Performance analysis of the LINK-16/JTIDS waveform with concatenated coding in both AWGN and pulsed-noise interference

Link-16 is a tactical data link widely used in the United States Armed Forces and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The communication terminal of Link-16 is called the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS) and features Reed-Solomon (RS) coding, symbol interleaving, cyclic code-shift keying for M-ary symbol modulation, minimum-shift keying for chip modulation and combined frequency-hopping and direct sequence spread spectrum. In this paper, we investigate the performance of a Link-16/JTIDS-type waveform in both additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and pulsed-noise interference (PNI) when an alternative error correction coding scheme for the physical layer waveform is employed. The waveform considered uses a concatenated code consisting of a rate r = 4 / 5 convolu-tional code as an outer code and a (31, k ) RS code as an inner code. Currently, the JTIDS waveform is received noncoherently at the chip level. In this paper the performance of the alternative, JTIDS-compatible waveform is evaluated for both coherent and noncoherent demodulation. The performance of the alternative waveform for the case where AWGN is the only noise present as well as when PNI is also present is investigated. The performance obtained using the alternative error correction coding scheme is compared to that of the existing JTIDS waveform when the same assumptions are made for both waveforms.