Design Space Exploration for Model-based Communication Systems

A main challenge of modem design lies in selecting a suitable combination of subsystems (e.g. ADCs/DACs, (de)modulators, scramblers, interleavers, and coding and filtering modules), each of which can be implemented in a multitude of ways. At the same time, the complete modem configuration needs to be tailored to the specific requirements of the intended communication channel or scenario. Therefore, model-based design methodologies have been popularized in this field, since their application facilitates the specification of individual modem components that are easily exchanged during the automated synthesization of the modem. However, this development has resulted in a tremendous increase in the number of synthesizable modem options. In fact, the optimal modem configuration for a communication scenario can not readily be determined, since an exhaustive analysis of all configuration possibilities is computationally intractable. As a remedy, we propose a fully automated Design Space Exploration (DSE) methodology for model-based modem design that combines the metaheuristic optimization of modem-configuration possibilities with an integrated simulative analysis of suitable communication-quality measures. The presented case study for an acoustic underwater communication scenario supports the described need for novel, automated methodologies in the area of model-based design, since the modem configurations discovered during a comparably short DSE are demonstrated to significantly outperform state-of-the-art modems from literature.