Performance Monitor Techniques for Digital Receivers Based on Extrapolation of Error Rate

There is a need in many digital communication systems to estimate the current digital error rate of the receiver without the use of special transmissions and without interrupting traffic flow. Devices for performing this function have been termed performance monitor units (PMU). As an element of an adaptive communication system, the PMU could be used to determine when adaptive change is needed and, by comparing the error rates which would result from the various available choices of adaptation, to select the best change to be made at any time. This paper describes a PMU technique which is applicable to a wide class of digital modulation methods. Details are given for the cases of noncoherent frequency shift keying (FSK), differentially coherent phase shift keying (PSK), and coherent PSK receivers operating over a fading channel.