Quantitative Analysis of a New Method for Real-Time Generation of SNR Estimates for Digital Phase Modulation Signals

Abstract—A new method of estimating the signal-to-noise ratio for M-PSK receivers was presented previously, which derives that estimate from the locked-state value of a new family of carrier lock detectors. In this paper, a quantitative analysis is undertaken in which it is shown that this method requires significantly less hard-ware and/or software resources than estimation from the received signal’s error rate, is irrespective of the data sequence, and neces-sitates far fewer symbols in order to arrive at an equally accurate estimate. Index Terms—Bit-error rate (BER), BPSK, carrier, detector, error rate, estimation, lock, metric, M-PSK, phase modulation