MSK-Type Reception of Continuous Phase Modulation: Co-Channel and Adjacent Channel Interference

Journal article, 1987

For binary continuous-phase modulation with modulation indexh = 1/2(MSK being a rather familiar example), quadrature matched-filter reception is possible with only minor degradation relative to the maximum likelihood (trellis-based) receiver. Thus this class of modulations provides good spectral attributes together with reception techniques capable of being implemented simply at high speeds. As usual, the constant-envelope property is also present. We study here the effects of interfering signals with the same modulation format, located at the same frequency (cochannel interference), or at a nearby frequency (adjacent channel interference). Coherent reception is assumed, and we analyze two channel situations: both signals nonfading with additive Gaussian noise; and both signals independently Rayleigh fading, with additive Gaussian noise. As one would expect, the smoothed phase modulation schemes have larger tolerable adjacent channel levels, while there is little differentiation in the cochannel case. We also find that MSK filters are usable for other formats with negligible loss in performance relative to the optimal linear filters, provided the filter parameters are rescaled appropriately.