On the Identification of SM and Alamouti-Coded SC-FDMA Signals: A Statistical-Based Approach

Signal identification represents the task of a receiver to identify the signal type and its parameters, with applications to both military and commercial communications. In this paper, we investigate the identification of spatial multiplexing and Alamouti space-time block codes with single-carrier frequency-division multiple-access signals, when the receiver is equipped with a single antenna. We develop a discriminating feature based on a fourth-order statistic of the received signal as well as a constant false-alarm rate decision criterion that relies on the statistical properties of the feature estimate. Furthermore, we present the theoretical performance analysis of the proposed identification algorithm. The algorithm does not require channel or noise power estimation, modulation classification, and block synchronization. Simulation results show the validity of the proposed algorithm as well as a very good agreement with the theoretical analysis.