An Iterative Soft Bit Error Rate Estimation of Any Digital Communication Systems Using a Nonparametric Probability Density Function

Abstract

In general, performance of communication system receivers cannot be calculated analytically. The bit error rate (BER) is thus computed using the Monte Carlo (MC) simulation (Bit Error Counting). It is shown that if we wish to have reliable results with good precision, the total number of transmitted data must be conversely proportional to the product of the true BER by the relative error of estimate. Consequently, for small BERs, simulation results take excessively long computing time depending on the complexity of the receiver. In this paper, we suggest a new means of estimating the BER. This method is based on an estimation, in an iterative and nonparametric way, of the probability density function (pdf) of the soft decision of the received bit. We will show that the hard decision is not needed to compute the BER and the total number of transmitted data needed is very small compared to the classical MC simulation. Consequently, computing time is reduced drastically. Some theoretical results are also given to prove the convergence of this new method in the sense of mean square error (MSE) criterion. Simulation results of the suggested BER are given using a simple synchronous CDMA system.

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