Symbol Error Rate with Receiver Nonlinearity

Nonlinearity of radio frequency components can lead to undesirable effects such as desensitization, cross-modulation and intermodulation. It is especially of concern in wideband receivers in emerging shared spectrum spaces where adjacent channel signals, or blockers, can enter the receiver circuitry and cause third order intermodulation distortion. This paper analyzes the fundamental aspects of communication system performance with receiver nonlinearity. We derive symbol error rate expressions as a function of blocker power levels and receiver nonlinearity for modulated signals with modulated blockers. These expressions enable analyzing dynamic spectrum access performance and devising receiver-cognizant spectrum access systems. Our numerical results show that SNR losses of more than 2 dB can incur in heterogeneous radio environments.