Feasible criteria of link adaptation for wireless LANs using soft output Viterbi decoder

This work presents a simple data rate choosing method for multi data rate communication systems. This method is based on Viterbi decoding and aims to utilize relative likelihood between selected and unselected paths in the decoding. We confirmed the validity of our proposed method with computer simulations. The physical layer specifications follow the IEEE standard 802.11a, and then an AWGN channel and an ETSI-profile multipath channel are assumed in the simulations. The simulation results show that the proposed method can provide an effective link adaptation for communication systems that equip a Viterbi decoder and support plural data rate.