Effects of CW- and BPSK-Signal Interference on a Standard BPSK Digital Communications System

Abstract : In this report, the effects of two forms of interference on the error rate of a standard binary phase shift keyed (BPSK) digital communications system are examined. Specifically, the impacts of Continuous Wave- CW) carrier and other BPSK-signal interferers on the probability of bit error in the matched- filter receiver of the standard BPSK communications system are calculated as functions of interferer-to-signal carrier power ratios, frequency offsets, phase offsets, and relative data rates. The term standard implies that no spread spectrum or forward error correction (FEC) coding techniques are employed in the BPSK system of interest. In all of the calculations of the effects of the interferers on the bit-error probability of the standard BPSK communications system contained in this report, it is assumed the reference signal used for coherent demodulation of the received signal is not affected by the interference. In practice, since the reference signal is derived from the received signal by means of a carrier-tracking loop, the quality of the reference signal will be degraded by the interference when J/S is sufficiently high.