PHYSIM - A Physical Layer Simulation Software

Modern communication systems use different physical layer (PHY) techniques with diverse performance characteristics. Each PHY configuration option introduces trade-offs for spectral efficiency, robustness, out-of-band emissions, peak-to-average power ratio, and implementation complexity. This paper introduces the cross-platform PHYSIM software framework. PHYSIM can compare established modulations like orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) with modern alternatives, e.g., filter bank multi-carrier, universal filtered multi-carrier, and filtered-OFDM. Additionally, PHYSIM can draw performance comparisons between new coding schemes like polar codes and more established methods like low-density parity-check codes and turbo codes. The PHYSIM graphical user interface (GUI) assists in the design of physical layer parameters. The GUI offers plots to compare the performance of PHY configurations in transmission channels. The plots display the transmitted spectra, the received constellation diagrams, as well as the modulation, bit, and frame error ratios. Hence, the PHYSIM simulation framework assists the designer of a physical layer system and helps to find PHY settings for a target application.