ARTICLE IN PRESS

Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 20 (2007) 463–472

www.elsevier.com/locate/engappai

Classification of modulation signals using statistical signal

characterization and artificial neural networks
Abdulnasir Hossen, Fakhri Al-Wadahi, Joseph A. Jervase
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box 33 Al-Khod, 123 Muscat, Oman
Received 13 September 2005; received in revised form 1 June 2006; accepted 26 August 2006
Available online 28 November 2006

Abstract

Modulation recognition systems have to be able to correctly classify the incoming signal modulation scheme in the presence of noise.
A new method for classification of analogue and digital modulated signals at low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is introduced in this paper.
This method uses the statistical signal characterization (SSC) to extract parameters to classify the different modulation signals. The SSC
technique produces a set of four numerical parameters for a specific modulated signal. Subsequent comparison of these parameters to
those of other waveforms provides the basis for our classification system. The results of SSC technique are applied to an artificial neural
network (ANN) to have a robust classification system in the presence of noise down to SNR of 3 dB. No a priori information is required
by this technique about the set of input waveforms. The input to the classification system can be analogue or digital signals or a
combination of both. The proposed technique shows a 100% efficiency of classification of analogue signals or digital signals at SNR of
7 dB. This classification efficiency reduces to 83% and 86% for analogue or digital signals at SNR of 3 dB. The SSC technique shows
better classification results in comparison with other techniques with an important advantage over other methods, which is the simplicity
of the neural network needed with this technique due to the small number of features used in the classification.
r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Statistical signal characterization; Modulation classification; Artificial neural networks; Pattern recognition

1. Introduction modulating signal. The analytic representation of the

Modulation is the process, in which, the amplitude,
frequency or phase of a high frequency sinusoidal carrier is
altered proportionally to the low-frequency modulating
signal (transmitted message). Modulation can be classified
into two different groups depending on the transmitted
signal. If the transmitted signal is continuous, the modula-
tion is referred to as analogue modulation. If the
transmitted signal is discrete, the modulation is digital
modulation. Analogue modulation types can be further
classified into two groups: Linear and angle modulation
(Haykin, 2001). Amplitude modulation (AM) is the
simplest form of linear modulation. It is obtained by
varying the amplitude of the carrier wave according to the
Corresponding author. Tel.: +968 24415303; fax: +968 24413454.
E-mail addresses: abhossen@squ.edu.om (A. Hossen),
alwadahi@omantel.net.om (F. Al-Wadahi), jervase@squ.edu.om
(J.A. Jervase).
amplitude-modulated signal is a sum of the carrier and
the modulating signal shifted in frequency by the carrier
frequency. This type of modulation is also referred to as
amplitude-modulation double-sideband transmitted carrier
(AM-DSB-TC). If the carrier is suppressed, the modulation
type is called amplitude-modulation double-sideband sup-
pressed carrier (AM-DSB-SC). Another type of AM is the
single-sideband (SSB), in which only one sideband is
transmitted. Thus it occupies only half the bandwidth
compared to AM-DSB-TC or AM-DSB-SC. The frequency
modulation (FM) and phase modulation (PM) differ
considerably from the linear AM. The major difference is
in the instantaneous amplitude which, in AM, varies
depending on the message and, in the exponential (angle)
modulation is constant. The frequency of the carrier in FM
and the phase of the carrier in PM are altered with respect
to the modulating signal (Stern and Mahmoud, 2004).
Digital modulation, based on the same principle of
classifying the analogue modulation into AM, FM and

0952-1976/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engappai.2006.08.004
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
464 A. Hossen et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 20 (2007) 463–472
PM, is classified into amplitude shift keying (ASK),
frequency shift keying (FSK) and phase shift keying
(PSK). ASK is obtained by defining a unique amplitude
state of the carrier for every symbol in the discrete message.
PSK and FSK can be obtained by defining a unique phase
and frequency state of the carrier for every symbol in the
message, respectively (Rosti, 1998).
Identification of modulation type of the received signal
has several uses in both civilian and military applications
such as surveillance, signal confirmation, interference
identification, monitoring, spectrum management, and
software radio (Rosti, 1998; Nolan et al., 2001, 2002).
The automatic analysis of a communication signal is
needed for signal identification. Little or no a priori
information about a signal is available to aid in such
analysis. The identification algorithm must extract infor-
mation and infer characteristics based only on the collected
signal. The goal of any communication system is to extract
useful information from amplitude, frequency and phase
information contained in a signal. In Chan et al. (1985),
Marques de Sa’ (2001), and Chan and Gadbois (1989),
attempts were performed to create a system that can
automatically extract modulation type for a wide range of
signal classes. The work was performed using some
statistical information contained in the amplitude of the
signal to classify it as AM-DSB-TC, FM, AM-DSB-SC, or
SSB. Another work (McMillan et al., 1990) extended those
results of Chan et al. (1985) by using information available
in the frequency and phase variation to differentiate more
accurately between signal types, and to separate FM
signals. Other methods use the pattern recognition
approach (Marques de Sa’, 2001), which requires many
training experiments and large memory computers (Weaver
et al., 1969). Simple methods such as in Callaghan et al.
(1985) consider only the samples of the signal envelope
amplitude and zero crossing times for identification. The
principle being that when no noise is present, the zero
crossing time is constant while the envelope is not for AM
signals. The opposite is true for FM signals. However, this
assumption is easily rendered invalid by a small amount of
noise.
In Arulampalam et al. (1999), the problem of automatic
modulation recognition of digital communication signals
using neural networks was considered. Several artificial
neural network (ANN) structures have been tested that
perform with 99% accuracy at signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
of 10 dB. Radial basis functions (RBF) with neural
networks have been implemented in Jian et al. (2003) for
the recognition of eight kinds of modulated signals.
Computer simulation results show that the classification
rate is 96% at SNR of 10 dB.
In Azzouz and Nandi (1995, 1996) and Nandi and
Azzouz (1998) two classes of algorithms are utilized for
analogue and digital modulation recognition. The first
class of algorithms utilizes the decision-theoretic approach
in which a set of decision criteria for identifying different
types of modulation is developed. In the second class,
ANN is used for the modulation recognition process. In
the decision-theoretic algorithm, it is found that the overall
success rate is over 94% at SNR of 15 dB, while in the
ANN algorithm the overall success is over 96% at SNR of
15 dB. Classification of six modulation schemes using a
multi-layered perceptron neural network was reported in
Iversen (2004). The modulation schemes were two- and
four-symbol amplitude shift keying (ASK2, ASK4), two-
and four- symbol frequency shift keying (FSK2, FSK4),
four-symbol phase shift keying PSK4 and eight-symbol
quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM8). Six key
features were extracted from the signals and used as inputs
to the neural network in an approach similar to that of
Azzoz and Nandi (Nandi and Azzouz, 1998). The best
classier had a classification efficiency of 63.7% at SNR of
5 dB and 94.8% and over for signals with SNR ranging
from 10 to 25 dB.
In this paper, the statistical signal characterization (SSC)
(Hirsch, 1992) is used with an ANN to differentiate among
the analogue signals (AM-DSB-TC, AM-DSB-SC, SSB,
FM, PM) or digital signals (ASK4, PSK4, FSK4) or a
combination of analogue and digital signals. The SSC
technique is simple and shows excellent results at even low
SNR compared to the methods reviewed in this section.
The paper is organized as follows: In the next section, the
SSC method is introduced. Section 3, presents the
classification procedure. In Section 4, results of applying
SSC and ANN to analogue and digital modulation signals
are presented. Conclusions of the results are covered in
Section 5.
2. Statistical signal characterization
The SSC is a method that characterizes a waveform not
only as a function of the frequency component amplitudes
but also as a function of the relative phases of the frequency
components (Hirsch, 1992). In SSC method there are four
parameters that could be extracted from the amplitude,
frequency, and phase of the signal waveform. The four
waveform parameters, which are called the amplitude mean,
amplitude deviation, period mean, and period deviation, are
the primary measures by which the waveform is character-
ized using this technique (Hirsch, 1992). A waveform is
considered to consist of a set of consecutive segments. A
segment is characterized by its amplitude and period with
their statistical mean and variance being consistent.
Under such conditions, the statistics of the segments are
used to discriminate among signals. Fig. 1 shows a
waveform that exhibits many extrema over the time
interval shown. A segment is bounded by two consecutive
extrema of the waveform. The segment amplitude is
defined as the absolute amplitude difference between the
bounding extrema of the segment:
An ¼ jan  an1 j, (1)
where An is the segment amplitude of the nth segment with
an and an1 being the waveform amplitudes at the ending
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A. Hossen et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 20 (2007) 463–472 465

a0 3. Classification procedure

In general there are two main approaches of modulation

classification techniques (Azzouz and Nandi, 1996):
a6
Amplitude

1. Decision—theoretic approach: In which probabilistic and

a4
hypothesis tests are employed to formulate the modula-
a2 tion classification problem.
a5 2. Pattern-recognition approach: In which the classification
a3 system is divided into two subsystems:
a1  feature extraction subsystem and
 pattern recognition subsystem.
t0 t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 t6 The use of the pattern recognition subsystem
Time
comprises two phases
J A training phase to adjust the classier structure.
Fig. 1. Segment amplitude and period characterization. J A testing phase to obtain the classification
decision.
extremum and beginning extremum of the segment,
respectively. Also the segment period is defined as the time In this paper, a similar approach to Azzouz and Nandi
differences between the bounding extrema of the segment: (1996) is implemented by including ANN in the pattern
T n ¼ tn  tn1 , (2) recognition subsystem. So the complete pattern recognition
system consists of:
where Tn is the segment period of the nth segment with tn
and tn1 are the waveform elapsed time at the ending 1. Key-feature extraction.
extremum and beginning extremum of the segment, 2. Training-stage to adjust the ANN classier structure.
respectively. 3. Testing-stage to decide about the modulation type of the
The four SSC parameters are defined as follows: signal and to evaluate the performance of the designed
X
Ns network.
Ai
Ma ¼ , (3)
i¼1
Ns Three different models of the classification procedure are
implemented:
X
Ns
Ti
Mt ¼ , (4) 1. Model 1: Classification of analogue modulated signals.
i¼1
Ns
Five analogue modulation signals are tested for
X
Ns classification. These signals are:
jAi  M a j 1. AM-DSB-TC, 2. AM-DSB-SC, 3. SSB, 4. FM, and 5.
Da ¼ , (5)
i¼1
Ns PM.
2. Model 2: Classification of digital modulated signals.
X
Ns
jT i  M t j Three different M-ary modulation signals with M ¼ 4
Dt ¼ , (6) are used. These are:
i¼1
Ns
1. ASK, 2. PSK, and 3. FSK.
where Ma is the amplitude mean, Mt the period mean, Da 3. Model 3: Classification of both analogue and digital
the amplitude mean deviation, Dt the period mean modulated signals.
deviation and, Ai the amplitude of the ith segment. Ti the
period of the ith segment. Ns the number of segments. All the five analogue modulation signals of model 1 and
The SSC technique requires a fewer number of opera- the three digital modulation signals of model 2 are used in
tions compared to Fourier transform or correlation, and this third model.
therefore it will lead to less complexity in signal analysis
(Hirsch, 1992). The SSC method finds applications in 3.1. Signal generation
military, radar system, seismology, vibration analysis and
biomedical signal processing (Hirsch, 1992). In order to In all analogue modulated cases, the modulation signal is
differentiate between different signals using this technique, obtained in a similar method to Chan et al. (1985), by low-
an acceptance window is formed for each parameter. The pass filtering a sequence of zero mean Gaussian random
windows must be sufficiently wide to accept identical numbers. The variance of the signal is set to 0.25 and the
waveforms with allowance of their inherent variability. At carrier amplitude to 1. The noise sequence is simulated by
the same time, the windows must be narrow enough to another zero mean Gaussian random number generator
avoid the association of dissimilar waveforms. with a variance chosen depending on the SNR. The
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sampling frequency is selected to be 40 kHz while the
carrier frequency is 10 kHz. The length of the segment is
taken as 2048 samples. In digital modulations, a random
digital input is generated first, which is then modulated by
an M-ary ASK or PSK or FSK with M ¼ 4. Both sampling
and carrier frequency are selected with values similar to
those selected for analogue modulation.
3.2. Key-feature extraction
Most of the key features used in modulations recognition
(Azzouz and Nandi, 1995, 1996; Nandi and Azzouz, 1998)
are derived from three important parameters: instanta-
neous amplitude, instantaneous phase and instantaneous
frequency. In this work, we used the four SSC parameters
as key features in all classification models according to the
following steps.
1. The input signal is simulated 200 times for a certain type
of modulation at SNR of 10 dB.
2. All four SSC parameters are calculated for all 200
realizations.
3. The maximum and minimum for each SSC parameter
are obtained from the 200 values.
4. All steps are repeated for other modulation types
included in the classification model.
3.3. Training stage of ANN
ANNs are composed of many simple elements (neurons)
working in parallel to solve the selected problem. Once a
neural network has been set up, it can learn in a self-
organizing way that seems to mimic the brain in functions
such as pattern recognition, classification, optimization etc.
Since neural networks can be trained to respond in parallel
to the inputs presented them, they often are much faster
than conventional methods (Haykin, 1998; Principe et al.,
2000).
A neural network of the type feed-forward back-
propagation (referred to as a multi-layer perceptron) is
used in our approach. This network consists of three layers.
The first layer (input layer) accepts input signals from the
outside world and redistributes these signals to all neurons
in the second layer. Actually, the input layer does not
include computing neurons. The second layer (hidden
layer) has three hyperbolic tangent sigmoid ‘‘tansig’’
neurons with a transfer function shown in Fig. 2a. Neurons
w n
p p
en − e−n
b a=
en + e−n
(a) 1 (b)
Fig. 2. Single-input neuron with transfer function: (a) tansig and (b) linear.
in the hidden layer detect the features; the weights of the
neurons represent the features hidden in the input patterns.
These features are then used by the third layer (output
layer) in determining the output pattern. This third layer
has one linear ‘‘purelin’’ neuron in our approach with a
transfer function shown in Fig. 2b. The back-propagation
network training function is ‘‘trainbar’’. Number of epochs
is 1000 and the training rate is 0.001. This network has four
input nodes corresponding to the four key features. The
network should have a single output that corresponds to
one out of N modulation types under classification. For
example, N ¼ 5 in model 1, N ¼ 3 in model 2, and N ¼ 8
in model 3. Fig. 3 shows the three-layer back-propagation
neural network used in the training. In this network, the
training input pattern is presented first to the network
input layer. The network then propagates the input pattern
from layer to layer until the output pattern is generated by
the output layer. If the pattern is different from the desired
output, an error is calculated and then propagated back-
wards through the network from the output layer to the
input layer. The weight and bias of each neuron is modified
as the error is propagated (Negnevitsky, 2002).
The network in this work is trained with the training data
(measured at 10 dB). Selection of SNR to be 10 dB for the
training stage was with the aim to have high classification
efficiency at low SNR. 40 N rows of data are to be fed to the
input of the network, 40 for each modulation type. In each
row there are four SSC parameters (selected randomly
Input signals
i=1,..4
p1
1 wij j=1,..3
1
p2 wjk
2 k=1
Inputs 2 1
p3
3 Output
layer
3
p4
4 Hidden
layer
Input
layer
Error signals
Fig. 3. Multi-layered perceptron.
a w n a
a=n
b
1
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A. Hossen et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 20 (2007) 463–472 467

between the minimum and maximum values obtained in the
key feature extraction stage) and a target integer output that
varies from 1 to N in each classification model.
3.4. Testing stage of ANN
The test data are obtained in the same way but at another
SNR value. For testing the network at 10 dB, a random set
of data is obtained different from that used in the training
stage. The testing stage is implemented as follows:
1. The 40 N rows of test data are fed to the designed
network.
2. Obtaining the output of the network for each row of test
data.
3. Comparing the actual output with the classified one.
4. Finding the efficiency of classification, by dividing the
correct classified cases by the total cases under
classification.
4. Results of different classification models
The efficiency of the classification system can be
illustrated by a confusion matrix. A confusion matrix
shows classification in a table format and provides
information about where error occurs. Rows of the matrix

Table 1
SSC Parameters values of analogue signals at SNR of 10 dB

Modulation type Amplitude mean Amplitude deviation Period mean Period deviation

Min Max Min Max Min Max Min Max

AM-DSB-TC 1.83 2.04 0.601 0.703 11.5 12.5 0.98 1.86

AM-DSB-SC 0.602 0.684 0.322 0.368 8.69 9.75 3.24 4.34
SSB 0.953 1.11 0.418 0.49 8.23 9.15 2.82 3.83
FM 1.77 1.86 0.198 0.241 12.3 12.6 1.15 1.79
PM 1.538 1.736 0.25 0.408 11.2 13.12 3.09 4.14

Fig. 4. The variation of SSC parameters in analogue modulation signals at SNR of 10 dB.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
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are the expected classification (actual inputs), while the
columns are the resulting classification (outputs).
4.1. Analogue modulation
Table 1 shows the minimum and maximum values of the
SSC parameters for analogue modulation types at SNR of
10 dB. Fig. 4 shows the variation of SSC parameters with
the type of analogue modulation at SNR of 10 dB. The
dark region in each bar of the plot corresponds to the
accepted variations (accepted window) of each SSC
parameter for a single modulation type. The upper and
lower limits of this dark region correspond, respectively, to
the maximum and minimum values of the SSC parameter
in Table 1.
The comparison of the SSC parameters of one waveform
to those of another is straightforward. After defining the
acceptance windows for each of the four SSC parameters
for each modulation type, the SSC parameters of the signal
under test are compared to those of all waveforms in the
database. For instances wherein all the differences between
pairs of similar parameters for two sets lie within the ranges
defined by the acceptance windows, an association or
matching is declared.
Fig. 5. The variation of SSC parameters in analogue modulation signals at SNR of 3 dB.
By investigating the acceptance windows of Table 1, it can
be concluded that the amplitude mean separates perfectly
between the five analogue modulation types. There are some
intersections between the other SSC parameters for the
different analogue modulation types. The amplitude devia-
tion separates those modulation types better than the period
mean and the period deviation. The best parameter to
discriminate between the three AM types is the amplitude
mean, which is mostly related to the amplitude variations in
the signal. On the other hand, the best feature to
discriminate between FM and PM is the period deviation,
which is mainly related to the frequency or phase variations.
Fig. 5 shows the variations of SSC parameters of the
analogue modulations at SNR of 3 dB. It can be noted that
at this value of SNR, the discrimination between the
different modulation types becomes not easy as the case of
SNR of 10 dB. The amplitude mean remains the best
parameter in such discrimination.
Table 2 shows the confusion matrix of analogue
modulation signals at SNR of 5 dB. The first row indicates
that all the 40 AM-DSB-TC signals are correctly classified
as AM-DSB-TC, while the second row indicates that 37 out
of 40 AM-DSB-SC signals are correctly classified and three
are misclassified as SSB.
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Table 3 represents the confusion matrix values at SNR of 4.2. Digital modulation
3 dB. Form this matrix we can note that the number of
misclassification becomes higher than those in Table 2. Figs. 6 and 7 show the variations of SSC parameters of
digital modulations at SNR of 10 and 3 dB, respectively. It
Table 2 is to be concluded from Fig. 6, that the amplitude mean
Confusion matrix of analogue signals at SNR of 5 dB separates perfectly between the three digital modulation
types. Classification using the other SSC parameters is not
Input method Output method
perfect at SNR of 10 dB. Tables 4 and 5 are the confusion
TC SC SSB FM PM matrix tables of the three digital modulations at SNR of 5
and 3 dB, respectively. At SNR of 5 dB, PSK and FSK
AM-DSB-TC 40 0 0 0 0
AM-DSB-SC 0 37 3 0 0
perform equally well compared to ASK. However, at 3 dB,
SSB 0 3 37 0 0 ASK is better than both FSK and PSK.
FM 0 0 0 40 0
PM 0 0 0 1 39
4.3. Analogue and digital modulation

Table 3 The confusion matrix of classifications of all five analogue

Confusion matrix of analogue signals at SNR of 3 dB
types and three digital types is shown in Table 6 for SNR of
Input method Output method 5 dB and in Table 7 for SNR of 3 dB. Increasing the
number of modulation types in the classification system
TC SC SSB FM PM
will make the task more difficult. This can be noticed from
AM-DSB-TC 40 0 0 0 0 both tables. The results of variation of the efficiency of
AM-DSB-SC 0 25 1 2 12 classification of analogue modulation types or digital
SSB 2 3 35 0 0 modulation types or both the analogue and digital types
FM 0 0 8 32 0 with SNR are listed in Table 8. The efficiency of
PM 2 1 1 2 34
classification reduces from 100% at 10 dB to 83% and

Fig. 6. The variation of SSC parameters in digital modulation signals at SNR of 10 dB.
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Fig. 7. The variation of SSC parameters in digital modulation signals at SNR of 3 dB.

Table 4 Table 6
Confusion matrix of digital signals at SNR of 5 dB Confusion matrix of all signals at SNR of 5 dB

Input method Output method Input Output

ASK PSK FSK TC SC SSB FM PM ASK PSK FSK

ASK 33 7 0 AM-DSB-TC 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
PSK 0 40 0 AM-DSB-SC 0 40 0 0 0 0 0 0
FSK 0 0 40 SSB 0 0 40 0 0 0 0 0
FM 0 0 0 40 0 0 0 0
PM 0 0 0 9 31 0 0 0
ASK 0 0 0 0 0 33 7 0
Table 5
PSK 0 0 0 0 0 26 14 0
Confusion matrix of digital signals at SNR of 3 dB
FSK 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 39
Input method Output method

ASK PSK FSK

the classification efficiency is still good in comparison with
ASK 39 1 0 other techniques at such low level of SNR (as will be
PSK 5 35 0
explained in next subsection).
FSK 0 10 30

4.4. Comparison of different methods and discussions

86.6% for analogue signals and digital signals, respectively. Iversen in a technical report reviewed many neural
However, the efficiency of classification of both analogue networks based techniques for automatic modulation
and digital signals is reduced from 96.5% at 10 dB to classification (Iversen, 2003). In this section some of those
73.4% at 3 dB. It is important to be mentioned here, that algorithms introduced in the review (Iversen, 2003) and
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A. Hossen et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 20 (2007) 463–472 471

with others introduced in Section 2 of this paper will be same network size. In spite of these facts, we can conclude
compared with our algorithm. Comparison will be on that the SSC method is an efficient method, with good
different basis, such as signals included in the recognition, results down to SNR of 5 dB or even 3 dB with a great
results (identification accuracy) at different SNRs (at advantage over other methods is the simplicity of the
10 dB) and at lowest possible SNR (if it is given in the neural network used and the small number of features.
reference) and the number of features included in the Although some redundancy may occur within a single
recognition. Table 9 shows this simple comparison, for SSC parameter, no redundancy exists for all four
more information about those techniques and the complex- parameters. Selection of the acceptance window is critical
ity of them (see Iversen, 2003 and the individual to the effective discrimination among the modulation types
references). It is of importance to mention that the results under test. The windows must be sufficiently wide to accept
presented in Table 9 are not necessarily directly compar- identical waveforms, with allowance for their inherent
able. This is because the algorithms listed in the table are variability due to the effect of noise. However, the windows
not using the same modulation schemes, or same SNR or must be narrow enough to preclude association of two
dissimilar waveforms by mistakes.
The signals generated in this work were distorted only
Table 7 by additive white Gaussian noise. For more realistic
Confusion matrix of all signals at SNR of 3 dB signals one could introduce multi-path fading distortion.
The modulation types included in this work are the
Input Output
fundamental analogue and digital modulation types. For
TC SC SSB FM PM ASK PSK FSK further investigation, other modulation types can be also
used.
AM-DSB-TC 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
AM-DSB-SC 0 38 2 0 0 0 0 0
SSB 0 0 36 4 0 0 0 0 5. Conclusions
FM 0 0 0 40 0 0 0 0
PM 0 0 0 2 38 0 0 0 A novel technique for classification of both analogue and
ASK 0 0 0 0 0 6 34 0 digital modulation signals is implemented. This technique
PSK 0 0 0 0 0 0 39 1
FSK 0 0 0 0 0 0 40 0 is a pattern recognition technique and is based on four SSC
parameters (as key-features) and a three-layer ANN for
classification. Three different classification models are used
with this implementation. In the first model, five analogue
Table 8 modulation schemes are classified. The classification
Efficiency of classification of all modulation signals versus SNR system results in 99.5% accuracy at SNR of 7 dB and
Efficiency of classification (%) 83% accuracy at SNR of 3 dB. The second model deals
with three different digital modulation schemes. This
SNR Analogue Digital Both model results in a high accuracy of up to 100% at SNR
25 100 100 100 of 7 dB and 86.6% accuracy at SNR of 3 dB. The last
15 100 100 100 model combines all signals used in models 1 and 2 and
10 100 100 96.5 yields an accuracy of about 95% at 7 dB and around 73%
7 99.5 100 95.6 at 3 dB. The efficiency results show that the new technique
5 96.5 93.3 86.5
is capable of classifying modulation signals at lower SNR
3 83 86.6 73.4
compared to other published techniques.

Table 9
Comparison of different neural networks modulation recognition techniques

Method due to, year Type and number of signals classified Results at 10 dB (%) Best result (%) at lowest dB Number of features

Louis and Sehier Digital: 8 78 63 at 3 11

Kremer and Shiels Analogue & Digital: 8 80 33 at 5 21
Nandi and Azzouz (1997) Analogue: 7 99.3 Not given 4
Nandi and Azzouz (1997) Digital:6 97.4 Not given 5
Nandi and Azzouz (1998) Analogue & Digital: 13 88 Not given 12
Arulampalam et al. (1999) Digital: 7 99.93 70 at 5 7
Ramakonar et al. (2001) Digital: 2 100 100 at 5 2
Wong and Nandi (2001) Digital: 10 99.9 99.2 at 5 11
Iversen (2004) Digital: 6 94.8 63.7 at 5 6
SSC Model 1 Analogue: 5 100 96.5 at 5 4
SSC Model 2 Digital: 3 100 93.3 at 5 4
SSC Model 3 Analogue and Digital: 8 96.5 86.5 at 5 4
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