Performance Analysis of an Angle Differential-QAM

Scheme for Resolving Phase Ambiguity

Jeng-Kuang Hwang, and Yu-Lun Chiu
Communication Signal Processing Laboratory
Institute of Communication Engineering
Yuan-Ze University, 32026, Taiwan
E-mail: eejhwang@saturn.yzu.edu.tw
Abstract An angle differential-QAM (ADQAM) scheme is
proposed to solve phase ambiguity problem in non-data-aided
continuous transmission system with square QAM constellation.
Starting from the 16-ADQAM case, we derive differential
encoding and decoding schemes in terms of two differential
angles, and use a solar system analogy for explanation. The
16-ADQAM system incurs only about 0.5-dB performance
degradation as compared to the coherent 16-QAM system under
AWGN channel. Generalization to flat fading channel and
higher-level ADQAM are straightforward. For educational
purpose, a demonstrative 16-ADQAM system is realized in terms
of an audio-band software-defined-radio approach, and
experimental result shows the feasibility of real-time speech
transmission.
Keywords Differential coding scheme, square QAM,
continuous transmission system, phase ambiguity, Rayleigh
fading, performance analysis.

1. Introduction
M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is a widely
adopted digital modulation technique for its good bandwidth
and power efficiency. Herein, consider the problem of
applying the square QAM to continuous speech transmission
without using preamble or unique word for data-aided receiver
synchronization. In such a case, even the receiver is equipped
with non-data-aided carrier recovery loop, it will still suffer
from a phase ambiguity problem [1, Sec. 5.3], meaning that
the signal constellation is rotated by an unknown integer
multiple of /2. To tackle this problem, differential coding is
often used. For example, the differential QPSK (DQPSK)
scheme uses a mapping between input dibit and four possible
differential angle {0. /2, , 3/2}. However, very few
literatures can be found about differential coding for the
square QAM system, although a differential star 16-QAM
scheme had been adopted by the CCITT v.29 9600 bps modem
[2], and its performance analysis can also be found in [3-4]. In
[5], Gini and Giannakis proposed a general differential scheme
based on higher-order statistics, but it imposes a significant
performance loss for square QAM and the differential coding
scheme is quite complicated.
In this paper, we propose a new angle differential
encoding/decoding scheme to solve the phase ambiguity
problem for square QAM system which is already equipped
with a non-data-aided Costas loop and amplitude estimator for

QAM signal. Using a solar system analogy, the proposed angle

differential-QAM (ADQAM) scheme can be easily
comprehended, and the decoding scheme can also be
efficiently done. Under the assumptions of perfect amplitude
estimation, both theoretical performance analysis and
computer simulation show that the ADQAM scheme imposes
only slight performance degradation as compared to coherent
QAM system, under both the AWGN channel and Rayleigh
fading channel.
To demonstrate how the proposed differential scheme can
be applied to realistic continuous transmission scenario, a
16-ADQAM system is then implemented in terms of an
audio-band software-defined-radio (AB-SDR) approach [6].
Being an instructional system, the platform needs only two
personal computers with sound card support and Matlab
software. Experimental results show that the whole system,
including all necessary synchronization algorithms, can be
designed, tested, and fine tuned in a very flexible way.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section II, the
ADQAM coding and decoding schemes are presented. In
Section III, the BER performance analysis of the proposed
ADQAM scheme and the performance simulation result is
conducted. In Section IV, the AB-SDR design of the
16-ADQAM system is described, and experimental results are
also presented. Finally, conclusions are made in Section V.

2.ADQAM Encoding and Decoding Schemes

A. ADQAM Encoding Scheme
Since QPSK is a special case of M-QAM for M=4, we
similarly want to generalize the DQPSK structure to the
proposed ADQAM scheme by using K/2 differential angles,
where K=log2M denotes the number of bits per ADQAM
symbol. In the following, the coding and decoding processes
are explained by taking the 16-ADQAM constellation as an
example.
For 16-ADQAM, a group of four bits is mapped into one of
the 24 possible transitions between two consecutive complex
symbols S(i-1) and S(i). The transition can be expressed in
terms of two differential angles {1, 2}, where 1 is
determined by the first dibit of the QAM symbol, and 2 is
determined by the second dibit. In Table 1, the gray-coded

mapping between dibit (b1,b2) and corresponding differential

angle is listed.
TABLE 1. Dibit to Differential Angle Mapping.
b0 b1
0 0
0 1
1 1
1 0

0
/2

3/2

1(1) =

Referring to Fig. 1, Let the complex symbol S(i) be

represented as the summation of a quadrant center C(i), and a
displacement D(i) :
S (i ) = C (i ) + D(i)

around the Earth by the second differential angle 2(i).

A simple example is given to illustrate the above
16-ADQAM encoding scheme. Let a segment of data bits is [ 0
1 0 1 1 1 1 0 ] , which correspond to two 16-ADQAM
symbols. Using the mapping in Table I, the following
differential angles are obtained:

(1)

Then the differential 16-QAM encoding rule can be described

as two recursive updating formulae:
C (i ) = C (i 1)e j 1 (i )

(2)

D (i ) = D (i 1)e j2 (i )

(3)

Without loss of generality, the initial symbol S(0) is set by

letting C (0) = Re j 4 and D(0) = re j 4 , where R = 2 2 denotes

the distance between the origin and the quadrant center, and
r = 2 is the distance between the quadrant center and the
constellation point. Hence, S(0) = 3+j3, and all the subsequent
symbols S(i) can be expressed as S ( i ) = a ( i ) + jb ( i ) , where a,b
{ 1, 3}. The averaged symbol energy
2 ( M -1)
is Es ,av =
= 10 . Note that the above differential
3
encoding scheme is also applicable to DVB-T hierarchical
QAM constellation [6].

3
; 2 (1) = ; 1(2) = ; 2 (2) =
2
2
2

resulting
the
16-ADQAM symbol S (2) =
C (2) + D (2) = 3 - j which the transition is illustrated in Fig.2.

And

For higher level ADQAM case, generalization of the above

differential coding scheme is straightforward. Fig 3 shows the
constellation for the 64-ADQAM case, where K=log2(64)=6
bits/symbol. In such a scheme, the 64-ADQAM symbol will
be decomposed into three components which are rotated by
three differential angles {1, 2, 3}, respectively.

Fig. 2 Illustrative examples of ADQAM symbol transition.

Fig. 1 The 16-ADQAM constellation and its Solar System analogy.

A Solar System analogy can be used to explain the above

encoding scheme. Referring to Fig. 1, let the origin represents
the Sun which is stationary. Then the four quadrant centers
denote the possible positions of the Earth revolving around the
Sun, and the 16 constellation points correspond to possible
locations of the Moon revolving around the Earth. With the
above analogy, the transition from S(i-1) to S(i) can be simply
viewed as two relative revolving movements between the Sun,
Earth, and Moon. First, the Earth is rotated around the Sun by
the first differential angle 1(i), and then the Moon is rotated

Fig. 3 The 64-ADQAM constellation and its three-stage encoding scheme.

B. ADQAM Decoding under Phase Ambiguity

If the transmitted signal s(t) undergoes a frequency flat
channel, the received equivalent low-pass signal x(t) can be
written as
x (t ) = s (t ) e

j (o t + )

+ n (t ) ,

(4)

where denotes the complex channel attenuation, o and

denote the carrier frequency and phase offsets, and n(t) is the
AWGN noise. For the proposed ADQAM system, two
assumptions are made at the receiver side; (1) The received
square QAM constellation has been correctly oriented and
aligned with the I/Q axes by a non-data-aided (NDA) recursive
Costas loop [1, Sec. 5.3.8]. (2) The received constellation has
been adjusted to correct voltage level by automatic gain
control (AGC), which can converge to a gain reciprocal to the
absolute value of the channel attenuation. Then the decision
variable at the slicer input can be written as
X ( i ) = S ( i ) e j + N ( i )

X ( i ) = C ( i ) e j + D ( i ) e j + N ( i )

(6)

= C p ( i ) + Dp (i ) + N (i )

where the subscript p denotes the rotation caused by the phase

ambiguity . Since the rotated quadrant center can be easily
decided as :

C p ( i ) = R sgn real X ( i ) + j sgn imag X ( i )

(7)

where real[x] and imag[x] denote the real and imaginary parts
of a complex number x, respectively, and sgn(x) is the signum
function. From C p (i ) and C p (i 1) , the first differential angle
1(i) and the corresponding dibit can be detected according
to the following rule:

If C p ( i ) C p ( i 1)

X(i)

sgn(.)

R2 ,
2
jR ,
= 2
R ,
jR 2 ,

C *p ( i 1)

say 1 ( i ) = / 2
say 1 ( i ) =

sgn(.)

D p ( i )
D *p ( i 1)

3. Analysis of ADQAM Error Performance

Based on the received signal model (4) and the proposed
ADQAM scheme, we should analyze the receiver
performance below. First, let the minimum distance of the
16-QAM constellation be denoted as dmin. Note that the error
probability in deciding the quadrant center Cp(i) is governed
by the nearest neighbour union bound (NNUB) at sufficiently
high SNR. Thus, counting the number of line segments with
length dmin/2 from the constellation points in the same
quadrant to the quadrant boundary gives the value Np = 4 for
the 16-ADQAM. For the AWGN channel with =1, the
distribution of N(i) is N(0, N0/2), and then the error
probabilities for Cp(i) can be closely approximated as
1
Pe ( C p ( i ) ) = Pr C p ( i ) C p ( i ) N p p = p ,
4

d
1
p = erfc min
2 N
2
0

(11)

say 2 ( i ) = 0

(10)

(12)

Pe ( 1 ( i ) ) 2 Pe ( C p ( i ) ) 2 p

.(13)

Next, lets examine the second-stage detection for Dp(i).

From the total probability theorem, we have
Pe ( D p ( i ) ) = Pr D p ( i ) D p ( i )

(
P (D

) (
) (

= Pe D p ( i ) | C p (i) is correct P C p (i ) is correct +

say 2 ( i ) = 3 / 2

Therefore, regardless of the phase ambiguity , the ADQAM

symbol can be correctly detected. The block diagram of the
above two-stage decoding scheme is shown in Fig.4. For

is the tail probability in (dmin/2, ) of the noise distribution.

Since the detection of the first differential angle 1 ( i )
depends on two subsequent quadrant centers, we have the
approximate error probability for 1 ( i ) as

(9)

the second differential angle 2(i) can also be detected as

say 2 ( i ) =

2 ( i )

Fig. 4 The two-stage decoding scheme of 16-ADQAM receiver.

say 2 ( i ) = / 2

Phase
detector

Z-1

say 1 ( i ) = 3 / 2

(
)
j sgn ( imag X ( i ) C ( i ) )

If D p ( i ) ( D p ( i 1) )

1 ( i )

Z-1

(8)

D p ( i ) = r sgn real X ( i ) C p ( i ) +

r 2 ,
2
jr ,
= 2
r ,
jr 2 ,

Phase
detector

where it is assumed that the four signal points in the quadrant

are equally likely, and

say 1 ( i ) = 0

Once C p ( i ) and 1(i) have been detected, the second

displacement vector Dp(i) can be detected likewise. By letting

C p ( i )

(5)

where {0, /2, , 3/2} denotes the unknown phase

ambiguity, and N(i) denotes the noise sample. A two-stage
differential decoding is then proposed for the 16-ADQAM
system to detect the correct bit sequence. Substituting (2) and
(3) into (4), we have

higher-level M-ray ADQAM, similar procedure with K/2

decoding stages can be applied. Besides, for M=4, the above
differential decoding scheme degenerates to the simplest
DQPSK case, which has been adopted by the conventional
Barker-code WLAN and CCK WLAN [7].

p ( i ) | C p (i ) is incorrect P C p (i ) is incorrect

(14)

2p (1 p ) + Pe Dp ( i ) | C p (i ) is incorrect p

where

Pe D p ( i ) | C p (i ) is incorrect

denotes

the

error

propagation effect due to the first-stage error. The above

equation can be simplified by letting p<<1 and
Pe D p ( i ) | C p (i ) is incorrect 1. Then

d
3
Pe ( D p ( i ) ) 2 p + p = erfc min
2 N
2
0

we can use integration technique [8] to average (23) over the

PDF of , resulting in a closed-form BER as:

Pf ,16 DQAM = Pe,16 DQAM ( ) f ( ) d

0

1+
1 1
10 3 1 1
10 tan 1
10
= 2

2 2 1 + 10 4 1 + 10

10

.(15)

Thus we have
Pe ( 2 ( i ) ) 2 Pe ( Dp ( i ) ) 6 p

.(16)

Finally, the average BER of the 16-ADQAM can be found

as
Pe,16 DQAM =

1
1 1 Pe ( 1 ( i ) ) 1 Pe ( 2 ( i ) )

log 2 16

)(

1
(17)
= Pe ( 1 ( i ) ) + Pe ( 2 ( i ) ) Pe ( 1 ( i ) ) Pe ( 2 ( i ) )
4
= 2 p 3 p2

For M-ary QAM constellation, the average bit energy Eb is

related to the minimum distance dmin as follows:
Eb =

Es ,av
log 2 M

2 ( M 1) 2
d min
3 log 2 M

(18)

Hence, for M=16, we have Eb = 2.5d , and the final

approximate BER expression in terms of Eb/N0 is
2
min

Eb
Pe,16 DQAM 2 p = erfc
10 N 0

(19)

On the other hand, a coherent 16-QAM system has the

approximate BER
Eb
3
Pe ,16QAM erfc
10 N
8
0

(20)

For higher-level constellation with M>16, the M-ary ADQAM

K/2-stage decoder is used in the receiver. Its BER under

AWGN channel can also be approximated by NNUB, and the
result is

8
2.667 .
3

K /2

1 1 Pe n ( i )
n =1

1
log 2 M

1 (1 2 p ) K 2 1 1 2 p K + 1
2

2
where = E

)) ) 2 p

(25)

b
.
where p = erfc

2
4
E
N
,
0
s
av

To verify the performance of the proposed ADQAM coding

and decoding scheme, Fig.5 plots both the simulated and
theoretical BER curves of the 16-ADQAM system. Under
both the AWGN and flat Rayleigh fading channels, the
theoretical approximate BER curve and the simulated curve
match very well. Moreover, the proposed 16-ADQAM system
degrades by about 0.6 dB at BER=10-3 under the AWGN
channel, as compared to its coherent counterpart. Fig. 6 shows
the BER performance comparison between coherent QAM
and ADQAM system under AWGN channel for M = 4, 16, 64,
256, and 1024. It is seen that the performance loss increases
with M, but is still less than 1dB at BER=10-3 for M=1024.

(21)

N0

e ,

-1

10

-2

10

-3

10

-4

10

density function as follows

1

))

1
log 2 M

10

Next, let us consider the BER analysis under Rayleigh

fading channel. In such a case, the fading coefficient is a
zero-mean complex Gaussian random variable. Hence, the
2 Eb
has an exponential probability
instantaneous SNR =

f ( ) =

Pe, M DQAM =

BER

Pe ,16QAM

symbol consists of K/2 differential angles 1 " K 2 , and a

Therefore the ADQAM-to-QAM BER ratio for M=16 is

Pe ,16 DQAM

(24)

-5

(22)

Eb
denotes the average SNR per bit. Hence,
N0

from (17), the instantaneous BER is also a function of :

1
1

Pe ,16 DQAM ( ) = 2 erfc
+ 3 erfc

2
10 2
10

(23)

To find the average error probability under Rayleigh fading,

10

-6

10

10

15
Eb/N0 (dB)

20

25

30

Fig. 5 The theoretical and simulated BER curves of the 16-ADQAM

system under AWGN and flat Rayleigh channels, with the coherent
16-QAM system as a reference.

At the transmitter, the input voice signal is converted into

the source bit stream at a bit rate of 44.1 kbps by using the
adaptive delta modulation (ADM). Then the bit stream is
converted to 16-ADQAM passband signal at a carrier
frequency of 10 kHz. At the receiver, continuous reception of
bit stream is done with the help of two non-data-aided (NDA)
synchronizers: (1) Gardners symbol timing recovery loop [1,
Sec. 7.5], and (2) a recursive 2nd-order digital Costas loop [1,
Sec. 5.3.8] for carrier frequency synchronization. The primary
system parameters settings are listed in Table 2.

10

M-QAM
M-ADQAM

-1

10

-2

10

-3

BER

10

-4

10

-5

10

M=4

M=16

M=64

M=256

M=1024

B. Experimental Results

-6

10

-7

10

10

15

20

25

30

Eb/N0, dB

Fig. 6 The BER performance comparison between coherent QAM

. for M = 4, 16, 64, 256, and 1024
and ADQAM system under AWGN

4. An Audio-Band SDR Realization of the

16-ADQAM System
An SDR is able to provide very flexible multi-mode,
multifunction, and multi-band operation. In this paper, we
deliberately use a much lower carrier frequency in audio band
for educational and budget consideration.

A test speech signal was transmitted by the 16-ADQAM

system. We deliberately set a carrier frequency offset of fo = 10
Hz. We have observed that both synchronizers can lock the
signal quickly. Fig. 8(a) shows the signal constellation after
the symbol synchronizer, where the carrier frequency offset
gives rise to constellation rotation. Finally, Fig. 8(b) shows the
output after the Costas loop, where the de-rotated constellation
is now aligned with the signal space axes. Although an
unknown phase ambiguity still remains, the proposed
ADQAM decoding scheme can successfully solve the problem
and detect all the source bits correctly.

A. The AB-SDR Approach and Block Diagram

As is shown in Fig.7, the audio-band SDR (AB-SDR)
platform needs only two personal computers (PCs) with
soundcard support and the Matlab software. Specifically, PC-1
is for running the transmitter (TX) program, including the
speech coding, 16-ADQAM mapping, and I/Q modulation.
Then the soundcard SPK output is used for sending out the
modulated ADQAM signal. On the other hand, PC-2 is for
running the complete 16-ADQAM real-time receiver (RX)
program which acquires its input signal from the PC-2 LINE
IN jacket. Besides, a 3.5 mm audio wire is used to connect the
PC-1 SPK and the PC-2 LINE IN jackets. Oscilloscope can
also be used to monitor the audio-band ADQAM signal during
transmission.

PC-1
16-ADQAM Matlab Tx-Program
4
4
SRRC

cos
sin

SRRC

AdaptiveDeltaModulation

16-ADQAM
Encoder

Fig.8 The 16-ADQAM symbol constellation after

(a) symbol synchronizer , and
(b) carrier synchronizer.

PC-2
16-ADQAM Matlab Rx-Program

Sound Card 44.1kHz

A
/
D

LINE IN

A
/
D

3.5mm
audio cable

AWGN

D
/
A

SPK OUT

D
/
A

cos
sin

L
P
F

Halfband
filter

T/2 SRRC
filter

+
j

AdaptiveDeltaDemodulation

Fig. 7 Block diagram of the 16-ADQAM AB-SDR transceiver.

T/2-Interpolation
Timing Recovery
16-ADQAM
Decoder

Recursive Digital
Costas Loop

5. Conclusions
In this paper, we have proposed an angle differential-QAM
(ADQAM) system to solve the phase ambiguity problem for
real-time continuous transmission system without resorting to
any training sequence. It is shown that the differential
coding/decoding scheme is very systematic and costs only a
little extra computational load. As for the BER performance,
the proposed ADQAM system just incurs a little performance
degradation, as compared to the coherent square-QAM system.
An instructive AB-SDR implementation of the 16-ADQAM
system is also presented, which can serve as a cost-effective
algorithm verification and prototyping workbench.
TABLE 2. Parameters of the AB-SDR 16-ADQAM transciver
1. Transmitter Parameters
Symbol rate
Rs= Rb/4=11.025 ksps
Over sampling rate
OVR=4
TX D/A sampling rate
fst = OVR*Rs = 44.1 ksps
TX carrier frequency
fc= 10 kHz
SRRC filter roll-off factor
=0.5
2. Receiver Parameters
RX A/D passband sampling rate
RX carrier frequency offset
Matched filter and decimation ratio

[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]

[8]

fsr = 44.1 ksps

fo = 10 Hz
0.5-SRRC with 2:1 decimation

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