Wireless Communications (EC4011D), Monsoon 2023-24 Assignment 2

EC4011D: Assignment 2
Maximum 10 points

I. Q UESTIONS
1) (5 points) Show that 4-PAM requires 4 dB more energy per symbol duration to achieve the
same probability of error. Assume that all transmitted symbols for 4-PAM and QPSK have equal
probability.
2) (5 points) Consider AWGN channel

y[m] = x[m] + w[m],

where w[m] ∼ CN (0, 1) and x[m] is equally likely to be one of uA = −a + δ and uB = +a + δ

with δ > 0. For ML detector,
a) Show that ML detection involves comparing y[m] against some threshold T .
b) Show that the threshold T increases on increasing δ.
c) Show that the threshold T is independent of a.
d) Show that probability of error is independent of δ.
e) Show that probability of error decreases on increasing a.
3) (5 points) Consider following channel model

y[m] = x[m] + w[m],

where x[m] is equally likely to be one of uA = −a and uB = +a, and PDF of w[m] is shown in
figure below. Determine the ML detector. Also, determine probability of error for the ML detector
for (a) a ≥ 1 and (b) 0 < a < 1.

4) (5 points) Consider non-coherent detection in a flat-fading channel y[m] = h[m]x[m] + w[m] where
x[m] takes values uA = +a or uB = +ka, where k > 1. Assume that w[m] ∼ CN (0, N0 ),
h[m] ∼ CN (0, 1), and that a2 >> N0 and k 2 >> 1.
a) Observe using intuitive arguments that a detector should be based on energy of received signals
(recall that we had observed in the lectures that BPSK fails in this setting). (0.5 points)

Vinay Joseph, ECED NITC 1

Wireless Communications (EC4011D), Monsoon 2023-24 Assignment 2

b) Show that ML-rule is equivalent to the following:

• decide that uA is sent in slot m if |y[m]|2 ≤ 2log(k)a2
• and decide uB otherwise. (2 points)
c) Show that probability of error when uA is transmitted is equal to 1/k 2 . (1 point)
d) Show that probability of error when uB is transmitted is approximately equal to 2log(k)/k 2 .
(1 point)

5) (5 points) Consider coherent ML detection for flat-fading channel y[m] = h[m]x[m] + w[m], where
x[m] is equally likely to be one of +1 and -1. Assume w[m] ∼ CN (0, 1). Suppose h[m] takes values
[0.001, 10, 100] with probabilities [p1 , p2 , p3 ]. Calculate and show that expected probability of error
is close to 0.5p1 (i.e., it is largely determined by probability of deep-fade event).

II. H INTS
1) Question 1: You can refer to Figure 3.3 and related discussion in Tse et al, and may answer using
the following approach (or any approach that you like):
a) 4-PAM analysis:
i) Compute probability of error of a symbol of 4-PAM that is at the edge of 4-PAM constel-
lation.
ii) Compute probability of error of a symbol of 4-PAM that is not at the edge of the 4-PAM
constellation. q 
2b2
iii) Show that average probability of error of 4-PAM is 32 Q N0
.
2
iv) Show that average energy per symbol of 4-PAM is 5b .
b) QAM analysis:
i) Using arguments in Section 3.1.3, utilize probability
q of  error analysis of BPSK to show
2b2
that average probability of error of QPSK is Q N0
ii) Show that average energy per symbol of QPSK is 2b2 .
c) Compare:
i) Using average probability of errors derived above, argue that there is a 4-dB energy
lossq
when using q
4-PAM rather than using QPSK. For this step, you can approximate
3 2b2 2b2
2
Q N0
≈Q N0
to simplify the analysis, so that you can just compare average
energies per symbol.
2) Question 2: This question can be solved by generalizing the steps discussed in lecture on AWGN
channel.
3) Question 3: Using ML rule and steps similar to those in AWGN channel analysis, it can be shown
that ML detector is the following:
• detect uA if −a − 1 ≤ y ≤ min(−a + 1, 0),
• detect uB if max(0, a − 1) ≤ y ≤ a + 1.
Further, probability of error for the ML detector can be shown to be

Vinay Joseph, ECED NITC 2

Wireless Communications (EC4011D), Monsoon 2023-24 Assignment 2

• zero, for a ≥ 1;
2
• 1 − (1−a)
2
, for 0 < a < 1.
4) Question 4:
• For part (b), observe that f (y[m]|uA ) = f (yR [m]|uA ) f (yI [m]|uA ),
!
1 |yR [m]|2
f (yR [m]|uA ) = p exp − 2 ,
π (a2 + N0 ) (a + N0 )
!
1 |yI [m]|2
f (yI [m]|uB ) = p exp − 2 2 .
π (k 2 a2 + N0 ) (k a + N0 )

• For parts (c) and (d), use the fact that |y[m]|2 is exponentially distributed random variable
with means a2 + N0 and k 2 a2 + N0 respectively. When uA is transmitted, error occurs when
|y[m]|2 > 2log(k)a2 .
• For part (d), use the fact that 1 − e−x ≈ x for small x.

5) Question 5: This question can be solved by noting that the probability of error can be expressed
as an expectation of random variable which is a function of (random varaible) h[m] (see lecture
slides). The difference in this question is that h[m] is a discrete random variable taknig three values,
and hence the expectation can be expressed as a sum of three terms. Then, you can calculate and
show that only two of the three terms are insignificant.

Vinay Joseph, ECED NITC 3