Digital Modulation Schemes Evaluation of BER for AWGN
And Fading Channels of Wireless
Navinn A/L Mohanaraj
Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, Universitiy Malaysia Sabah
Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
navinnmohanraj@gmail.com
AbstractData communication or known as digital
communication means transferring the data from one place
to another by physical connection. Digital systems are
developing in an enormous ways. With the growing, it has
become a necessity to maintaining and ensuring the quality
of service for real-time transmission of video applications
and gives users more powerful efficient services by using
better techniques. The power efficiency, Error rate,
Bandwidth efficiency, cost etc are the examples of the
various performance characteristics of digital modulation
techniques. M-ary Phase Shift Keying and M-ary
Quadrature Amplitude Modulation are the two most known
techniques which are used in wireless communication to test
and verify the performance of fading channels.
In this paper, the evaluation of BER or known as Bit Error
Rate is performed under AWGN, Rayleigh and Rician
fading channels, and among these channels the Rician
fading channel has shown better performances compare to
the other two.
Keywords-fading;AWGN;Rician;Rayleigh;MQAM;MPSK
I. INTRODUCTION
The exceptional technological transformation over a
few decades has created a potential growth in the field of
digital communication [1]. Speed, connectivity and the
receptiveness are the reason that makes it to be in a high
demand situation. The future generation will have to face a
higher demand for the high prices of data, mobility, larger
carrier frequencies and also more link reliability [1]. To
prevent those problems in future based on higher demands
it is necessary to have knowledge or an understanding of
the behavior of wireless channels to determine the
performance limits.
In wireless communication, fading is the variation of
the attenuation of a signal with numerous variables such as
the time, geographical position and etc. For a more better
planning for designing the system a lot of comparative
studies of different modulation method by using different
multipath communications are conducted [4]. In this
paper, we carried out the simulation for the performance
analysis with various modulation method of digital
communication system. M-ary Phase Shift Keying
(MPSK) and M-ary Quadrature Amplitude Modulation are
the modulation that we used to compare. The performance
of the data transmission of wireless communication is
determined by the level of their bit error rate (BER) as a
function of SNR or signal to noise ratio at the receiver. A
few studies has been cinducted on the communication
system models in order to calculate the SNR of the
system. Path loss exponent and channel gain were used in
these systems [2].
This paper has been sorted out as: In section II,
description of different types of fading channel. At section
III is the discussion of the schemes or techniques that we
used for evaluating the performance of the channels in the
selected paper. Section IV stated the comparison of the
simulation results of both the paper. In section V, the
results of the simulations form MATLAB are discussed.
Finally, section VI contained the conclusion.
II. FADING
Fading is known as the degradation of signal quality
over a large distances even when the absence of large
quantities of AWGN. Those which exhibit these
properties are called as fading channels. There are several
causes of the fading such as the weather disturbance,
man-made disturbance such s irrigation or even from the
multipath propagation. In this paper we are focusing in
Rayleigh fading and also Rician Fading.
Rayleigh fading is a form of fading that occurs in
multipath propagation. Its uses the statistical model to
analyze the propagation. It assumes that the magnitude of
a signal that passed through a transmission medium will
differ randomly according to Rayleigh distributions. This
model is useful when the signal considered to be scattered
or when there is no dominant propagation between the
transmitter and receiver.
Rician fading happens when having a much stronger
path than the others. When the radio signal partially
cancelled by itself the signal arrives at the receiver from
several different paths and this s the reason of the rician
fading.
.
III. PAPER METHOD
The M-PSK and M-QAM are the techniques that we
used for evaluating the performance of fading channels
which are Rayleigh and Rician, and also AWGN. We used
16-QAM and 64-QAM for the M-QAM and also for
BPSK and 8PSK are used for the M-PSK in this paper.
IV. RESULTS
The results for the simulation of MATLAB are shown
in figures below. All the simulations included the M-PSK
and M-QAM are done by using MATLAB. The pdf or the
probability density function of Rayleigh fading channel
and also the Rician fading channel are simulated and
plotted in MATLAB. This both plot shows the
characteristics of their respective fading channel. Finally,
the constellation 8-PSK and also 16-QAM are also plotted.
Figure 1a.Rayleigh Fading PDF Figure 4a. 16-Constellation of QAM

Figure 5a.BPSK and 8-PSK

Figure 2a.Rician Fading PDF

Figure 6a.16-QAM and 64-QAM

Figure 3a.8-Constellatio of PSK

V. DISCUSSION
The first figure represents the simulation of the PDF or
known as probability density function of Rayleigh and its
compares with a normal PDF in a graphical method. We
can compute the Rayleigh pdf by using the
Y=raylpdf(x,B) in MATLAB for the values of x. The
Rayleigh pdf is an unsymmetrical graph and its because
the different signal path in between receiver to transmitter
for this channel. The affection of the signal received is due
to the variation of the path at the end of the receiver. The
combination of the direct view line and multipath is
known as Rician fading. Therefore, This fading has path
directly connecting with receiver and to the transmitter.
Because of the path that directly connecting to receiver
and transmitter the amount of fading in the signal that has
been transmitted are lesser in the graph of Rician. Next
figure shows a probability density function for the fading
of Rician with different values for the s. When, s equal to
zero, the graph shows that the fading is there meanwhile
when the s rises the Rayleigh fading start to absence. In
this situation there is only component of the obstruction on
the path is present.
The next modulation is the MPSK where one of M
phase will be selected by the data bits. It can be said that
this modulation transfers data by phase changing of a
signal. Therefore, the M(note: M=2x where x is 1,2,3)
possible waveforms have the equal frequency and also
amplitude with a differ phases. BPSK is the one of the
forms that we used in this analysis. The B represent of
Binary of M equal to 2 and the M equal to 8 for 8PSK.
The MPSK modulated the signal of input and give back a
complex output in the form of baseband. Zero and one are
the constellation value for the BPSK. The figure 3
represents the 8-PSK constellation and it shows that the 8-
phases are presence for M equal to 8. MQAM is a famous
scheme for its high-rate and also high bandwidth which
makes the system to be efficiency. The combination of the
amplitude and also the phase modulation is called as
QAM. Baseband data for the MQAM is one and zero. The
signal of MQAM contain of 2 phase-quadrature carries
with each one is a set of discrete amplitudes. The form of
the final signal is the summation of two signals in the form
of orthogonal which have same fc (carrier frequency) and
also quadrature components. In this paper, we used the 64
and 16 QAM forms. In figure 4, it shows the phases that
produced. For 16 QAM, the 16 represents the total number
of phases which have 16 differ phases. As for the 64
QAM schemes it will show similar pattern but then, it will
have 64 differ phases.
The channel performances were analysed with the same
method as for the MPSK,16-QAM,64-QAM with BPSK
and also 8-PSK are used again for M-QAM. Figure 5,
explain that the BER performance of the channel of
Rayleigh, Rician and also the Additive White Gaussian
noise are analysed with BPSK and also 8-PSK. But the
figure 6 explains that by using 16-QAM and also 64-QAM
modulation technique we analysed the BER performance
of those Rayleigh channel, Rician channel and also the
Additive White Gaussian noise channel. The bit error rate
reduces exponentially for higher amount of SNR in the
Additive White Gaussian noise channel. When the SNR
rises, BER reduces and the SNR shows a pattern of linear.
The bits increase when the M rises, while the error rate
rises too. Thus, the minimum for Additive White Gaussian
noise is BER. For the maximum of Rayleigh channel and
rician channel is also BER. We know that the Additive
White Gaussian noise is not considered as fading channel.
Hence, in comparison between the Rayleigh channel and
Rician channel the bit error rate versus the signal to noise
ratio are used. The bit error rate value is lower compared
to the Rayleigh channel when the Light of sight is present
in the fading for the path directly transmitted. When using
the 16-QAm technique signal to noise ratio for Additive
White Gaussian noise its look like to be almost 8dB and
for Rayleigh channel and Rician channel the signal to
noise ratio is nearly to 17dB and also 11dB for each other
respectively. Finally we get to know that the Rayleigh has
a lower performance from the Additive White Gaussian
noise and also Rician channels and its because of the
vacancy of the Line of Sight from transmitter to receiver.
VI. CONCLUSION
In a conclusion, to rises the noise immunity, we need to
raise the power of the signal too. The total amount that
need to raise the power of signal is depends with the
modulation techniques and its because we need to
maintain a certain bit error rate. For guarantying a certain
amount of bit error rate is required that the SNR (Eb/No)
at the receiver. In this modern era, the requirement for data
rates are keep rising and to ensure the quality of the
applications service the data rate is also increasing. There
are several experiments or techniques by using the
modulation schemes are conducted for reducing the bit
error rate in channels while transmitting. From this paper,
we get to know that by increasing the rate of data we can
decreases the width of the pulse of a digital symbol and
eventually it will make the bandwidth of signal to
increase. M-ary schemes makes the bandwidth to increase
but its needed a higher power of transmission to maintain
the same level of bit error rate. For this paper, the MPSK
and the MQAM is used for wireless applications with the
AWGN and also fading channels such as Rayleigh and
Rician channels. When the values of M are equal we can
see that Rician channel shows a better performance
compare to the Additive White Gaussian noise and for the
other channel which is Rayleigh fading channel.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I wish thanks to the author of the conference paper
Evaluation of BER of Digital Modulation Schemes for
AWGN And Wireless Fading Channels. I have used this
paper to do this assignment and I also would like to wish a
special thanks to my communication lecturer Dr. Ali
Farzamnia for giving me an opportunity to simulate the
conference paper and in meanwhile I get to gain some
information from this project.
REFERENCES
[1] S. C. Yong, K. Jaekwon, Y.Y. Won and G. K. Chung, MIMO-
OFDM Wireless Communications with Matlab, John Wiley and
Sons, 2010.
[2] D. Dutt Bohra,A. Bora , Bit Error Rate Analysis in Simulation of
Digital Communication Systems with different Modulation
Schemes, International Journal of Innovative Science, vol. 1 Issue
3, May 2014.
[3] X. LEI,P. FAN, On the Error Performance of M-ary Modulation [5] A. Sudhir Babu, K. Sambasiva Rao, Evaluation of BER for
Schemes on Rician Nakagami Fading Channels, Wireless AWGN, Rayleigh and Rician Fading Channels under Various
Personal Communications, vol. 53, no 4, p. 591-602, 2010. Modulation Schemes, International Journal of Computer
[4] X. LEI,P. FAN, On the Error Performance of M-ary Modulation Applications, Vol. 26 No. 9, July 2011.
Schemes on Rician Nakagami Fading Channels, Wireless [6] E. Taissir, Effet of AWGN and Fading (Rayleigh and Rician)
Personal Communications, vol. 53, no 4, p. 591-602, 2010. Channels on BER Performance of Free Space Optics (FSO)
. Communication Systems, International Journal of Research in
Wireless Systems (IJRWS), Vol. 2 Issue 2, June 2013.