ of MDPSK is analyzed based on the metric. Account is taken of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), cochannel interference, and multipath channel delay spread. For the analysis of the spectrum efficiency of a cellular mobile radio system employing coded MDPSK, its service area is defined as the area in which, with a bit rate of R information bit/symbol (R⩽R₀), reliable communications are possible. Three optimal information bit rates are determined from the channel cutoff rate to minimize the required average signal energy per information bit-to-noise power spectral density ratio (E_b/N₀) to maximize the tolerable r.m.s. delay spread τ_r.m.s. and to maximize the spectrum efficiency     

Tight bounds on the redundancy of Huffman codes

A method for deriving optimal upper bounds on the redundancy of binary Huffman codes in terms of the probability p₁ of the most likely source letter is presented. This method will be used to compute bounds for all p₁⩾1/127, which were previously known only for a few special cases. Furthermore, the known optimal lower bound for binary Huffman codes is generalized to arbitrary code alphabets and some upper bounds for D-ary Huffman codes, 2⩽D<∞, are given, which are the tightest possible for all p₁⩾1/2     

Quantization loss in convolutional decoding

The loss in quantizing coded symbols in the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel with binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) or quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) modulation is discussed. A quantization scheme and branch metric calculation method are presented. For the uniformly quantized AWGN channel, cutoff rate is used to determine the step size and the smallest number of quantization bits needed for a given bit-signal-to-noise ratio (E_b/N₀) loss. A nine-level quantizer is presented, along with 3-b branch metrics for a rate-1/2 code, which causes an E_b/N₀ loss of only 0.14 dB. These results also apply to soft-decision decoding of block codes. A tight upper bound is derived for the range of path metrics in a Viterbi decoder. The calculations are verified by simulations of several convolutional codes, including the memory-14, rate-1/4 or -1/6 codes used by the big Viterbi decoders at JPL     

Orphans of the first order Reed-Muller codes

If C is a code, an orphan is a coset that is not a descendant. Orphans arise naturally in the investigation of the covering radius. Case C has only even-weight vectors and minimum distance of at least four. Cosets that are orphans are characterized, and then the existence is proved of a family of orphans of first-order Reed-Muller codes R(1, m). For m⩽5 all orphans of R(1, m) are identified     

Molecular-beam growth of homoepitaxial InSb photovoltaic detectors

Molecular-beam epitaxy has been used for the first time to fabricate np junctions in InSb grown onto p-type InSb (100) substrates. Diodes formed by the epitaxial growth of a silicon-doped layer on undoped homoepitaxial material exhibited a bulk generation-recombination-limited R₀A value of 10⁵ Ω cm² and D_λpk * of 3×10¹² cm Hz^1/2 W^-1 at liquid nitrogen temperature     

A note on D-ary Huffman codes

An upper bound on the redundancy of D-ary Huffman codes in terms of the probability p₁ of the most likely source letter is provided. For large values of p₁, the bound improves the one given by R.G. Gallager (1978). Additionally, some results known for the binary case (D=2) are extended to arbitrary D-ary Huffman codes. As a consequence, a tight lower bound that corrects a bound recently proposed by J.D. Golic and M.M. Obradovic (1987) is derived