An automatic digital modulation classifier for measurement on telecommunication networks

This paper presents a method for the automatic classification of digital modulations without a priori knowledge of the signal parameters. This method can recognize classical single-carrier modulations such as M-ary phase-shift keying, M-ary frequency-shift keying, M-ary amplitude-shift keying, and M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation, as well as orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing modulations such as discrete multitone that is used for asymmetric digital subscriber line and very high speed digital subscriber line standards and for power-line carrier transmissions. After identification of the modulation type, the method automatically estimates some parameters characterizing the modulation. To evaluate the method performance, several simulations have been carried out in different operating conditions that should be particularly critical by varying the values of signalto-noise ratio and the main parameters of each identifiable modulation. To assess the advantages, comparison with other classification methods has been given. To validate the Assumption that is made, experimental tests have been performed.