Maya Pillai
Independent Researcher
India
Abstract
This manuscript presents a comparative performance evaluation of Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) and Phase Shift Keying (PSK) techniques under noisy channel conditions representative of those encountered in modern wireless communication systems up to 2016. The study systematically examines symbol error rates (SER) and bit error rates (BER) for 16-QAM, 64-QAM, BPSK, QPSK, and 8-PSK when subjected to additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and Rayleigh fading environments. The evaluation employs Monte Carlo simulation to generate statistically significant results and leverages engineering-standard signal processing toolchains available as of 2016. Key findings indicate that lower-order PSK schemes maintain robustness at low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR), while higher-order QAM provides greater spectral efficiency at moderate to high SNR, albeit with increased susceptibility to noise and fading. The results guide selection of modulation schemes for applications such as digital television broadcasting, wireless local area networks, and cellular communications prevalent in 2016.
Keywords QAM PSK noisy channels AWGN Rayleigh fading BER SER
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