Automatic Modulation Classification Architectures Based on Cyclostationary Features in Impulsive Environments

Cyclostationary analysis has several applications in communications, e.g., spectral sensing, signal parameter estimation, and modulation classification. Most of them consider the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel model, although wireless communication systems may also be subject to non-Gaussian interference and impulsive noise. In this context, the communication channel can be better modeled by heavy-tailed distributions, such as the non-Gaussian alpha-stable one. Some applications of the cyclostationary approach based on the spatial sign cyclic correlation function (SSCCF), fractional lower-order cyclic autocorrelation function (FLOCAF), and cyclic correntropy function (CCF) demonstrate that these are promising solutions for the analysis of signals in the presence of impulsive non-Gaussian noise. However, the investigation of functions above applied to digital modulation recognition in impulsive environments, and the comparison among them are topics that did not adequately explore yet. This work demonstrates that SSCCF is a particular case of the FLOCAF. Besides, a detailed analysis of the use of the FLOCAF and CCF is presented to obtain cyclostationary descriptors for the recognition of digital modulations BPSK, QPSK, 8-QAM, 16-QAM, and 32-QAM. Automatic modulation classification (AMC) architectures, based on the functions mentioned above, are also proposed. Besides, another contribution showed is that both the FLOCAF and CCF allow the symbol rate parameter estimation. The performances of AMC architectures were evaluated in the scenario with modulated signals contaminated with additive non-Gaussian alpha-stable noise. The results demonstrate that both architectures can classify signals in different contamination scenarios. However, the architecture based on the CCF is more efficient than the FLOCAF-based one.