Digital Communications Over Fading Channels

Abstract

In this report, the probabilities of bit error for the most commonly used digital modulation techniques are analyzed. Analytic solutions are developed for the probability of bit error when the signal is affected by the most commonly encountered impairment to system performance for a wireless channel, the transmission of the signal over a fading channel. In this report, the effect of a slow, flat Ricean fading channel on communications systems performance is examined. Since channel fading significantly degrades the performance of a communication system, the performance of digital communication systems that also use forward error correction channel coding is analyzed for hard decision decoding and, where appropriate, for soft decision decoding. Diversity, another technique to mitigate the effect of fading channels on digital communication systems performance, is also discussed. Also included is a discussion of the effect of narrowband noise interference, both continuous and pulsed, on digital communication systems. We then discuss the analysis of the probability of bit error for the combination of error correction coding and diversity. Following this, we briefly discuss spread spectrum systems. Next, we examine the link budget analysis and various models for channel loss. Finally, we examine in detail the second generation digital wireless standard Global System for Mobile (GSM).

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 15, 2004
Accession Number
ADA429011

Entities

People

  • Nathan E. Beltz
  • R. C. Robertson

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Bandwidth
  • Channel Coding
  • Code Division Multiple Access
  • Coding
  • Communication Channels
  • Communication Systems
  • Decoding
  • Digital Communications
  • Frequency
  • Frequency Diversity
  • Frequency Shift
  • Modulation
  • Multiple Access
  • Narrowband
  • Probability
  • Repetition Rate
  • Spread Spectrum

Fields of Study

  • Engineering

Readers

  • Radio communications and signal processing.