Effect of worst case multiple partial-band noise and tone jammers on coded FH/SSMA systems

Abstract

The author characterizes and evaluates the effect of simultaneous multiple partial-band noise or tone jammers and other user interference on a single communication link employing frequency-hopped spread-spectrum (FH/SS) signaling, M-ary frequency-shift keying (FSK) modulation with noncoherent demodulation, and Reed-Solomon coding. For the symbol error probability of these systems, the author derives exact expressions in the absence of multiple-access interference and tight upper bounds in the presence of other-user interference. Although the analytical methods are valid for any number of multiple jammers, the numerical study is restricted to the cases of two and three-partial-band noise and tone jammers. For fixed values of the spectral densities of noise jammers, or the energies per symbol of tone jammers, the worst-case fraction of the band that each jammer should use in order to maximize the error probability of the FH/SS or FH/SSMA system is evaluated. For the range of the signal-to-jammer power ratios examined, multiple-noise or multiple-tone jammers appear to have no advantage over single-tone jammers of equivalent spectral density or energy per symbol, but achieve approximately the same worst-case performance by jamming smaller fractions of the band. >