BER Expression of QAM for Symbol-Level Jamming

Abstract

In wireless communication systems, quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) schemes are widely used for high-speed data transmission, and recently, symbol-level jamming (SLJ) is being studied as an effective jamming technique. However, bit error rate (BER) expressions of QAM for SLJ have not been presented in previous studies. In this paper, we derive the exact BER expressions of QAM considering phase coherent and noncoherent scenarios under SLJ. Using the derived expressions, we investigate the SLJ order that maximizes BER of QAM for jamming-to-signal ratio (JSR). Further, we present BER of QAM with tone jamming and show that tone jamming is a special case of noncoherent SLJ. In addition, we use a probability density function of the SLJ amplitude to show that the high order noncoherent SLJ is similar to noise jamming. To increase BER in a low JSR region, we present a BER expression of QAM when SLJ exists in a pulse form. Using the derived expression, we investigate the order and pulse duration ratio to maximize BER for JSR. The derived expressions are verified using computer simulations.