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Procedia Computer Science 107 (2017) 539 – 544

International Congress of Information and Communication Technology (ICICT 2017)

Viterbi Detection Method of π/4-QPSK Signal in VDE

Shexiang Ma, Weiwei Deng*
School of Computer and Communication Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology,
No.391,Binshui West Road, Tianjin 300384, China
* Corresponding author: monroe111@163.com

Abstract

Aiming at the complexity of communication environment, the bad signal quality and influence of different parameters in the
study of VHF data exchange (VDE) satellite, a detection method of viterbi is proposed in this paper. According to the
characteristic of π/4-QPSK signal, this method constructs signal phase states, and gives a cost function of decoding based on the
maximum likelihood criterion, and then by using the thoughts of viterbi to decode. The complexity of this method is relatively
low, and it is easy to implement for baseband signal detection. The simulation results show that this method has good detection
performance, which is about 9dB better than traditional methods under the same Eb / No . It can be applied to the conditions
with interference , time delay, frequency offset and phase shift which has good robustness and anti-interference performance, and
the detection performance is not affected by constant frequency offset and phase shift.

Keywords: VDE; π/4-QPSK; viterbi; robustness; anti-interference

1. Introduction

In the May 2013 meeting of ITU-R Working Party 5B (WP5B), several Administrations and IALA introduced
and proposed the concept of VDES[1], which is intended to address Automatic Identification System (AIS) Very-
high-frequency data link (VDL) loading problems. The VDES is envisioned as an integrated system to include AIS,
Application Specific Messages (ASM) and VHF Data Exchange (VDE). VDE can achieve data communication in
ship-ship, ship-shore and ship-satellites.WP5B suggests VDE uses the Recommendation ITU-RM.1842-1[2]: the
modulation scheme is π/4-DQPSK; the transmission bit rate should be 28.8kbit/s. In October 2015, WP5B suggests
VDE uses the Recommendation ITU-RM.2092-0[3]: the modulation scheme is π/4-QPSK; the transmission bit rate
should be 38.4kbit/s.
Since VDE has to face a variety of complex communication environment, it is necessary to find a better
performance detection method. Based on the π/4-QPSK modulation method, the Ref. [4, 5] study the differential
detection in the Rayleigh fading channel and the traditional differential detection respectively. However, both of
them improve the performance of method at the cost of increasing the complexity of the detection method. An

1877-0509 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 7th International Congress of Information and Communication Technology
doi:10.1016/j.procs.2017.03.126
540 Shexiang Ma and Weiwei Deng / Procedia Computer Science 107 (2017) 539 – 544

improved Remez detection algorithm is provided in [6], whose complexity is low but the performance loss is
relatively large. A zero crossing demodulation method is proposed by Hyuck M. Kwon et al [7], which is not
suitable for fading channel environment. Besides, based on the characteristics of signal modulation, two research
groups perform a systematic investigation on the differential detection method [8, 9]. They demonstrate that this
method has better balance in complexity and BER performance, but does not apply to differential detection under the
two path channels. In addition, a discrete short time Fourier transform method is proposed in literature [10]. To our
knowledge, this method is not suitable for the Doppler shift and the fading channel environment. Furthermore, a
demodulation scheme saving the satellite resources is proposed [11]. It is reveal that despite the performance loss is
reduced, the two kinds of signals are combined and the complexity is very higher. A method of viterbi detection of
π/4-QPSK signal in VDE is proposed in this paper, which obtains a good BER performance and the complexity of
system is relatively low, and it is easy to implement for baseband signal detection.

2. Model of π/4-QPSK Signal

The The π/4-QPSK is a modulation technique which is developed in QPSK and OQPSK, and is often used in
differential coding. The baseband form of π/4-QPSK modulation signal s k in the interval kTs d t d k  1Ts can
be expressed as [12]

sk 2Pe jT k (1)

where Ts denotes the symbol interval, P denotes the signal power, and T k is the phase of the current symbol. i.e.

Tk Tk 1  'Tk (2)

where T k 1 is the phase before the end of the former symbol, 'T k is phase increment of current symbol. The
value of 'T k depends on the input value of double bit b1k and b2 k , the definition is as follows

­S
°4 , b1k b2 k 11
°
° 3S , b1k b2 k 01
°4
'T k ® (3)
° 3S , b b 00
° 4 1k 2 k

° S
° , b1k b2 k 10
¯ 4

When the initial phase T0 0 , then phase Tk has eight possible values in the sense of modulo 2S ,
^0,rS / 4,rS / 2,r3S / 4,S `.
The values of these eight phases are defined as eight phase states, noted S n , n 1,2,", N s , N s represents the
number of phase states. At t kTs time the phase states (in the sense of modulo 2S ) can be defined as

Skn Tk mod 2S  (4)

 Shexiang Ma and Weiwei Deng / Procedia Computer Science 107 (2017) 539 – 544 541

3. Viterbi Detection of π/4-QPSK Signal

In the interval kTs d t d k  1Ts , the received signal can be expressed as [12,13]

rk sk e jIk  nk (5)

Where n k is a sequence of zero-mean gauss white noise with variance V 2 2 No Ts , and N o is the value of
noise power spectral density, I k is an arbitrary phase introduced by channel.
Then substitute the equation (1) into equation (5) can get

rk 2Pe j T k Ik   nk (6)

Assuming that I k remains unchanged in the interval kTs d t d k  1Ts , Ik I is uniform distribution in the
interval  S ,S  .
The length of received signal sequence is k  1Ts . Let r ^r0 , r1, r2 ,", rk ` , T ^T0 ,T1,T2 ,",Tk `
and n ^n0 , n1, n2 ,", nk `, then the corresponding received signal sequence can be expressed as

r 2Pe j T I   n (7)

It is seen by maximum likelihood criterion that the conditional probability density function of received signal
sequence r can be expressed as equation (8) under given conditions of phase information sequence T and I .

­ r  2 Pe j T I  2
½
° °
pr T ,I 
1
exp ® ¾
 
(8)
2SV 2 k 1
° 2V 2 °
¯ ¿

where,

k 2

r  2 Pe j T I  ¦ ri  2Pe j Ti I 
2
(9)
i 0

With I is assumed to be uniformly distributed in the interval  S , S  , then the conditional probability density
function of the received signal sequence r is

pr T  ³ S pr T ,I pI dI
S

§ 1
> @ · (10)
1 ­ 1 k ½ k

2 ¦ i ¦re  jT i
® r  2 P ¾ u I o ¨¨ 2 ¸¸
2
exp

2SV 2 k 1
 ¯ 2V i 0 ¿ ©V i 0
i
¹
542 Shexiang Ma and Weiwei Deng / Procedia Computer Science 107 (2017) 539 – 544

Where I o x  is the zero-order modified Bessel function of the first kind. According to equation (10) can be
2

pr T  is equivalent to finding the maximum value of

k
known that finding the maximum value of ¦ rie jT i [13].
i 0

> @
k 2 k k

¦ rie jT i ¦ ri  2¦ Re ri ri*1e j Ti T i1 

2

i 0 i 0 i 1
(11)
> @
k k

¦r  2¦ Re ri ri*1e  j'T i
2
i
i 0 i 1

¦r T , and has no effect on the maximum value, so the maximum

2
The upper i term is independent of the value of
i 0

value is equivalent to the choice 'T ^'T1, 'T2 ,", 'Tk `, which makes the following decision equation (12)
maximum.

¦ Rer r 
k
*  j'T i
/k i i 1 e (12)
i 1

The equation (12) is used as the cost function of decoding, which is the cumulative error measurement of the phase
*
states of viterbi decoding. Where ri ri 1 represents the difference of the input signal for decoding, 'Ti indicates the
possible phase increment.
From the above equations, one step transition branch metric of kTs time can be expressed as

Ok 
Re rk rk*1e j'T k  (13)

4. Simulation Results

The complex baseband signal carries out sampling by using eight times the symbol rate (153.6 kHz) in the
simulation, which is based on the characteristics of π/4-QPSK signal modulation in VDE. Random information
sequence can be generated, and BER of decoding can be counted based on a Monte Carlo simulation procedure. Set
the length of backtracking to NT = 3, and the roll-off factor of square root raised cosine filter is α = 0.3. The receive
filter has a square root raised cosine response which is matched to the transmit filter. According to problems faced
by satellite communication receiver, the parameters such as time-delay, frequency-offset, phase-shift and
interference are used to analyze the BER performance of system under the AWGN channel and multipath channel.
0
0
10 10 0
10

-1 -1
10 10 -1
10

-2 -2
10 10 -2
10
BER

BER

BER

-3 -3
10 -3
10 10
Theory Delay = Ts
S/I = 12dB
Proposed method Proposed method Proposed method
-4 -4
10 BDD 10 BDD
-4
10 BDD
IFBDD IFBDD IFBDD
2 bits DD 2 bits DD 2 bits DD
3 bits DD 3 bits DD 3 bits DD
-5 -5 -5
10 10 10
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Eb/No[dB] Eb/No[dB] Eb/No[dB]

Fig.1. BER curves in AWGN channel Fig.2. BER curves of S/I 12dB Fig.3. BER curves of time-delay Ts
 Shexiang Ma and Weiwei Deng / Procedia Computer Science 107 (2017) 539 – 544 543

Fig.1 illustrates that the BER performance curves of traditional methods (baseband differential detection (BDD),
intermediate frequency band differential detection (IFBDD), 2 bits differential detection (2 bits DD), 3 bits
differential detection (3 bits DD)) and proposed method in AWGN channel. As can be seen from the figure, the
BER performance curve of proposed method is close to theory curve, which is obviously better than the traditional
methods with the increase of Eb / No . It is observed that for Eb / No larger than 13 dB, the BER in AWGN
channel is equal to 10-5. Fig.1 also shows that proposed method can obtain more than 9dB’s system gain compared
with traditional methods when BER is 10-4.
Fig.2 illustrates detection performance resulting from interference signal in AWGN channel. From Fig.2 can be
seen that proposed method has good anti-interference performance when signal to interference ratio (S/I) is 12dB.
Proposed method is about 6dB better than traditional methods under the same Eb / No .
Fig.3 illustrates BER versus Eb / No resulting from time-delay in AWGN channel. From Fig.3 it is seen that
time-delay has a significant impact on the BER of system. It is interesting to note that proposed method shows a
slower rate of degradation than traditional method in terms of anti-delay. It is observed that for Eb / No is 16 dB, the
BER is close to 10-5 ; for BER is 10-3, proposed method can obtain more than 8dB’s system gain compared with
traditional methods with the increase of Eb / No in AWGN channel.
0 0 0
10 10 10

-1 -1 -1
10 10 10

-2 -2 -2
10 10 10
BER

BER

BER
-3 -3 -3
10 10 10

offset = 100Hz Phase = 2π/3 Theory

Proposed method Proposed method Proposed method
-4 -4 -4
10 BDD 10 BDD 10 BDD
IFBDD IFBDD IFBDD
2 bits DD 2 bits DD 2 bits DD
3 bits DD 3 bits DD 3 bits DD
-5 -5 -5
10 10 10
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Eb/No[dB] Eb/No[dB] Eb/No[dB]

Fig.4. BER curves of offset 100Hz Fig.5. BER curves of phase-shift 2π/3 Fig.6. BER curves in multipath channel
Fig.4 illustrates the BER degradation resulting from frequency-offset and Fig.5 illustrates the corresponding BER
when resulting from phase-shift in AWGN channel. From Fig.4 can be observed that these curves are very similar to
those of Fig.1, which shows the effect of offset is very small for BER with the increase of Eb / No . From Fig.5 it is
seen that phase-shift has a certain effect on BER when Eb / No is larger than 12 dB. It is observed that for BER is 10-
4
, proposed method can obtain more than 8dB’s system gain; the BER of proposed method is less than 10 -4 when the
Eb / No is 12dB compared with traditional methods in terms of anti frequency-offset and anti phase-shift.
Fig.6 shows BER performance when the communication signal passes through a multipath channel. It is
observed that the BER of proposed method is approximately equal to 10 -4 for Eb / No is 20 dB. Proposed method
can obtain more system gain compared with traditional methods when BER is 10 -3 with the increase of Eb / No .
Fig.7 illustrates BER versus Eb / No resulting from interference signal in multipath channel. From Fig.7 it is seen
that BER of proposed method is close to 10-2 when Eb / No is 18 dB. The detection performance of this method is
obviously superior to the traditional methods when S/I is 12dB.
0
10 0 0
10 10

-1
10 -1 -1
10 10

-2
10 -2 -2
10 10
BER

BER

BER

-3 -3 -3
10 10 10

S/I = 12dB Delay = Ts offset = 100Hz

Proposed method Proposed method Proposed method
-4 -4 -4
10 BDD 10 BDD 10 BDD
IFBDD IFBDD IFBDD
2 bits DD 2 bits DD 2 bits DD
3 bits DD 3 bits DD 3 bits DD
-5 -5 -5
10 10 10
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Eb/No[dB] Eb/No[dB] Eb/No[dB]

Fig.7. BER curves of S/I 12dB Fig.8. BER curves of time-delay Ts Fig.9. BER curves of offset 100Hz
Fig.8 illustrates simulation results of BER versus Eb / No for resulting from time-delay in a multipath channel.
As we can see from Fig.8, the BER performance of system is resulted from time-delay. It is observed that for BER is
10-3, proposed method can obtain more system gain than traditional methods with the increase of Eb / No .
544 Shexiang Ma and Weiwei Deng / Procedia Computer Science 107 (2017) 539 – 544

Fig.9 illustrate that simulation result of the BER versus Eb / No results from frequency-offset in multipath
channel. It is observed that the frequency-offset for the effect of BER performance of system is relatively small with
the increase of Eb / No . From the above figure it is seen that proposed method can obtain more system gain for
BER is 10-3; corresponding BER is close to 10-4 for Eb / No is 20 dB compared with traditional methods.

5. Conclusion

Considering the complicated communication environment between ship and satellites in VDE, a viterbi detection
method is proposed, which is based on the characteristics of the π/4-QPSK signal phase states by using viterbi
algorithm to decode. Simulation results show that the performance of BER can be obviously improved and the
complexity of system is significantly reduced in the AWGN channel and multipath channel. Considering the
influence of different parameters, this proposed method has good robustness and anti-interference performance with
the increase of Eb / No .

Acknowledgements

This research work is supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant
61371108 and 61601326, in part by Tianjin Research Program of Application Foundation and Advanced
Technology under Grant 15JCQNJC01800, and in part by High School Science and Technology Developing
Foundation of Tianjin under Grants 20140706 and 20140707.

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