Spread spectrum multiple-access with DPSK modulation and diversity for image transmission over indoor radio multipath fading channels

As demand for networked multimedia applications is increasing rapidly, it is important to provide the ubiquitous accessibility for these services in wireless communication environment. Such access allows users to share novel multimedia applications without any geographical restrictions. We investigate the application of the well-known antimultipath spread spectrum code-division multiple access (SS-CDMA) techniques to image transmission related to the development of next-generation multimedia wireless local area networks within a building. SS-CDMA is particularly well suited to a subband coding scheme that divides the image information into multiple parallel data streams using an analysis filter bank, each of which is multiplied by its unique spreading code. All the product signals are then transmitted at the same time in the same radio channel, even though the total bandwidth of all the signals may exceed the channel bandwidth. Each received signal is independently recovered at the decoder by multiplying its spreading code and all the recovered subbands are then reassembled by a synthesis filter bank into a close reproduction to the original image. A forward error correction (FEC) scheme based on convolutional codes with interleaving is proposed to minimize the effect of bursty channel errors on the picture quality degradation. Better image quality can be achieved by using the predetection diversity combining in order to combat the indoor multipath distortion. In this paper, the image quality of subband image transmission via SS-CDMA indoor fading channels with differential phase shift keying (DPSK) modulation is evaluated and examined. Simulation results show that the image peak signal-to-noise (PSNR) ratio is inversely related to a logarithmic function of bit error rate when each subband employs equal protection channel coding.