The 2014 International Conference on Advanced Technologies for Communications (ATC'14)

A Hybrid Walsh-Hadamard Code Division

Multiplexing for Helicopter Satellite
Communications
Ayako Suzuki and Toshiharu Kojima
Graduate School of Informatics and Engineering
The University of Electro-Communications, Chofu, Tokyo, 182-8585, Japan
Email: {ayakoSUZUKI, Kojima.Toshiharu}@uec.ac.jp Telephone: +81-42-443-5763
(AFC). We proposed an AFC based on correlation energy[6].
The proposed AFC tracks and removes the frequency offset
accuracy when the multiplexing factor is less than WHT
order. However, when the multiplexing factor is equal to
WHT order (i.e. the maximum multiplexing factor) intercode
interference caused by destruction of code orthogonality due
to the frequency offset makes it impossible for the AFC to
discriminate the frequency offset. We must therefore set the
multiplexing factor less than WHT order. As a result, the
spectral efficiency is reduced.

AbstractIn helicopter satellite communications, periodic

channel blockage due to rotor blades and Doppler shift caused by
helicopter maneuvers are major issues. Code division multiplexing employing Walsh-Hadamard code (WHCDM) is a promising
solution for the periodic blockage. However, automatic frequency
control (AFC) removing Doppler shift limits the multiplexing
factor of WHCDM to less than its maximum value because of
its frequency discrimination performance. This limitation reduces
the spectral efficiency in the conventional WHCDM. In this paper,
we propose a novel WHCDM achieving the maximum spectral
efficiency with the multiplexing factor of its maximum value
minus one. In the proposed WHCDM, one Walsh-Hadamard code
selected by information data is excluded from the transmitted
signal. Results of computer simulation show that the bit error
rate performance of the proposed WHCDM is slightly better
than that of the conventional one in the higher Eb /N0 region.

I.

To solve this problem, we propose a novel WHCDM

scheme for helicopter satellite communications in this paper.
The multiplexing factor of the proposed WHCDM is set to
WHT order minus one. Namely, one Walsh-Hadamard code is
excluded from a CDM symbol. The excluded code is selected
on the basis of information data. In other words, the ordinal
number of the excluded code contains information data on the
basis of which it is selected. The proposed WHCDM can hence
achieve the same spectral efficiency as the conventional one
with the maximum multiplexing factor though its multiplexing
factor is WHT order minus one. In this paper, we evaluate the performances of the proposed WHCDM in additive
white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel not with the periodic
blockage but without it by computer simulation, because those
are the most basic performances. Results of the computer
simulation show that the proposed WHCDM achieves slightly
better BER performance than the conventional one in the
higher Eb /N0 region.

I NTRODUCTION

Emergency rescue and disaster relief are important applications of helicopters. To establish reliable communications
in these applications, helicopter satellite communications are
attractive.
In helicopter satellite communications, there is no multipath fading because no obstacle exists between helicopter and
geo-stationary communication satellite excepting rotor blades.
One of the most important issues in helicopter satellite communications is therefore periodic channel blockage due to the
rotor blades[1]-[4]. The periodic blockage causes burst error
and degrades bit error rate (BER) performance significantly.
Code division multiplexing (CDM) has a capability to reduce
the BER degradation because the duration of a CDM signal can
be set longer than that of the periodic blockage by adjusting
its multiplexing factor. CDM scheme is therefore promising
in helicopter satellite communications. We investigate CDM
employing Walsh-Hadamard code (WHCDM) for helicopter
satellite communications. WHCDM can be easily implemented
with Walsh-Hadamard transform (WHT).

The rest of the paper is organized as follows: The configuration of proposed scheme is illustrated in Section II. The
influence of code estimation error is represented in Section III.
In Section IV, we show the results of the computer simulation.
Finally, we conclude the paper in Section V.
II.

Fig. 1 shows the configuration of the transmitter of the

proposed WHCDM scheme. Let N denote WHT order. The
proposed scheme transmits M N bits as one data block where
M = log2 N . In the transmitter, a binary information data
sequence {ai } (ai {0, 1}) is divided into a M (N 1) bit
sequence and a M bit sequence. The M (N 1) bit sequence
is supplied into BPSK modulator, resulting in modulated
sequence {qi } where

Another major issue in helicopter satellite communications is time-varying Doppler shift caused by helicopter
maneuvers[5]. As mentioned above, there is no multi-path
fading in helicopter satellite communications. Therefore, no
Doppler spread occurs. Doppler shift only brings about frequency offset in the received signal. In CDM systems, the
frequency offset causes energy loss of signal after demultiplexing. Hence WHCDM scheme for helicopter satellite
communications requires accurate automatic frequency control

978-1-4799-6956-2/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

P ROPOSED SCHEME

qi = 1 2ai

(i = 0, 1, , M N M 1).

(1)

IWHT

Transmitted
signal

Configuration of the transmitter of the proposed scheme

S/P

Received
signal

Coherent
detection

WHT

Received
data

P/S

Fig. 1.

BPSK

P/S

Information
data

S/P

Divide

The 2014 International Conference on Advanced Technologies for Communications (ATC'14)

Code
estimation
Fig. 2.

Configuration of the receiver of the proposed scheme

The other M bit sequence specifies the binary number p (p

{0, 1, , N 1}) of the excluded Walsh-Hadamard code.
p = (aM N 1 , aM N 2 , , aM N M )(2)

CDM signal sequence is amplified, resulting in the transmitted

signal sequence {si } where

N Eb
Eb
si =
ci =
ci ,
(7)
N 1 N
N 1

(2)

That is, the m-th significant bit of p is aM N m . Then, serialto-parallel converter converts these two sequences into the
transmitted symbol Bm (m = 0, 1, , M 1)
Bm = (bmN , bmN +1 , , bmN +N 1 ),
where
bmN +n

qmN +n
= 0

qmN +n1

(n = 0, 1, , p 1)
(n = p)
(n = p + 1, , N 1).

and Eb denotes the energy per bit. The factor N/(N 1) is

the ratio of information contained in a CDM symbol to the
multiplexing factor.

(3)

Fig. 2 shows the configuration of the receiver of the proposed scheme. In the receiver, serial-to-parallel converter conbm (m = 0, 1, , M 1)
structs the received CDM symbol C
from the received signal sequence {ri } (i = 0, 1, , M N
1).
bm = (rmN , rmN +1 , , rmN +N 1 )
C
(8)

(4)

Next, the transmitted symbol Bm is input to inverse WHT

(IWHT) processor. IWHT processor performs IWHT of order
N , and outputs the transmitted CDM symbol Cm
Cm = (cmN , cmN +1 , , cmN +N 1 ),

bm is input to WHT processor

The received CDM symbol C
and WHT of order N is performed. WHT processor outputs
bm
the demultiplexed symbol B

(5)

b m = (bmN , bmN +1 , , bmN +N 1 ),

B

where
cmN +n =
=

N
1

k=0
p1

k=0

where
bmN +k wk,n

qmN +k wk,n +

bmN +n =
N
1

(6)

N
1

cmN +k wn,k .

(9)

(10)

k=0

b m is supplied to the coherent

The demultiplexed symbol B
detector, resulting in the demodulated symbol Dm

qmN +k+1 wk,n ,

k=p+1

and wk,n {1} is the (k, n) element of Walsh-Hadamard

matrix of order N . Eq.(6) clearly shows that the p-th WalshHadamard code (i.e. the p-th row of Walsh-Hadamard matrix)
is excluded from the transmitted CDM symbol Cm . Namely,
the multiplexing factor of the proposed WHCDM is N 1.
In spite of that, the transmitted CDM symbol Cm contains
N bits information data because the ordinal number p of the
excluded code has M bits information data as shown in Eq. (2).
Note that the ordinal number p of the excluded code is fixed
during one data block (i.e. M successive CDM symbols). This
redundancy improves the estimation accuracy of the ordinal
number p of the excluded code in the receiver. Finally, parallelto-serial converter forms the M successive CDM symbols into
the CDM signal sequence {ci } (i = 0, 1, , M N 1). The

Dm = (dmN , dmN +1 , , dmN +N 1 ),

(11)

1 sign(bmN +n )
{0, 1}
2

(12)

where
dmN +n =

b m is also supplied to the code

The demultiplexed symbol B
estimator. The code estimator decides the estimation value
p of the ordinal number of the excluded code (hereafter we
call it code estimation value) on the basis of the following
equation:
M
1

b2
p =
arg min
(13)
mN +n .
n{0,1, ,N 1} m=0

The 2014 International Conference on Advanced Technologies for Communications (ATC'14)

TABLE I.

Finally, the parallel-to-serial converter forms the demodulated

symbol Dm and the code estimation value p into the received
data sequence {
ai } (i = 0, 1, , M N 1) where
{
dmN +n
(n = 0, 1, , p 1)
a
mN +n =
dmN +n+1 (n = p + 1, , N 2)
a
M N m1 = pm (m = 0, , M 1).
(14)

Primary Modulation
Demodulation
WHT order
Channel

and pm {0, 1} is the m-th significant bit of the code

estimation value p.
III.

S IMULATION C ONDITIONS
BPSK
Coherent detection
N = 8 and 64
AWGN channel

100

N=8 (Simulation)
N=64 (Simulation)

I NFLUENCE OF CODE ESTIMATION ERROR

10-1

Probability of code estimation error

In the proposed WHCDM scheme, the error probability of

the code estimation value p (hereafter it is called code estimation error probability) is important because BER performance
depends on it.
We can express the BER Pb of the proposed WHCDM in
terms of the code estimation error probability Pc and the BER
of the primary modulation (i.e. BPSK). On the other hand, the
BER PB of the conventional WHCDM is that of the primary
modulation itself. Namely,

Eb
1
.
(15)
PB = erfc
2
N0
In the proposed WHCDM, as mentioned previously, a CDM
symbol with multiplexing factor N 1 contains N information
bits because the ordinal number p of the excluded code has
one bit per symbol. When code estimation is correct (i.e. p
= p), one bit contained in p is also correct. Because a CDM
symbol has energy of N/(N 1) times Eb per code as shown
in Eq. (7), the BER Pp of the other N 1 bits is represented
by

1
N Eb
Pp = erfc
.
(16)
2
N 1 N0

Eb/N0[dB]

Fig. 3.

Code estimation error probability vs. Eb /N0 performance

IV.

C OMPUTER SIMULATION

As mentioned in Section I, we evaluated the performances

of the proposed WHCDM in AWGN channel without the
periodic blockage by computer simulation. Let N0 denote
the single-sided noise power spectral density of AWGN. The
simulation conditions are summarized in Table I.
Fig. 3 shows the simulation results of code estimation error
probability versus Eb /N0 performance. We can see that the
curve of the code estimation error probability is similar to
BER performance of biorthogonal signals[7]. This is because
that the code estimation process in the proposed WHCDM is
the dual of signal detection process of biorthogonal signals.

1
{0.5 + 0.5 + (N 2)Pp }
N
(18)
1
= {1 + (N 2)Pp }.
N
The BER Pb of the proposed WHCDM is finally given by

lim Pb = lim Pp = PB .

10-4

10-6

P1 =

10-3

10-5

The BER P0 in correct code estimation case is therefore

expressed as
N 1
P0 =
Pp .
(17)
N
When code estimation is incorrect, p = p, the BER of one
bit contained in p is 0.5. In addition, the BER of one bit
corresponding to the p-th code is also 0.5. The BER of the
other N 2 bits is equal to Pp . The BER P1 in incorrect code
estimation case is hence represented by

Pb = (1 Pc )P0 + Pc P1
1
= {Pc (1 Pp ) + (N 1)Pp }.
N
When WHT order N approaches infinity, we have

-2

10

Fig. 4 shows the BER performance. It is confirmed that

the BER performance of the proposed WHCDM is slightly
better than that of the conventional one in the higher Eb /N0
region. The amount of excess gain increases with smaller N .
In other words, as described in Eq. (20), the BER performance
of the proposed WHCDM is closer to that of the conventional
one as N increases. Fig. 5 shows the relationship between
code estimation error probability and BER. In Fig. 5, the right
side of Eq. (19) is calculated with the code estimation error
probability Pc in Fig. 3. We can see that the simulation results
agree well with Eq. (19).

(19)

(20)

That is, the BER performance of proposed WHCDM is closer

to that of the conventional one as N increases.

The 2014 International Conference on Advanced Technologies for Communications (ATC'14)

of the signal generation process of biorthogonal signals. Results of computer simulation show that the BER performance
of the proposed WHCDM is slightly better than that of the
conventional one in the higher Eb /N0 region. It is expected
that AFC performs well in the helicopter satellite communication system employing the proposed WHCDM. In this paper,
we evaluated the performances in AWGN channel without the
periodic blockage as the most basic performances. We intend
to evaluate the performances of the proposed WHCDM with
the periodic blockage and Doppler shift in further studies.

10-1

Conventional (theory)
Proposed with N=8
Proposed with N=64
10-2

-3

Bit error rate

10

-4

10

R EFERENCES
[1] K. Farazian, D. Divsalar, N. Golshan, T. K. Wu, and S. Hinedi,
Helicopter Satellite Communication: Development of Low-Cost RealTime Voice and Data System for Aeronautical Mobile Satellite Service
(AMSS), in Proc. 1993 ICUPC, pp. 314-319.
[2] K. Farazian, B. Abbe, D. Divsalar, D. Raphaeli, A. Tulintseff, T. K.
Wu, and S. Hinedi, Development of Low-Cost Satellite Communications System for Helicopters and General Aviation, in Proc. Dual-Use
Heli/GA SATCOM Workshop, Aug. 11, 1994.
[3] W. G. Cowley, M. P. Lavenant, and W. Zhang, A Mobile Satellite
Modem for Helicopter Applications, in Proc. 1997 IMSC, pp. 479-484.
[4] Huan-Bang Li, M. Sato, A. Miura, S. Taira, and H. Wakana, Ku-band
helicopter satellite communications for on scene disaster Information
transmission, in Proc. 2004 PIMRC, pp. 2794-2796.
[5] T. Kojima and S. Yasue, A Fast Acquisition AFC for Helicopter Satellite
Communications, in Proc. 2012 ATC, pp. 106-109.
[6] T. Kojima and A. Suzuki, A novel AFC scheme for Walsh-Hadamard
Code Division Multiplexing, in Proc. 2013 ATC, pp. 271-274.
[7] B. Sklar, Digital Communications: Fundamentals and Applications,
2nd ed. 2001: Prentice Hall.

10-5

-6

10

10-7
0

10

Eb/N0[dB]

Fig. 4.

BER performance

100

Eq.(19) with N=8

Simulation with N=8
Eq.(19) with N=64
Simulation with N=64
10-1

Bit error rate

10-2

10-3

10-4

10-5
10-6

10-5

10-4

10-3

10-2

10-1

100

Probability of code estimation error

Fig. 5.

Relationship between code estimation error probability and BER

V.

C ONCLUSION

We propose a novel WHCDM achieving the maximum

spectral efficiency with the multiplexing factor of the maximum value minus one. In the proposed WHCDM, one WalshHadamard code selected on the basis of information data is
excluded from the transmitted signal. This process is the dual