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Automatic Modulation Classification for Low SNR Digital Signal in Frequency-Selective Fading Environments

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Abstract

In this research, a classifier is proposed for automatic modulation classification of some common modulation schemes, i.e., BPSK, QPSK, 8-PSK and 16-QAM. Our proposed classifier considers multipath fading effects on the received signal in a non-Gaussian noise environment. Automatic modulation classification is very challenging in real-world scenarios due to fading effects and additive Gaussian mixture noise on modulation schemes. Most of the available modulation classifiers do not consider the fading effects which results in degradation of classification in a blind channel environment. In our work, the channel is supposed to be suffering from excessive additive Gaussian mixture noise and frequency selective fading resulting in low signal SNR. The estimation of the unknown channel along with noise parameters is performed using ECM algorithm and then used in maximum-likelihood classifier for the classification of modulation schemes. Simulation results are presented that show 2 dB improvement in performance than classifier which considers only Gaussian noise in the received signal.

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Acknowledgments

This research work is supported by the Research Centre of College of Computer and Information Sciences at King Saud University through Project No. RC121262. The authors are grateful for this support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National University of Science and Technology, Islamabad, 44000, Pakistan

    Waqas Wallayt & Muhammad S. Younis

  2. College of Computer and Information Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    Muhammad Imran & Muhammad Shoaib

  3. Qatar University, 2713, Doha, Qatar

    Mohsen Guizani

Authors
  1. Waqas Wallayt
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  2. Muhammad S. Younis
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  3. Muhammad Imran
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  4. Muhammad Shoaib
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  5. Mohsen Guizani
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Correspondence to Muhammad Imran.

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Wallayt, W., Younis, M.S., Imran, M. et al. Automatic Modulation Classification for Low SNR Digital Signal in Frequency-Selective Fading Environments. Wireless Pers Commun 84, 1891–1906 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-015-2544-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-015-2544-6

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