On the Utility of Sixth-Order Cyclic Cumulants for RI?
Signal Classification
Chad M. Spooner
Mission Research Corporation
spooner@mrcmry.com
Abstract
Several researchers have recently proposed the use
of higher-order cumulants as features for automatic
communication-signal classijication. Cumulants can
be associated with a stationary signal model or with
a cyclostationary signal model, in which case they
are periodically time-varying with Fourier compo-
nents called cyclic cumulants. These researchers limit
the maximum order to foul; and it is commonly be-
lieved that sixth- and higher-order cumulants pro-
vide no additional benejt due to their relatively large
measurement-error variance. However, we have ob-
served experimentally that classification performance
can be improved by the use of sixth-order cyclic cu-
mulants. In this paper, we present the results of a
simulation study of the cumulant variancefor signals
corrupted by cochunnel interference and AWGN. Situ-
ations in which the use of sixth-order cumulants pro-
vides a classification beneJit are provided and the ben-
eft is quantified.
1 Introduction
For noncooperative communication problems, includ-
ing signal detection, classification, interception, and
emitter location, the problem of automatic signal de-
tection and classification is of great importance both
because the successful solution of this problem is used
as an input to the remaining problems and because sig-
nal classification information is itself a valuable prod-
uct. Moreover, for cooperative communication, the
ability to quickly and automatically classify a signal is
increasingly important for multifunction receivers and
software radio.
As we have done in previous papers [1,2], we point
0-7803-7 147-X/01/$10.0002001 EEE 890
out here the distinction between two kinds of signal
classification problems. In the first problem, most or
all of the signal parameters are assumed known, and
the problem reduces to determining the modulation
type. The choice is typically constrained to a small
number of candidate signal classes. This problem is
amenable to optimization of various sorts as well as to
feature-based classification schemes (see [2] and ref-
erences therein). In the second problem, very little
is assumed known regarding the data to be processed.
That is, the number of active spectral bands, number
and types of signals within the bands, and the sig-
nals' parameters are all unknown prior to processing.
The set of candidate signal classes is very large. We
are primarily interested in this latter problem, dubbed
the general search problem (GSP),but the results con-
tained herein apply to the former problem as well.
Of particular interest for the GSP are features that
can be used for signal detection, parameter estimation,
and classification, and that can be used in a cochannel-
signal situation. Of the many proposed features, we
have focused on nth-order cyclic cumulants [3,4] be-
cause they provide all of the desired properties for the
GSP. Their drawbacks are computational, mathemat-
ical, and conceptual complexity. Some authors have
also suggested that an addition drawback is the in-
creasing variance of the cumulant as n increases. This
point brings us to the paper topic. Contrary to what ap-
pears to be a commonly held belief, sixth-order cumu-
lants are indeed useful for signal classification, even
for relatively short observation intervals. Evidence for
this conclusion is presented in the remainder of this
paper.
This paper is organized in the following manner.
In Section 2, we present the time-domain probabil-
ity structure of communication signals [3], expressed
in terms of time-varying cumulant functions. Rele- where m of the factors are conjugated, and the corre-
vant prior classification work involving cumulants is sponding nth-order cumulant function is given by
reviewed in Section 3, and the variance of cumulant
P
estimates is empirically investigated in Section 4. Fi-
nally, the results of several classification experiments
7 ;n, m)
~ z ( t7 = WP) R",~( t 7 7 v j ; nj7 m j ) ,
P,, j=1
are provided in Section 5. Conclusions are drawn in
Section 6. where the sum is over all distinct partitions { ~ j } ; =of~
the index set { 1 , 2 , . . . ,n } and k ( p ) = (-l)P-l(p -
2 Characterizing the Signals of Interest l)! [3]. Since the nth-order moment functions are
polyperiodic functions of time, so too are the nth-order
We are interested in all communications signals, in- cumulant functions, and we can represent the latter as
cluding wireline, terrestrial wireless, mobile radio, and a Fourier series,
satellite signals. Our generic data model is given by
M-1
z(t)= aksk(t - t k ) ei2nfkt+'i$k + w ( t ) , (1) C ~ <n,
Um); = c,B([T~ ...Tn-101; n, m)
k=O
where each Component signal Sk is the complex en-
(a) where C!(U;n, m) is called a cyclic cmulmr (CC)
velope of a corresponding RF signal, and w ( t )is white and ,f3 is an nth-order cyclefrequency (CF).
Gaussian noise (WGN). Note that this data model does A key propeq of CCs that makes them desirable
not restrict the signals to linear modulation types (e.g., for our present purpose is signal selectivity:
digital QAM). However, digital QAM is of practical
importance, and will be the focus of this paper. For z ( t ) = zo(t) + ... + rcM-l(t) + w ( t )
M-1
digital QAM and PSK signals, the complex-envelope
signal is given by CA*, 7 ;n, m) = CZk(t,7 ;n, m)
k=O
00
+Cw(t, 7 ;n7 m)
Sk(t) = b j d t -j T k ) , (2)
j=-w provided /3 is
and C ! ( ~ ; n , m )= CZk(7;n,m),
B
where { b j } is the complex-valued symbol sequence, unique to signal z k (t).
drawn from an alphabet of symbols (the constellation)
that defines the modulation type, p ( . ) is a complex- Cumulants of Digital QAM/PSK.
valued Fourier-transformablepulse function, and 1 / T k For the signal model (2), the CCs are nonzero only for
is the symbol rate. ,f3 = q / T k , and are given by

Probability Structure.
Virtually all communications signals are usefully and
accurately modeled as cycZosrutionary time-series (or
random processes) [3,4,5]. This common ground pro- The cumulant Cb,n,m is the cumulant for the constella-
vides a starting point for the general decision-theoretic tion random variable; it is tabulated in Table 1.
analysis sketched in [2]. A theory of cyclostation-
ary signals is provided for second-order probabilistic 3 Relevant Prior Work
parameters in [5] and for higher-order parameters in
[3, 41. The most relevant parameters for our present Several researchers have proposed using cumulants
purpose are reviewed here. or cyclic cumulants to perform signal classification.
The nth-order moment function is defined by However, none have used sixth- or higher-order cumu-
lants. Relevant signal classification work is briefly re-
&(t, 7 ;n, m) = E nn

j=1
z(*)j(t + Ti), viewed in this section. To set the stage for the presen-
tation of experimental results employing sixth-order

89 1
 n=4 I n=6
Const. m = 0 . 4 I m = 2 II m = l . 5 I m = 3
QPSK I 1.o -1.0 -4.0 I 4.0
I
MPSK I 0.0 -1.0 0.0 I 4.0
Table 1. The cumulants for several complex-
valued constellations. All constellationshave
a mean of zero and variance of one.
CCs, the classification system employed by the author
is described in some detail.
Swami et al.
In the work of Swami, Sadler, et al [6, 71, the classi-
fication feature consists of the magnitude of a single
fourth-order noncyclic cumulant, such as IC: (0;4,2)
or lC:(O; 4,O) I. The idea is to use the lowest-
order cumulant that provides discrimination for dig-
ital QAM/PSK signals. The focus is on small-size
problems involving two, four, or eight classes. Per-
haps most importantly, true cochannel interference is
not considered, and the symbol rate and symbol-clock
phase are assumed to be known, so that symbol-rate
sampling can be performed. Since the focus is nar-
row with respect to the GSP, probability models for
the cumulant estimates can be used to develop optimal
threshold tests. Sixth-order cumulants are mentioned
in passing with regard to potentially better discrimina-
tion for 256QAM versus 64QAM.
Marchand et al.
In the work of Marchand et al [8,9], the focus is again
on small-size single-signal problems involving digital
QAM signals. The authors believe that the best per-
formance will be had by combining CCs of different
orders, restricted to two and four, and they propose a
statistic that is a linear combination of the symbol-rate
ccs:
To specify f, the authors must specify A, which is
done by numerical optimization. The authors mention
sixth-order cumulants in their final discussion: “Theo-
I retically, it could be worth to imagine a discriminating
feature involving sixth-order statistics, but it may not
be reasonable from a estimation point of view [sic].”
Reichert et al.
In the work of Reichert et al [10, 111, the authors pro-
pose passing the received data through various nonlin-
earities, detecting the resulting sine-wave components,
and classifying the signal based on the pattern of ob-
served sine-wave frequencies. It is assumed that the
signal is free from cochannel interference and a small
number of signal classes is considered. First-, second-,
fourth-order, and the absolute-value nonlinearities are
used to generate the required sine waves. Sixth-order
nonliiearities are not mentioned.
Spooner et al.
In the author’s work [1, 21, the focus is on exploit-
I ing CCs to solve the GSP. Therefore, multiple inter-
fering signals are of great interest, as is the single-
signal problem, and the number of signal classes is
large, including the important QAM/PSK classes, as
well as SQPSK, ?r/4-DQPSK, AM, CPM, CPFSK,
and specific modem modulation formats such as GSM,
CDMA, IS-54, etc. In 123, the author derived an
M L classifier that uses uZ2 of the involved signals’
CCs. This classifier is briefly reviewed in the follow-
ing paragraphs.
Suppose our signal classes are denoted by integers
in the set B, and the data model is (1). Then the single-
signal classification decision (A4= 1) is given by
; =
where
sumed that we ca$ estimate the power U: and the delay
t o for each element of B .
The weighting function W ( ~ , n , r n , / I i , is
~ ,in-
~)
versely proportional to the variance of the estimate of
n, m)2/n.
e * n v m (U;
892
 The derived classifier operates by summing the
weighted differences between measured and theoret-
ical CCs for all orders. This structure is too costly to
implement because of the requirement for infinite or-
ders n and because even for finite orders n, the in-
volved CCs are multidimensional functions. There-
fore, we present two realizable approximations in the
following paragraphs.
The Order-ReducedClassifier (ORCL
To obtain the ORC, we restrict the order n to n = 2
and we consider only the CC magnitudes in the final
result. This leads to the classifier with the following
structure,
where we have assumed that the factor
W ( q 2 ,m, / 3 ~ , is~ approximately
) constant and
St(f)is the spectral correlationfindon [5].
The Delay-Reduced Classifier (DRC).
To obtain the DRC, we limit the maximum order n to
some number Nma, and severely limit the range of ec
to one delay vector per order,
Nmm n ditional cumulant order has two opposing effects on
The multi-signal versions of the ML classifier, the
ORC, and the DRC are straightforward 121. The detec-
tion and classification system makes use of the ORC
and the DRC together with CF detection and grouping
algorithms.
Discussion.
The classifier (3) incorporates all orders of CCs, but
weights them according to their measurement vari-
ance. If this variance is known, it can be used in the
classifier, and CCs with large variance will be auto-
matically deemphasized in the sums.
893
4 Variance of Cumulant Estimates
If a single signal is embedded in WGN, then the
asymptotic variance for the CC estimates can be deter-
mined [4], and estimates of the variance for relatively
short observation intervals can be had [4]. These for-
mulas depend on the SNR, observation time, and the
CCs for the involved signal. That is, the variance of
the CC estimates can be quite different for distinct sig-
nal types, such as rectangular-pulse BPSK versus low-
excess-bandwidth 64QAM, even when the S N R and
observation interval are identical. Thus, prior to clas-
sification, it does not appear possible to know the vari-
ance of the involved CCs. Therefore, to create a prac-
tical version of the DRC, we can either approximate
or neglect the weighting functions. We are then faced
with the legitimate question of how to choose Nmaz.
In the classifier (3), we combine different orders of
warped CCs, that is, CCs raised to the power 2/n. This
warping involves no loss of information and achieves
two important goals. The first is that the power level
of the signal appears linearly in the various warped CC
expressions, which facilitates its estimation. The sec-
ond is that the higher-order CCs, which are generally
larger in magnitude than the lower-order CCs, are not
unduly emphasized in the formation of the statistic.
As in [9], we realize that the inclusion of an ad-
performance. The first is that the theoretical feature-
vector separation is increased, which should improve
performance. The second is that the variance of the
feature-vector increases, which should decrease per-
formance. The question for any particular problem is:
Which effect dominates for each value of n?
To validate the arguments of this section, we present
some CC variance measurements. The variances of
many CCs were measured for BPSK, QPSK, and MSK
signals in WGN, as well as for QPSK with a cochan-
ne1 MSK interferer. Space is too scarce to provide all
results here; a few for QPSK are shown in Figure 1.
The figures show normalized variances (variance di-
vided by the mean) for the CCs and their warped ver-
sions. We draw the following conclusions. The vari-
ances depend weakly on the signal type and strongly
on the observation interval, CF, SNR, SIR, and cu-
mulant order. The results for QPSK in WGN (SNR
of 6 dB) and QPSK plus MSK (SIR of 6 dB) are a p
proximately equivalent. However, the presence of the
MSK interferer cannot be determined before applying
a joint detection and classification algorithm. Judging
solely on the observed noise-floor level and the power
in the signal band (both easily observed), the signal's
S N R would appear to be 20 dB,not 6 dB,and any pre-
dictions of CC variances based on the apparent S N R
would be grossly in error.
Note also that the normalized variances for the
warped CCs are generally about the same, even when
the normalized variances for the unwarped CCs differ
greatly. This implies that the inclusion of the warped
sixth-order CCs does not introduce a greater amount of
variability to the classification feature than that intro-
duced by the lower-order CCs. In other words, inclu-
sion of the sixth-order CCs should generally be bene-
ficial even if the weighting function is neglected.
5 ClassificationExperiments
We present here the results of several classification
experiments. To better complement the published
work referenced herein, we focus primarily on small
problems involving a single signal in noise. Inband
SNRs of 3,6, and 9 dB are considered. Unless noted
otherwise, all signals employ a square-root raised-
cosine pulse function with 35% excess bandwidth, ten
samples per symbol interval, and a carrier offset of
0.0123456789 Hz.
'ho-Class Detection & Classification Problems.
We consider three two-class problems in which the
system must jointly estimate the signal's CFs, CC
magnitudes, and modulation type. The three problems
are l6QAh4 vs. 64QAM, 16QAM vs. V29, and QPSK
vs. V29, and the results are shown in Figure 2. Evi-
dently, the inclusion of the sixth-order CCs never de-
grades performance and usually improves it. The de-
gree to which it improves performance depends on the
ability of the fourth-order CCs to provide class dis-
crimination. From Table 1, we expect the biggest im-
provement for 16QAM vs. 64QAM, the next biggest
for 16QAM vs. V29, and the least for QPSK vs. V29.
This is verified by Figure 2.
Two-Class Classification Problems.
For this set of experiments, we provide the system
894
with exact knowledge of the C F s for the signal to be
classified. Three problems are considered: QPSK vs.
16QAM, 16QAM vs. V29, and QPSK vs. V29. The
results are shown in Figure 3. Also included in the
plots of Figure 3 are results from [9] and [6]. These
comparisons are approximate, since the pulse func-
tions are quite different and the S N R s differ by a dB
or so. Nevertheless, the results reveal that OUT use of
fourth-order cumulants is comparable to these other
researchers' uses, indicating that perhaps their meth-
ods might be improved by using sixth-order cumu-
lants. Note also the rather large performance improve-
ment obtained by using sixth-order cumulants for the
shorter collects and lower SNRs.
Three-Class Problems.
Next we consider two three-class problems:
64QAMI16QAMN29 and 64QAM/16QAM/QPSK.
The results are shown in Figure 4. It is clear from
these plots that the inclusion of sixth-order CCs
provides a substantial benefit whether the signal's CFs
are known a priori or not.
For the 64QAM/16QAM/QPSK problem, we have
included some results from [8]. These results corre-
spond to a rectangular pulse function and an S N R of
10 dB, so that a direct comparison is not possible. As
before, the results indicate that our use of fourth-order
cumulants is reasonable and that others' methods may
benefit from inclusion of sixth-order cumulants.
A Four-Class nlo-signal Problem.
Finally, consider a four-class problem in which two
members of the classes appear in a single frequency
band. The signal types, symbol rates, carrier offsets,
SIRS, and SNRs are randomly chosen within spec-
ified intervals for each trial, and multiple trials are
performed. The system is given no prior informa-
tion except the knowledge of the four classes. For the
four classes consisting of BPSK, QPSK, n/4-DQPSK,
and 8PSK, we expect very little difference between
Nmaz = 4 and Nma = 6 because the CF patterns for
these four classes are very different for Nm > 2. For
average observation lengths of 2000, 4OO0, and 6000
symbols, we obtain average probabilities of detection
and correct classification of 0.91, 0.98, and 0.99 for
both values of Nmaz. On the other hand, for the very
difficult problem of the four classes of QPSK, 8QAM,
16QAM, and V29, we obtain 0.38, 0.53, and 0.65 for
 Beta =Symbol Rate, Magnitude Statistics Beta = 4 X Carrier, MagnitudeStatistics
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Figure 1. Normalized CC variances for QPSK. Upper plots correspond to 6 dB inband SNR, lower
plots correspond to an MSK interferer with QPSK SIR of 6 dB.

each value of Nma. For this last problem, the prob- der four. In this paper, we have addressed the issue of
abilities of detection are 0.73, 0.90, and 0.97, indicat- using features that include second-, fourth-, and sixth-
ing that the observation length is sufficient for good order cyclic cumulants for automatic signal detection
detection performance but not good classification per- and classification. We have found that the inclusion of
formance. This, in turn,is due to the low inband SIR sixth-order cumulants almost never degrades detection
values for the problem combined with small feature and classification performance, and provides a sig-
distances. nificant advantage for surprisingly short observation
interval lengths when the involved signals have suf-
6 Conclusions ficiently similar second- and fourth-order cumulants
(e.g., 16QAh4, V29,MQAM). The results herein only
Severalcumulant-based signal classifiers have been re- begin to touch on the topic, and the author hopes other
cently proposed in the open literature. These classi- researchers will examine the possibility of using sixth-
fiers typically use fourth-order cumulants or a com- and higher-order cumulants to perform signal process-
bination of second- and fourth-order cumulants. Not ing tasks such as detection, classification, and param-
much justification has been given for stopping at or- eter estimation.

895
 64QAM vs. 16QAM QPSK vs. 16QAM

V29 vs. 16QAM V29 vs. 16QAM

"0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 O.#' '
Collect (Symbols) 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
Collect (Symbols)
QPSK vs. V29
QPSK vs. V29

"0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000

Collect (Symbols)
6000 7000 .ti1
06

0.5"
. .....i .......

'
1000 2000
..........

3000 4000
Collect (Symbols)
5000 6000

Figure2. Joint detection and classification re-

sults for several two-class problems. Figure 3. Classification results for several
two-class problems with a priori known CFs.

896
 64QAM vs. 16QAM vs. V29 References
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Figure 4. Results for two three-class prob- Classification of Modulation Types using Spectral
lems. Upper plot: 16QAM vs. 64QAM vs. Features Applied to HMM,” Proc of MILCOM,Mon-
V29, joint detection and classification. Middle terey, CA, 1997.
plot: same as upper but with apriori known
CFs. Lower plot: 64QAM vs. 16QAM vs.
QPSK, known CFs.

897