(IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security, 55
Vol. 2, No. 6, June 2010
BER Analysis of BPSK Signal in AWGN Channel
Dr. Mohammad Samir Modabbes
Aleppo University, Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
Department of Communications Engineering, Syria
msmodabbes@hotmail.com
Abstract: This paper presents extensive results of a
experimental and simulation test of additive white Gaussian
noise (AWGN) channel on binary phase-shift keying (BPSK)
modulated signal. The bit error rate (BER) is measured and
then simulation results are provided to verify the accuracy of
error rate measurements. Results for all measurements and
simulation are presented in curves. Results show that coherent
detection of BPSK signal offers approximately 60-70%
improvement in BER over the non-coherent detection.
Keywords: Wireless Communications, BPSK detection, noise,
BER analysis
1. Introduction
Multipath propagation in wireless cellular systems leads to
small-scale fading. Rayleigh distribution is a useful model
for describing fading conditions for medium or large
cellular systems. The Ricean distribution is another
important fading model for describing small-scale fading.
In [1] a precise BER expression for a BPSK signal corrupted
by Ricean-faded co-channel interfering signals was
obtained, their work focused on Ricean-faded co-channel
interfering signals. In [2] The BER performance of BPSK
orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system
is analyzed in the cases of AWGN, but their work focused
on OFDM system only. In [3] An exact expression for the
bit error rate of a synchronous maximum-likelihood receiver
used to detect a band limited BPSK signal in the presence
of a similar BPSK signal, additive white Gaussian noise and
imperfect carrier phase recovery is derived. It is shown that
the receiver is more robust to carrier phase mismatch at
high signal to-interference ratios (SIR) than low SIR.
2. Error performance for band-pass
modulation
Band pass modulation is the process by which an
information signal is converted to sinusoidal waveform [4,
5]:
v(t ) = V (t ) sin[(ω 0 t + ϕ (t )] (1)
Where in digital systems the duration of carrier sinusoidal is
called digital symbol. The probability of symbol error (Ps) is
one of performance evaluation parameter of correct
reception. The probability of incorrect detection of any
receiver is termed the probability of symbol error Ps, but it’s
often convenient to specify system performance by the
probability of bit error Pb. A symbol error doesn’t mean that
all the bits within the symbol are in error in other words Pb
is less than or equal to Ps. Thus ban-pass modulation can be
defined as the process whereby the amplitude, frequency or
phase of RF carrier or a combination of them is varied or
will has M discrete values in accordance with the
information to be transmitted. The efficiency of digital
band-pass modulation technique depends on Eb/No
parameter which can be expressed as the ratio of average
signal power to average noise power (SNR) [1, 4].
3. Probability of bit error for non-coherent
detection of band-pass modulation
When the receiver does not exploit phase reference of the
carrier to detect the received signals, the process is called
non-coherent detection. Thus a complexity reduction in non-
coherent systems can be achieved at the expense of error
performance. For non-coherent analysis we consider equally
two band-pass modulated signals set (i=1, 2) at the input of
the detector, Where:
ri (t ) = s i (t ) + n (t ) (2)
r i (t) - the received signal
s i (t) - the transmitted signal
n (t) - the noise signal
The two band pass modulated signals can be defined by:
2E
si (t ) = cos(ω0t + ϕ ) 0≤t ≤T (3)
T
E is the signal energy per bit; T is the bit duration.
Considering the noise in the received signal n (t) is a white
Gaussian noise we use the decision rule to choose the
minimum error [5, 8]. This rule for the detector stated in
terms of decision regions is whenever the received signal ri
(t) is located in region1 , choose signal s1, when it is located
in region2 choose signal s2 as in figure (1).
γ 0 = (a1 + a 2 ) / 2 represents the optimum threshold for
minimizing the probability of making an incorrect decision
given equally likely signals.
For the case when s1is sent such that r (t) =s1 (t) + n (t), the
output z2(T) is a Gaussian noise random variable only
without signal component, so it has Rayleigh distribution.
While z1 (T) has a Rician distribution since the input to
envelope detector is a sinusoid plus noise.
56 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security,
Vol. 2, No. 6, June 2010

We can compute Pb by integrating the area of either In BPSK there are no fixed decision regions in the signal
probability density functions p (z/ s1) or p (z/ s2): space, but the decision is based on the phase difference
between successively received signals. Thus the probability
of bit error is equal to [5]:

1 E
pb = exp(− b ) (9)
Decision Line 2 N0

region2 region1 5. Probability of bit error for coherent

p(z/s2) p(z/s1) detection of BPSK
For a coherent receiver, which compares the received wave
Z(T) with the un-modulated carrier, A cos (ω1t), and produces
a2 a1 γ0 instantly the signed phase difference between the two points
=0 [6, 9], an M-ary symbol is transmitted in one baud by the
Figure 1. the two conditional probability density value of k.
functions p (z / s1) and p (z / s2) Considering the external thermal noise in the received
signal n(t) is a white Gaussian noise and is modeled in the
usual Gaussian random process with uniform spectral
density [10,11]. Hence,
1 A2
pb = exp(− 2 ) (4)
2 4σ 0
n (t ) = n1 (t) cos ω1 t − n2 (t) sin ω2 t (10)
Where A = 2 E / T , σ 02 is the noise variance. We can
express the noise at the filter output as: Where n1 (t) and n2 (t) are stationary independent, zero
mean Gaussian random processes with power σ 2
σ 02 = N0W (5) At a certain instant, the combined input signal at the
detector is given by
W=R bits/s = 1/T is the filter bandwidth. Thus equation (5)
becomes: s ′(t ) = s (t ) + n(t ) (11)

The detector examines the difference between the phase of

1 E
pb = exp( − b ) (6)
2 2 N0
Where E b = A T / 2 the signal energy per bit, N0 is is the
2
noise power per hertz. Equation (6) gives the probability of
bit error for non-coherent detection of FSK and is identical
to the probability of bit error for non-coherent detection of
OOK signals since envelope detector is used for detection
[1, 7]. From equations (5), (6) it's clear that the error
performance depends on the filter bandwidth and that Pb
proportional to W.
the received signal and the reference phase and decides
which symbol was transmitted.
Assuming equal a priori symbol probabilities, for a proper
decision we need to define decision thresholds by dividing
the circle into regions, for example for the case of M = 8 at
the instant of detection, if the phase of the received signal
lies within the region, 0 ≤θ ≤ π/4 , we make the decision
that the symbol, having been transmitted, corresponds to the
value k = 1, but for BPSK (M=2), we make the decision that
the symbol having been transmitted corresponds to the value
k= 1, if the phase of the received signal lies within the
region, 0 ≤θ ≤ π.

4. Probability of bit error for non-coherent 6. Measurement setup

detection of BPSK modulation
For standard PSK signal of the form:
s ( t ) = A cos( ω1t + ϕ 1t )
the digital modulation is carried in the angle of s(t) by φ1(t),
which assumes discrete values from a set of M equally
spaced points in [0, 2π] at the sample times T seconds apart.
Thus the Nth message or baud is modulated by:
φ1 (NT) = 2πk/M; k=0, 1, 2… M-1
Where each of M values of k is equally probable.
The tests were conducted using measurement system as
shown in figure (2), which simulates the transmission
medium over which digital communication takes place with
(7) frequency range from about 160 Hz to 70 kHz. The
modulator produce BPSK signal with carrier frequency 2.4
kHz. A random pulse generator injects a variable amount of
noise into the input signal and has frequencies in the range
75Hz to 600 Hz.
Amplitude noise can be measured by determining the bit
error rate (BER), which is the number of incorrect bits
(8)
received in reference to the total number of bits transmitted.
Error counter in error rate calculations block measures the
number of incorrect bits received (error count), where The
 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security, 57
Vol. 2, No. 6, June 2010

transmitted and received data are compared bit by bit in the results of BER versus SNR for the coherent and non-
comparator, if the bit is not match an error pulse is coherent detection of BPSK modulation.
generated, the errors are totalized in a counter over a fixed
Figure (5) shows a comparison between simulation and
time period (106 ms is the time required for 128 data bits)
measurement results of BER versus SNR for coherent and
generated by a one shot. Each time when the counter is reset
non-coherent detection of BPSK modulation.
a 106 ms one shot is triggered, and the error pulses from the
XOR gate are totalized by the counter only during 106 ms
frame. Then a display indicates how many errors occurred
within the time interval.
0.35
Coherent PSK
BPSK Σ Amplifier Coheren Noncoherent PSK
0.3
t det.

0.25
Noise
NRZ 0.2
Noncoher

BER
ent Det.
0.15

0.1

Error rate Comparator Switch 0.05

calculations
0
0 5 10 15 20 25
SNR[dB]

Figure 2. BPSK measurement system Figure 4. Probability of bit error versus SNR for
simulation BPSK detection
A performance comparison of coherent and non-coherent
BPSK detection in the presence of noise was made at:
0.8

v cutoff frequency of low pass filter 1.5 kHz

0.7
v total number of bits transmitted 128 bits
0.6
v SNR was calculated for 4Vp-p (2,828Vrms) input signal Simulation coherentPSK
Simulation noncoherent PSK
amplitude and variable amplitude of noise signal. 0.5
Measured coherentPSK
Measured noncoherentPSK
BER

Figure (3) shows measurement results of BER versus SNR 0.4

for the coherent and non-coherent detection of BPSK

0.3
modulation at different noise amplitude.
0.2
0.8
0.1
0.7
0
0 5 10 15 20 25
0.6 SNR[dB]
Coherent PSK
Noncoherent PSK Figure 5. Probability of bit error versus SNR for
0.5
measurement and simulation BPSK detection
BER

0.4

0.3 8. Conclusions
0.2
Results show that coherent detection of BPSK offers
0.1 approximately 60-70% improvement in BER over the non-
0 5 10 15 20 25
SNR[dB] coherent detection. Simulation results offer approximately
40-50% improvement over the measuring results.
Figure 3. Probability of bit error versus SNR for
Measurement and simulation results led us to conclude that
measurement BPSK detection
BPSK modulation has the best performance in coherent
detection.
7. Simulation results

Simulation on BPSK transmission channel with AWGN

using SIMULINK was made. Figure (4) shows simulation
58 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security,
Vol. 2, No. 6, June 2010

References Author Profile

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