Design of Wireless Digital Communication Systems for Nuclear Power Plant Environment

Abstract

The problem of low-SNR (Signal-to-Noise ratio) digital communication system design in man-made electromagnetic environment within a nuclear power plant is addressed. A canonical structure of the low-SNR receiver is derived and analyzed for its bit error rate performance. The parameters that affect the error rate performance are identified and illustrated. Several well-known digital modulations are considered. It is shown that the receiver structure is dependent on the first-order probability density function of the noise environment. Thus, we offer comments for its robust implementation and its effect on bit error rate performance. We model the EM environment within the nuclear power plant to be E – mixture model, the parameters of which can be estimated to fit the environment.