Design of coded CPFSK modulation systems for bandwidth and energy efficiency

Consideration is given to the problems related to the design of M-ary continuous-phase frequency-shift keying (CPFSK) systems with modulation index h=J/M, combined with eternal rate r binary convolution encoders. The following questions are raised and answered: (1) how should different encoder-modulator systems be compared and how can comparable systems be recognized from the system parameters, i.e. M, h, and r?; (2) what are the limits on the information rate per unit bandwidth, versus signal-to-noise ratio, when reliable transmission is required?; (3) how does one choose the system parameters M, h, and r when the overall system has to achieve a specified performance?; and (4) how does one design the external rate r binary convolutional encoder to put in front of the M-ary CPFSK modulation system with h=J/M ? A simple approximation for the bandwidth of a CPFSK signal is given and shown to be sufficiently accurate for system design purposes. The design of the external convolutional encoder is carried out in a novel way that leads to fewer states in the combined encoder-modulator system and thus yields improved performance for a given demodulation-decoding complexity compared to previous approaches for the design of coded CPFSK systems