Performance of Receivers in Digital Radio Applications Operating in the Presence of Noise and Jamming

The performance of digital communication systems operating in the presence of noise and jamming is analyzed and evaluated. Specifically, by modeling the jamming as additive colored Gaussian noise, and considering transmission via M-ary phase shift keyed (MPSK) modulation as well as Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM), receiver performance is determined in terms of symbol error probability, Ps. The receiver analyzed is optimum for the modulation used when the channel interference consists of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) only, and does not process signals utilizing spread spectrum modulation or forward error correction schemes. Furthermore, the derived results for Ps are used in order to optimize the shape of the colored noise (jamming) spectrum so as to cause maximum receiver degradation, subject to a jamming power constraint. Results on numerical evaluations are presented graphically, thus displaying receiver vulnerability to a specific form of jamming.